{"id":2720,"date":"2020-10-26T08:58:22","date_gmt":"2020-10-26T08:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/?p=2720"},"modified":"2020-10-26T11:06:59","modified_gmt":"2020-10-26T11:06:59","slug":"alternative-reproductive-futures-in-ema-and-divino-amor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/2020\/10\/26\/alternative-reproductive-futures-in-ema-and-divino-amor\/","title":{"rendered":"Alternative Reproductive Futures in Ema and Divino Amor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Link to <\/em>Ema Dossier Index<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Rachel Randall*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ever since watching Ema <\/a><\/em>(Pablo Larra\u00edn, 2019)<\/a> and Divino Amor<\/a> <\/em>[Divine Love<\/em>](Gabriel Mascaro, 2019) for the first time when they were screened alongside each other at the BFI London Film Festival 2019, I was struck by the narrative and aesthetic similarities between the two films \u2013 both of which stuck in my mind long after I had left the cinema. Set in dystopian urban spaces, the Chilean Ema <\/em>sees its eponymous protagonist (Mariana di Gir\u00f3lamo) repeatedly set fire to various objects across the vibrant port-city of Valpara\u00edso, while Divino Amor <\/em>takes place in a Brazilian city in the year 2027 after the country has been transformed by a wave of conservative religiosity. Their futuristic, ethereal qualities are reinforced by both films\u2019 use of bright lighting in dark cityscapes. Ema<\/em>\u2019s initial scene features flaming, flashing traffic lights (Figure 1). It is shortly followed by a sequence that shows Ema and her dance troupe bouncing and gyrating in front of what appears to be a large, burning sun or multicoloured fireball. Neon lights (now a hallmark of Mascaro\u2019s filmmaking) glow throughout Divino Amor<\/em>, including at its opening when protagonist Joana (Dira Paes) and her husband Danilo (Julio Machado) dance energetically at a large, night-time celebration that has been organised by their church (\u2018Divino Amor\u2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 1 Flaming, flashing traffic lights in Ema<\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Both narratives initially circle around Ema\u2019s and Joana\u2019s frustrated desires to conceive biological children. This is a fact that alludes to the anxieties about the future that these films are exploring against the backdrop of their unsettling urban atmospheres. Infants are often deployed in cultural narratives as \u2018universal\u2019, sentimental symbols of a heteronormative \u2018reproductive futurism\u2019 in which the figural child is used to embody \u2018the telos of the social order\u2019 and is the one \u2018for whom that order is held in perpetual trust\u2019 (Edelman 2004: 11). As Lee Edelman has argued: \u2018we are no more able to conceive of a politics without a fantasy of the future than we are able to conceive of a future without the figure of the child\u2019 (2004: 11). However, a crisis of hegemonic masculinity is signalled in both films via the trope of infertility: neither Ema\u2019s choreographer-boyfriend Gast\u00f3n (Gael Garc\u00eda Bernal), nor Joana\u2019s husband Danilo can get their partners pregnant. In Larra\u00edn\u2019s film, this culminates in Ema deriding Gast\u00f3n as a \u2018chancho inf\u00e9rtil\u2019 [\u2018infertile pig\u2019] and telling him: \u2018eres un cond\u00f3n humano: nunca me vas a dar un hijo\u2019 [\u2018you are a human condom: you\u2019re never going to give me a child\u2019]. In Mascaro\u2019s film, the audience is treated to the ludicrous spectacle of Danilo positioning himself upside down, naked, in front of an infrared lamp \u2013 testicles akimbo \u2013 as he experiments with a new fertility treatment (Figure 2).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 2 Danilo experiments with a new fertility treament (Divino Amor<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The child that Ema longs to mother, and the infants that both Ema and Joana eventually conceive, are mysterious, troubling figures. None of them are the biological products of the protagonists\u2019 romantic relationships to their primary partners. Unsurprisingly, however, all of their children are boys, whose association with teleological historicity and the public realm means that they are generally used (rather than girls) to symbolise the national future, or in the case of these films, to raise ambivalent questions about it. Ema and Gast\u00f3n struggle with the guilt provoked by their decision to give up their adopted son, Polo, after they became unable to cope with his rebellious behaviour. The film\u2019s dialogue suggests that Polo is marked by racial difference when a public official says that nobody wants to adopt Colombian or Venezuelan children (like him): a comment that provides a troubling insight into what constitutes the idealised Chilean family. Polo himself does not appear until over half an hour into the film and, at this point, the audience is still uncertain of his identity. In Divino Amor<\/em>, the film\u2019s conclusion attributes the unsettling, infantile voice of its omniscient narrator to Joana\u2019s son, whose birth via caesarean section has just been depicted. The voiceover\u2019s opening statement (\u2018It was 2027\u2019) reveals that her son has been narrating the film from a position in the future. It playfully implies that he may be the Messiah: the embodiment of her church\u2019s eagerly awaited \u2018second coming\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, both films play on questions of paternity and plural desires in such a way as to thoroughly undermine heteronormative, patriarchal family structures. Ema\u2019s skills as a \u2018galana<\/a>\u2019 (a feminized version of the Spanish term for \u2018ladies\u2019 man\u2019), who seduces almost everyone she meets, allow her to become romantically involved with both of Polo\u2019s new adoptive parents (and husband and wife), An\u00edbal (Santiago Cabrera) and Raquel (Paola Giannini). Ema eventually becomes pregnant with An\u00edbal\u2019s child. The paternity of Joana\u2019s son is initially uncertain in Divino Amor<\/em> as a result of the spiritually sanctioned swinging sessions that are organised by her church and of which she and her husband regularly partake. When Joana becomes pregnant, she believes the father must be one of the other men who attends her prayer group, but ultimately cannot discover his identity and argues that the conception is a divine miracle. Her son\u2019s final remark on the film\u2019s voiceover skewers the symbolic importance given to patriarchal structures in Brazil by ironically invoking the mystery surrounding his paternity: \u2018quem nasce sem nome, nasce sem medo\u2019 (\u2018he who is born without a name, is born without fear\u2019). Joana is abandoned by her husband before her son is born, while at Ema<\/em>\u2019s conclusion, Gast\u00f3n, An\u00edbal and Raquel look on, quietly horrified, as the protagonist explains to her friends and family the plan that has dictated her actions throughout the film: to remain close to Polo by having his adoptive father\u2019s baby, thereby giving him a brother and creating an extended, non-traditional family (Figure 3).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 3 Ema explains her plan (Ema<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These films\u2019 critical meditations on patriarchy, monogamy and heteronormativity are not, nonetheless, limited to the level of the interpersonal relationships they depict; they also interrogate the (corrupt) state\u2019s desire for biopolitical control over family life \u2013 a common theme in contemporary Latin American films with child protagonists (Randall 2017). In Ema<\/em>, the audience eventually learns that Ema and Gast\u00f3n were only able to adopt Polo originally because of the intervention of an unscrupulous public servant called Marcela (Catalina Saavedra) who accepted a bribe from the couple in return for altering their paperwork. Towards the beginning of the film, she and Ema argue as they walk along the street and a Chilean flag can be seen hanging, limp in the background (Figure 4). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 4 A limp Chilean flag hints at the state’s desire for biopolitical control (Ema<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Marcela later yells at the pair: \u2018\u00a1El sistema est\u00e1 hecho para eliminar a la gente como ustedes y yo soy el sistema, huevones!\u2019 (\u2018The system is made to eliminate people like you and I am the system, you idiots!\u2019). In Divino Amor<\/em>, Joana works as a notary at a registrar\u2019s office; a sticker of the Brazilian flag is visible on a filing cabinet behind her desk (Figure 5). Despite the state\u2019s supposedly secular nature, Joana abuses her position by interfering in the relationships of those who come to see her in order to process their divorces. She imposes her religious values on them by persuading them to heal their relationships and keeps mementos of couples whose marriages she has helped to \u2018save\u2019 in a cupboard-cum-shrine in her home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 5 A sticker of the Brazilian flag hints at similar desire for state biopolitical control (Divino Amor<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These films\u2019 implicit criticisms of state apparatuses signal that they are exploring specific fears related to Chile\u2019s and Brazil\u2019s contemporary contexts and possible futures. Divino Amor <\/em>was released the year after President Jair Bolsonaro\u2019s election victory in 2018 and arguably plays on the possible outcome of his close ties<\/a> to Edir Macedo: the founder of the popular evangelical church Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus<\/em> (Universal Church of the Kingdom of God \u2013 IURD). Macedo is one of the richest religious leaders<\/a> in the world and a media mogul. He was arrested in 1992 on charges of fraud and charlatanism (De Souza 2005: 25). In 2009, he and other leading members of his church were accused of embezzling worshipers\u2019 donations<\/a>. The neon symbol used by the religious organisation in Divino Amor<\/em> evokes the IURD\u2019s well-known logo<\/a>, which depicts a dove surrounded by a red heart (Figure 6). Evangelical Christianity in Brazil is strongly associated with social conservatism and the triumph of its influence is symbolised in the film by a sequence that shows Joana and other women on the beach wearing full-body swimsuits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 6 The symbol of the church in Divino Amor<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In Ema<\/em>, the protagonist\u2019s commitment to establishing an unorthodox, extended family unit \u2013 with herself at its centre \u2013 can be interpreted as a rejection of the \u2018traditional\u2019, patriarchal family that has been so strongly revered in Chile, particularly under General Augusto Pinochet\u2019s military rule (1973-1990). The influence of his regime lingers on: in May this year, President Sebasti\u00e1n Pi\u00f1era appointed Pinochet\u2019s great-niece<\/a>, Macarena Santelices \u2013 who is known for having praised the \u2018good side\u2019 of his dictatorship \u2013 as Chile\u2019s minister for women\u2019s rights and gender equality. By June, Santelices had been forced to resign<\/a> following a public backlash. In Larra\u00edn\u2019s film, Ema\u2019s anarchic impulse to burn down and then reclaim the city, by dancing provocatively across its expanse with her female friends, draws on Valpara\u00edso\u2019s association with counter-culture and pre-empts the nature of the anti-government protests that swept across Chile in October 2019, some months after <\/em>the film\u2019s release. During the protests, the feminist theatre collective LasTesis staged the first performance of \u2018Un violador en tu camino<\/a>\u2019 (\u2018A Rapist in your Path) in Valpara\u00edso on 20 November 2019. They carried a sign reading: \u2018Fuego: El arte fuera de sala\u2019 (\u2018Fire: Art outside the Classroom\u2019). Their public intervention, which has since been adapted and re-enacted by groups of women in multiple countries, denounced rape culture and allied it to the violence enacted by the patriarchal state. Its lyrics resonate with those that feature in the song \u2018Real\u2019 by E$tado Unido<\/a> to which Ema dances and sets the city ablaze: \u2018fanning my flames doesn\u2019t give you power \/ your government is violence\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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