Una Poética de la luz, el sonido y el lugar en el documental Mimbre de Sergio Bravo con música de Violeta Parra

Abstract

In 1957 the young Chilean filmmaker Sergio Bravo realized a brief documentary titled Mimbre about the Chilean artisan Alfredo Manzano, well known as “Manzanito”. In addition, Bravo counted with the music composed by Violeta Parra who played it based on the images recorded and edited by Bravo. In this essay I propose an analysis of Mimbre exploring what I consider its most relevant elements: light, sound, and place. Through Mimbre these elements mark an inflection point in the history of Chilean cinema and serve for a realization in which, and also operate for a work in which in an intimate and domestic space –the artisan’s workshop–, humans and non-humans presences, living beings and its representations interact, that, as in the creations of “Manzanito”, weave a poetic of space and place. In the eloquent dignity of the Chilean popular world in Santiago of the mid-twentieth century, Mimbre supposes a visual and an aural experience about the creative and daily life of “Manzanito” in his inhabitation.