ABSTRACT

This essay tracks the long-term effects of the global financial crash of 2008 in two films produced during the so-called postcrisis period in Spain (2014–). Borrowing Lauren Berlant’s term elliptical life, I examine Adán Aliaga and David Valero’s El arca de Noé (2014) and Polo Menárguez’s El plan (2019), which center on the disorientations facing recently fired security guards who draw up blueprints or make plans for alternative imaginaries in the context of ongoing crisis. Elliptical life, as a liminal space for nonsovereign subjects and an aesthetic form that deploys a loose filmic language, captures what Berlant calls “flailing” as characters express their desire for a surrogate reality free from the constraints of biopower. Through form and content alike, elliptical life embraces negativity as a strategy for chipping away at entrenched hegemonies, welcoming encounters with estrangement and/or incoherence. It sets its sights on transformational structures, privileging states of incompletion over endgame scenarios and revolutionary triumph. In the end, as both films work through the vicissitudes of elliptical life in contemporary Spain, they contemplate failure as a mode for interrogating aspirational notions of self-legitimation and control in a reality structured by the logic of late capitalism.

摘要

本文追踪了西班牙所谓的“后危机时期”（2014–年）制作的两部电影中的2008年全球金融危机的长期影响。借用Lauren Berlant的椭圆生活一词，我考察了AdánAliaga和David Valero的El Arca deNoé（2014）和PoloMenárguez的El计划（2019），其重点是最近解雇的保安人员面临的迷失方向，他们在持续危机的背景下草拟蓝图或为替代假想制定计划。椭圆生活是非主权主体的门廊空间，是一种采用宽松的电影语言的审美形式，它抓住了贝兰特所说的“挥霍”，因为角色表达了他们对替代现实的渴望，而不受生物力量的束缚。通过形式和内容的相似，椭圆生活接受消极态度，以此作为消除根深蒂固的霸权，欢迎与陌生和/或不连贯相遇的策略。它着眼于转型结构，在残局场景中处于劣势的特权状态和革命性的胜利。最后，由于这两部电影都通过当代西班牙椭圆形生活的变迁而运作，