Violent transfusions: strategies of and against immunity in contemporary Brazilian cinema

Resumo

Violence, in films, is often generated by an ‘immunizing’ logic, which according to Roberto Esposito, is typical of contemporary societies. Esposito says that the immunizing logic can be seen in State institution, laws, territorial organization or ethnic communities identified by a common element (language, religion, culture). These groups tend to shut out, immunizing against the ‘outside’ world. The films respond to the violent exclusion with a ‘violent image’ (not an ‘image of violence’, an image that presents itself as a correction of the world), a kind of violence that is a refusal of excluding violence. This ‘violent image’ is a line of flight that traverses many segments ‘immunized’ against what is ‘strange’ and ‘foreigner’, reestablishing the transit. This article questions how cinematographic discourse creates violent situations where spectators are challenged to face their own auto-immunization and called to
reestablish the flux of violent images which are, above all, irradiation, explosion, contamination.