The Mystical Political: Reclaiming the Spectacle of the Vision in Vicente Aranda’s Libertarias (1996) and Azucena Rodríguez’s Entre rojas (1995)

Abstract

This article examines the spectacle of the mystical vision in two Spanish films from the mid-1990s, Vicente Aranda’s Libertarias (1996) and Azucena Rodríguez’s Entre rojas (1995). I explore how the films invoke the visual and vocal codes of the mystical vision at key moments in the narrative to positively structure communities of women. Drawing on classic feminist film theory, Michel de Certeau’s interdisciplinary analysis of early modern mysticism, and Jean Luc Nancy’s concept of the inoperable community, this study demonstrates how the mystic’s performance of extrasensory communication, so familiar to Spanish audiences through centuries of religious practice and cultural production, can challenge conventional visual and auditory regimes and model new ways for diverse groups to coexist.