Youth culture in global cinema

130 youth and inner-national conflict
of the homes of individuals presumed to have been part of the Proceso’s repressive
apparatus who have never been brought to justice. See Martorell and Kaiser for more
in-depth analyses.
11. Indeed, they might be reworking notions of the public sphere and perhaps of
civil society itself. This possibility is mapped out by Paolo Carpignano et al. in their
article on talk shows and ‘‘the public mind,’’ where they suggest moving away from the
notion of civil society as constituted by institutions—political parties, unions, and so
on—toward one ‘‘consolidated in the circulation of discursive practices’’ (119).
12. By the end of the film Momi will lose her ability to penetrate the surface of
reality. Returning from town, she will join her sunglasses-clad sister Vero on the pool
deck, in a scene reminiscent of the opening tableau of the drunken adults, having
failed to see the miraculous appearance of the Virgin on the town’s water tower, which
had attracted so much attention in news reports seen throughout the film.
13. Richard further suggests that the political realm has become simply another
site of market logic: ‘‘The consensual model of ‘democracy of agreements’ formulated
by Chile’s transitional government (1989) signaled the shift from politics as antagonisms—the
dramatization of conflict ruled by a mechanism of confrontation—to politics
as transaction: a formula of pacts and their praxis of negotiation’’ (27). See also
Kaufman, 15, 20–22, 26, for similar arguments in the case of Argentina.
14. The imagery of the original Spanish phrase (literally translatable as ‘‘Don’t flit
around like a butterfly, work’’) becomes significant later on when butterflies begin to
appear on screen.
15. The inclusion of the telenovela provides one of the film’s funniest and sharpest
critiques of the stagnancy of Cuba’s audiovisual productions and their calcified notion
of youth. Coming on right before Professor Cruzado’s show, the telenovela features
an old nun with wrinkled features who cries out about the impossibility of love even
as she throws herself against the dapper young hero, dressed in nineteenth-century
garb. The setting and the age difference of the two protagonists recall Humberto Solás’
Cecilia (1982), which featured a thirty-something Daysi Granados in the title role of
the teenage mulata and the much younger Spanish actor, Imanol Arias (b. 1956), as her
lover. The allusion is particularly noteworthy as Granados herself appears in Nada as
Carla’s vicious boss, the rigid Cunda Severo.
16. Kathleen Newman, ‘‘Cinemas of Solitude after the Lettered City,’’ unpublished
paper presented at the annual conference of the Latin American Studies Association
(LASA), Dallas, March 2003.