Turning Spaces of Memory into Memoryscapes : Cinema as Counter-Monument in Jonathan Perel’s El Predio and Tabula Rasa

Abstract

How might cinema turn a space into a mediated landscape of memory? How can it interrogate what is remembered in a lieu de memoire? Could the role of cinema be that of a monument or, even, a counter-monument? I address these questions through the semiotic analysis of the ways in which ESMA – Space for Memory and for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights in Buenos Aires has been framed by two documentaries by Jonathan Perel: El Predio (2010) and Tabula Rasa (2013). Both films deal with the large, stratified trauma site of the former ESMA compound – the Escuela Superior de Mecánica de la Armada the most notorious clandestine centre of detention, torture and extermination that was operational in Argentina during the military regime.