Re-imagining migration: (im)mobility and the return to the sertão in Suely in the sky

Resumo

The article aims to analyze how the Brazilian film Suely in the Sky (Karim Ainouz, 2006) tackles the issue of migration and (im)mobility in a contemporary context of dispersion and restlessness which seeks to emphasize the subjectivity of the main character rather than a migratory collective impulse. The film also represents a return to the sertao, which, in the 1960s, allegorized the nation in Brazilian cinema, and was nostalgically readdressed in the 1990’s. Contrary to these previous moments, however, the film opens for a transnational perspective, which suggests a tension between the nomadic, fluid idea of ‘becoming’, and the monadic, coagulated fixity of identity. The politics of displacement in this film helps us imag(in)e forms of life beyond normal/tized configurations of identity and belonging.