A trilogia da Morte de Petrus Cariry: narrativas da dor, perda e luto familiar no cinema

Abstract

Death is often seen as a sad ending that throws us into the unknown and disrupts the affectionate bonds established with one another (KOVÁCS, 1991; 1992). Fear (DELUMEAU, 1989) plays a key role in this relationship with loss, whether individually or collectively. In the West, ways of facing death (ARIÈS, 2003; 2014) have changed throughout history, ranging from natural acceptance of a life ending to blocking out pain and mourning (FREUD, 1915; KÜBLER-ROSS, 1996; 2008; BOWLBY, 2004). This paper intends to discuss death in the family as a matter of the present, using representations made in cinematic narratives (GAUDREAULT AND JOST, 2009; AUMONT AND MARIE, 2012) as a way of looking at the theme in contemporary times by creating necroimages that reveal attitudes toward death in films. Death guides our creative and destructive impulses (DOUGHTY, 2016; 2019). The narratives of pain in films - that is, these stories centered on the mourning of the characters - can mirror both the interdiction attitude proposed by Ariès - in which suffering and loneliness prevails in the face of departures - and break with this interdiction, as they become objects of analysis on the culture of death in the West today. Given this, the research has as main corpus the Death Trilogy, directed by Ceará filmmaker Petrus Cariry and comprised of The Grain (2007), Mother and Daughter (2011) and Clarisse or Something About Us (2015). These films discuss family losses in the countryside of the Brazilian north-eastern region, far from the turmoil, technology and haste, where personal conflicts are accentuated by isolation and by the particularities of the family structure of the bereaved characters. Keywords: Narratives of pain. Family losses. Death in films. Necroimages. Petrus Cariry.