Menino 23: a simbiose entre o estético e o histórico

Abstract

This study investigates the articulation between narrative and history, with particular emphasis on its expression through the cinematographic language of documentary cinema. This analysis object is the documentary Menino 23: Infâncias Perdidas no Brasil (2016), directed by Belisário Franca. This production was based on the historian doctoral thesis by Sidney Aguillar Filho. For a deep investigation of the fictional and factual elements that permeate the hybrid genre of documentary, we delve into a broad and interdisciplinary conceptual field, applying hermeneutic interpretation to speculations about time, as temporality intrinsic to being; narrative, as a creative mimetic activity of storytelling; self-consciousness, as a result of this temporality; and the representation of the individual in a fascist and exclusionary historical context. Drawing on the concepts of history and narrative from the hermeneut Paul Ricoeur (2010a, 2010b, 2010c), we follow the axiomatic deductive model of hermeneutics, the cinematic theories by Gaudreault and Jost (2009), the documentary framework by Nichols (2016), the historical perspectives by Rancière (2009, 2014, and 2018) and Ronsentone (1997 and 2010), the character studies by Candido (1974), among other theoreticians. These frameworks led us to explore the aesthetics of documentary as a representational imagery, seizing traces of the past and the organizational model of intrigue to render it intelligible. These concepts guided our discussion of history as epistemology and history as the consideration of a life. Anchored in the presence of the social actor as the individual representing themselves and the modes of storytelling and showing inherent in documentary language, which directs our gaze through the lens of the great imagist, we emphasize the documentary as a model of thought, aesthetically translated. We consider the elements of "history" and "narrative" as mutual representations, constructed to situate us in the present, with the constant concern of not repeating the mistakes of the past.