An act of plenitude before the empty: Sônia Braga, the discursive event of Aquarius and the archives of counterculture

Abstract

This paper analyzes the return of Sônia Braga in Aquarius (2016) as a discursive event that updates the memory of her trajectory by using her mirroring in the character she plays (Clara), the spaces of resumption of counterculture, as well as the current political scenario of the country. In this context, the aim is to analyze the emergence of Clara as a rupture, update or even an emancipation of Sônia Braga regarding the male chauvinist discourse that presided her previous characters, making this return not only an artistic appearance but also a political act. To do so, we will start with the protest organized by the cast of the film at the Cannes Film Festival (2016), in order to demonstrate how – in Clara and Sônia Braga, in Aquarius and in Brazil – there is a game between the micro-political and the macro-political: a resistance that preserves the places of memory before the relations of force established by the capital. We will demonstrated, lastly, how the intimate cinema produced by Kleber Mendonça, related to the trivialization of daily violence, presents forms of speakability and visibility of Brazil, updating the country's interpretation cinematography, with the Cinema Novo by Glauber Rocha. For that, a discursive approach will be adopted, which makes the notions of Michel Pêcheux and Michel Foucault work in dialogue with cultural criticism.