Insects trapped in amber: the uncanny child in contemporary spanish horror film

• Autores: Jessica Balanzategui
• Localización: Visiones multidisciplinares sobre la cultura popular: actas del 5.º Congreso Internacional de SELICUP / coord. por Eduardo de Gregorio Godeo, María del Mar Ramón Torrijos, 2014, ISBN 978-84-617-0400-2, págs. 229-237
• Idioma: español
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• Resumen

  • The uncanny child has become a prominent trope of contemporary Spanish horror film, yet this figure emerged in canonical Spanish art films of the seventies such as The Spirit of the Beehive (Víctor Erice, 1973) and Raise Ravens (Carlos Saura, 1976). Both films approach the realm of the horror film in various ways without directly participating in the genre. The seminal child characters in these films function as �seers� in a manner that resonates with Gilles Deleuze�s (2005) discussion of the child�s relation to the time-image. Deleuze (2005) asserts that the child evokes the time-image through having limited sensory-motor capability and power in the adult world, which ensures that she is impelled to see and hear the progression of time with more clarity than is possible in adulthood. Forced to endure intolerable situations which they are unable to comprehend or physically endure, the power of the children in Beehive and Ravens is manifested through their insightful gaze. In the three films discussed in this paper, The Nameless (Jaume Balagueró, 1999), The Devil�s Backbone (Guillermo del Toro, 2001) and The Orphanage (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2007), the child seer of Spanish art film has undergone a contemporary mutation to become a source of uncanny dread in the horror film. Echoing in distorted form the tenebrous child characters of Beehive and Ravens, spectral children Angela, Santi and Simón embody transgressions of spatio-temporal coherence that are coded as both monstrous and powerful