Chronicle of the disappeared city: memory and violence in Estrellas Muertas

Abstract

Estrellas muertas (BISAMA, 2010) addresses the voice of a tertiary witness of the gestation of an event of violence in Chile, towards the end of the nineties. From a collection of images linked in a narrative of horror, the testimonial story is crumbling the loose ends that precede the scene of a crime, where a series of unconnected situations are revealed; the victimization product of detention and torture in the Chilean dictatorship, the exploration of the memories of youth and the intervention of the landscape of Valparaíso in ashes product of the flames of a fire in Laguna Verde; materializing scenes woven in violence and the constant siege of an uncontrollable memory. For this, an analysis is made of the elements that weave this story from the perspective of the concept of memory as a narratological continent of violence and its possible keys to reading.