Memory, forgetting and torture in La Jetée and On vous parle du Brésil, by Chris Marker, and in the poetry of political prisoners in Brazil

Abstract

The short film La Jetée (1962), by Chris Marker, produces, in photomontage, a narrative that brings to the scene the debate on the notions of memory and trauma. Both themes seem to return in two later films by the same director, On vous parle du Brésil: Tortures (1969) and On vous parle du Brésil: Carlos Marighella (1970), which deal with the institutionalization of police torture during the Brazilian military dictatorship. The debates raised by the films are crucial for the study of the testimony of victims and survivors of dictatorships and genocides, touching on the point where memory and forgetfulness are articulated in individual and collective experiences. Authoritarian practices in societies reveal, as a symptom, a high rate of incarcerations due to ideological motivations and forces, whose victims are commonly called political prisoners. If official records exclude and manipulate the histories of these individuals in order to hide the crimes committed by the State apparatus, a certain portion of these histories is preserved and transmitted through alternative means, such as reports, testimonies, letters and literary texts. Despite receiving less attention than prose in this context, poetry has also become an important witness space for victims, establishing itself as a way of conserving the memory of the excluded/silenced. In this sense, this work is premised on bringing the short films La Jetée, On vous parle du Brésil: Tortures and On vous parle du Brésil: Carlos Marighella closer to the production of poetry in the context of political prison during the Brazilian military dictatorship, with special attention to the poets Alex Polari, Pedro Tierra, Lara de Lemos, Gilney Viana and Marcelo Mário de Melo, from the notions of memory, forgetting and trauma, in dialogue with the contributions of Paul Ricoeur and Sigmund Freud.