Soul searching: alter(nat)ing realities in "Undone"

• Janis Be ^[1] ; Aarón Aguilar Ramírez ^[1]
  1. [1] Whitman College

     Whitman College

     Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: CiberLetras: revista de crítica literaria y de cultura, ISSN-e 1523-1720, Nº. 48, 2023 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Perspectives on Spanish, Latin American and Latinx television and cinema)
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo (pdf)
• Resumen

  • This essay traces the complex interplay of hybridity and doubling present throughout in the sci-fi television series Undone (2019). We show how highly experimental audiovisual techniques accentuate the myriad identities and overlapping realities that Alma, the protagonist, both represents and experiences. At the same time, these innovative formal and structural devices position the viewer to experience narrative and temporal instability together with the protagonist. Particular attention is paid to the uniquely affective style of rotoscoping and the significance of recurring literal as well as figurative uses of the mirror. The protagonist becomes both the subject and object of the gaze even as the fixture becomes a conduit or portal to distinct geographies and temporalities. We argue that much as the show’s innovative and elaborate visual style reflects personal (and ultimately narrative) hybridity, the mirror itself catalyzes new ways of seeing.