Two Resistance Devices: About Invasión (1969) by Hugo Santiago and Moebius (1996) by Gustavo Mosquera

• Main Author: Julio Ariza
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University Library System, University of Pittsburgh 2018-01-01
• Series: Catedral Tomada: Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana
• Subjects: resistencia, cine argentino, ciencia ficción, menemismo, Buenos Aires
• Online Access: http://catedraltomada.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/catedraltomada/article/view/274

This article analyzes the mechanisms of political resistance deployed by cinematographic resources in two Argentine films: Invasión (1969), directed by Hugo Santiago, with screenplay by Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares, and Moebius (1996) directed by Gustavo Mosquera. Focusing the analysis further on Moebius, but making a foothold in Invasión, I argue that both films work with "fantastic situations" that seek to stage the universality of the notion of "resistance." This vocation of universality makes Santiago’s fictitious Aquileia to anticipate the Buenos Aires of the last civic-military dictatorship in Argentina, and the more retro-futuristic Buenos Aires of Mosquera speaks to us of those same dictatorial years, as well as of the deep crisis of disinterest for the other of the neoliberal nineties. Both Invasión and Moebius propose that resistance has no end, and they assume the task of constantly "resisting" the artificial balance of the contemporary, approaching in a disturbing way past, present and future.