ISU Spanish MA Students Meet with Argentine Film Directors

Something funny is happening in an ISU summer course. Not so much something peculiar, but rather, a focus on the laughable, comic, humorous. The virtual Spanish MA course in Professor Marin Laufenberg´s “Argentine Humor in Theatre and Film” course has been spending the weeks of summer soaking up guffaws, chuckles, smiles, but also stifled laughter, gasps, painful grimaces, and utterly ridiculous laughter. This group of students has focused their attention on the cultural specificity and context of what creates humor, and overall, how humor is a useful and powerful tool to cope with dark, painful, traumatic events. 

Argentina, unfortunately, has had many of those crisis moments throughout the nation's history upon which to reflect– from the dictatorship years in the 70s and 80s during which many human rights abuses took place, to the failed Malvinas (Falkland Islands) War of 1982, the catastrophic 2001 economic crisis, and the current economic woes.

Students have read and and watched plays, discussed and contemplated humor theory at length (irony, satire, farce, parody, etc.) and this past week they had the incredible opportunity to dialogue with film directors Sofía Jallinsky and Juan Pablo Basovih Marinaro via Zoom about their 2022 film, Estertor. Jallinsky and Basovih Marinaro joined the class during an online session to provide context and background about their powerful film, but also to answer the students' questions. 

Estertor (in English, “death rattle”) in summary, is a 2022 film about a elderly military genocide (harkening back to the 1976-1983 Argentine dictatorship years) who now, suffering advanced Alzheimer´s, is under house arrest in his Buenos Aires apartment where four nurses care for him and pass the time joking, laughing at the inappropriate, and playing macabre games. 

This deeply impactful and polemic piece treats difficult topics, all through the lens of dark humor. Students asked filmmakers about how the movie depicts the current Argentine reality, in which some members of society have forgotten about the atrocities of the dictatorship years or cease to recognize its lasting impact and many consequences. 

Film directors Jallinsky and Bosovih Marinaro informed the class about the difficult reception of the piece within Argentina and beyond, given that treating taboo subjects humorously often strikes spectators as inappropriate, or leaves them offended. 

Basovih Marinaro said of the choice to treat this topic from humor, “Nosotros, como idiosincrasia, tenemos el humor negro constante…desde la Patagonia hasta el norte, hay una esencia, un constante humor negro que bueno, era inevitable hablar de esto de este lugar.” (We [Argentines] have as an idiosyncrasy, a constant dark humor…from Patagonia all the way to the North [of Argentine], there is an essence, a constant dark humor that, well, it was inevitable to speak about this [topic] from this place.) Students were able to ask about directorial choices, symbolism in the film, character development, among other topics. 

Twenty-four MA students attended the hour-long talk on Thursday, July 11th, 2024, enriching their understanding of Argentina, Argentine humor, and the behind-the-scenes of film creation. This kind of virtual engagement with current Hispanic artistic voices is one example of the many amazing world-class opportunities provided to ISU´s students regularly. We can't wait to see what Jallinsky and Basovih Marinaro do next, and what the ISU Spanish MA students are up to next either!