Brazilian Cinema and the Aesthetics of Ruins

Guilherme Carréra, Julian Ross, Lúcia Nagib

"Guilherme Carrera's compelling book examines imagery of ruins in contemporary Brazilian documentary film-making and considers these representations in the context of Brazilian society. Carrera groups these films into three distinct types: firstly, unconventional documentaries focused on Brasília - The Age of Stone (2013) and White Out, Black In (2014)); Rio de Janeiro - ExPerimetral (2016), The Harbour (2013), Tropical Curse (2016), and HU Enigma (2011)); and indigenous territories - Corumbiara: They Shoot Indians, Don't They? (2009), Tava, The House of Stone (2012), Two Villages, One Path (2008), and Guarani Exile (2011)). In portraying ruinscapes in different ways, the book argues that these unconventional films articulate critiques of the notions of progress and (under)development in the Brazilian nation. Carrera's study invites the reader to walk amid the documentary debris and...