Abstract
This chapter discusses the formal and narrative representation of the adolescent queer male gaze in Marco Berger’s Ausente (2011). Through a consideration of the ethical issues at stake in the haptic filming of the teenage body in various cinematic spaces (the swimming pool, the changing room and the apartment), I argue that Ausente’s ‘visual erotics’ (Marks, 2000) create a dynamic, intersubjective relationship between viewer and image. Drawing primarily on the work of Laura Marks (2000) and Laura Mulvey (1975), the chapter ultimately concludes that these haptic filmic techniques demand an engaged form of spectatorship, which denies a hierarchical identification with the adolescent queer subject and, instead, promotes an embodied response to the film’s presentation of non-normative sexual desire.
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Filmography
Ausente. 2011. Dir. by Marco Berger. Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales (INCAA) and Oh My Gomez! Films. Argentina.
Hawaii. 2013. Dir. by Marco Berger. La Novia Cine and Universidad del Cine. Argentina.
Plan B. 2009. Dir. by Marco Berger. Rendez-Vous Pictures, Oh My Gomez! Films and Brainjaus Producciones. Argentina.
Taekwondo. 2016. Dir. by Marco Berger. Oh My Gomez! Films. Argentina.
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Maguire, G. (2018). Visual Displeasure: Adolescence and the Erotics of the Queer Male Gaze in Marco Berger’s Ausente. In: Maguire, G., Randall, R. (eds) New Visions of Adolescence in Contemporary Latin American Cinema. New Directions in Latino American Cultures. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89381-5_2
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