Abstract

PAGANINI, Mariana. Memory as active search: the intergenerational transmission of the militant experience in the documentary Seré millones. Rev. colomb. soc. [online]. 2017, vol.40, suppl.1, pp.83-101. ISSN 0120-159X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/rcs.v40n1Supl.65908.

The objective of this paper is to analyze the documentary Seré millones (Omar Neri, Fernando Krichmar and Mónica Simoncini, 2014) as a mechanism for the transmission of memory. The film retells the story of Oscar Serrano and Ángel Abus, militants in the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP), who carried out the largest bank robbery in the history of Argentina against the former National Development Bank (BANADE), during the dictatorship of General Alejandro Agustín Lanusse (1971-1973). In the first place, the article examines the connection between reality and representation in documentary films, on the basis of ideas set forth by Bill Nichols and Jacques Rancière. It then goes on to provide a brief overview of Argentinean documentary filmmaking in the last decades, in order to shed light on the peculiarities of the socio-cultural context in which the movie was made, a period characterized by the transformation of the politics of memory into a question of State and the strengthening of documentary filmmaking in the country. Finally, the article inquiries into the representation of the past provided by memory in the form of a militant work of art: what memory or memories is/are recovered; what aesthetic techniques are employed to do so; and with what objectives.

It is possible to conclude that the film's purpose is not to critically evaluate the revolutionary experience of the 1970s, but to convey that experience to younger generations who are inquiring into the recent past from their present. In this sense, it could be argued that the documentary can be seen as a work of anamnesis in Paul Ricoeur's terms, because the memory is the result of a conscientious reconstruction that moves subjects both intellectually and affectively, while creating a bond between generations. To conclude, the article examines the relationship between the movie and Argentinean militant cinema of the 1960s and 70s, through the critical discussion of the link between the intentions of the filmmakers and the reception of the movies by the audience.

Keywords : militant art; documentary films; identity constructions; collective memories; representations; transmission.

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