The Politics of the Family: Psychoanalysis and Neoliberalism in Contemporary Argentine Documentary Cinema

Abstract

The subjective documentary genre emerged in the context of the “subjective turn” in Argentina (Sarlo 2005), when testimony became the main instrument to mobilise memory. In these films, the narrative of truth is driven by a subjective identity rather than an objective observer, focussing on introspective and private narratives rather than social and political realities. These documentaries have largely been regarded as less politically relevant than their predecessors. This paper seeks to challenge this dominant perspective by theorising the links between the political and the affective in four recent works: La TV y yo (2002) and Fotografías (2006), by Andrés Di Tella, Familia tipo (2009) by Cecilia Priego, and Madres con ruedas (2006) by Mónica Chirife and Mario Piazza. These films explore the identity of the director in relation to the family through narratives that are clearly influenced by psychoanalytic discourses. Pursuing the implications of the link between psychoanalysis and neoliberalism, this paper seeks to theorise the exploration of the self in relation to the family. The aim is to reconceptualise the intimate as political, ultimately understanding the production of subjectivity in these films as closely intertwined with the experience of neoliberalism.