A historical view of haciendas and rural spaces: dynamics and representations in full-length films

Abstract

In the following paper we aim to examine the hacienda serrana dynamics (mountain range estate dynamics) and its representations depicted in Ecuadorian films, produced between 2009 and 2014. We focus on the movie Feriado, by Diego Araujo, from which we trace pertinent links with other films: Impulso, by Mateo Herrera, En el nombre de la hija, by Tania Hermida and El Facilitador, by Víctor Arregui. These four fictional films take the hacienda as a spatial, and even narrative, center of interest, although their plot may be placed in psychological and identity aspects of the characters.

In order to define links between the grasp and the representation of the hacienda, we frame this study in a historical characterization of key elements of the hacienda, such as the ruptures of the agrarian reforms, angular accents of the XIX century and constitutive references in the colonial period. We also analyze the recurrent themes of its filmic representation produced in the character trajectories, characters which we conceive as iconic representations of social inhabitants of these experiential and transforming rural spaces.