[pt] De Gaugin a Picasso, o primitivismo foi um conceito-chave para o desenvolvimento das vanguardas européias. Termo polêmico, historicamente associado ao processo colonialista e ao eurocentrismo, foi curioso reencontrá-lo como título do projeto de um dos artistas mais radicais e inventivos do século XXI: o tailandês Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Desenvolvido em 2009, o Primitive Project é um reencontro de Weerasethakul com o nordeste da Tailândia, a região de Isaan, e consistiu de uma exposição, compreendida de sete video-instalações e dois curtas-metragens, um livro de artista da plataforma Cujo, além do longametragem Tio Boonmee que pode recordar de suas vidas passadas, premiado com a Palma de Ouro em Cannes, em 2010. Partindo de uma discussão teórica, crítica e histórica do conceito do primitivo no século XX, a dissertação elabora uma leitura das propostas e imagens que constituem o Primitive Project, indicando a maneira como Weerasethakul apropria-se do termo primitivo, transformando-o em um espaço de experiência de outras possibilidades de encontro com o audiovisual. / [en] From Gaugin to Picasso, the primitive is an important concept in the development of the European avant-garde. A difficult term to deal with, historically tied to the process of colonialism and eurocentrism, it came as a surprise to find it as the title of a project from one of the most inventive and radical artists of the 21st Century: the thailandese Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Created in 2009, the Primitive Project is a reencounter of Weerasethakul with the northeast of Thailand, the region of Isaan, and consists of a art installation, made up of seven video-installations and two short-films, an artists book of the CUJO platform, and of the feature film Uncle Boonmee who can recall his past lives, awarded the Palme D or in Cannes, in 2010. Starting with a theoretical, critical and historical discussion on the concept of the primitive in the 20th century, the dissertation elaborates a reading of the images and concepts that constitutes the Primitive Project, indication how Weerasethakul appropriates the concept of the primitive, transforming it in a space for experiencing new possibilities of engagement with the audiovisual form.

Filmen Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) presenterar ett antal scener som är till synes orelaterade till filmens övergripande handling. Filmens titel antyder att dessa scener möjligen kan vara minnen ur titelkaraktärens tidigare liv, emellertid finns det ytters lite underlag för en sådan tolkning i själva filmen. Syftet blir därmed att närmare undersöka dessa scener, att söka tematiska kopplingar mellan dessa scener och filmen som helhet, samt att försöka komma fram till hur dessa scener kan ses arbeta med minnen.Laura U. Marks bok, The Skin of the Film (2000), har valts som underlag för den följande analysen i förhoppning att de tankar som läggs fram där skall kunna nyttjas för att tolka och diskutera de nämnda scenerna i filmen. I arbetet nyttjas därtill den metod som förespråkas av det hermeneutiska vetenskapsidealet för att erhålla kunskap.Arbetet visar på att filmen inte nödvändigtvis söker att gestalta minnen utan kan ses locka åskådaren till att minnas genom att presentera bilder som bäst förstås genom kroppslig inlevelse i bilden, kort sagt; filmen söker att aktivera åskådarens minne genom bilder med haptiska kvaliteter. Detta görs samtidigt som filmen ständigt återkommer till samma tema; resan till naturen. Åskådaren får alltså både bevittna filmens karaktärers resa och lockas till att själv uppleva detta utifrån sina egna minnen. Naturen är dock inte nödvändigtvis resans mål, filmen ses snarare försöka föra åskådaren till ett visst sinnestillstånd.

Aiming to make an intervention in both emerging Slow Cinema and classical Trauma Cinema scholarship, this thesis demonstrates the ways in which the post-trauma cinema of Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz merges aesthetics of cinematic slowness with narratives of post-trauma in his films Melancholia (2008), Death in the Land of Encantos (2007) and Florentina Hubaldo, CTE (2012). Diaz has been repeatedly considered as representative of what Jonathan Romney termed in 2004 “Slow Cinema”. The director uses cinematic slowness for an alternative approach to an on-screen representation of post-trauma. Contrary to popular trauma cinema, Diaz’s portrait of individual and collective trauma focuses not on the instantenaeity but on the duration of trauma. In considering trauma as a condition and not as an event, Diaz challenges the standard aesthetical techniques used in contemporary Trauma Cinema, as highlighted by Janet Walker (2001, 2005), Susannah Radstone (2001), Roger Luckhurst (2008) and others. Diaz’s films focus instead on trauma’s latency period, the depletion of a survivor’s resources, and a character’s slow psychological breakdown. Slow Cinema scholarship has so far focused largely on the films’ aesthetics and their alleged opposition to mainstream cinema. Little work has been done in connecting the films’ form to their content. Furthermore, Trauma Cinema scholarship, as trauma films themselves, has been based on the immediate and most radical signs of post-trauma, which are characterised by instantaneity; flashbacks, sudden fears of death and sensorial overstimulation. Following Lutz Koepnick’s argument that slowness offers “intriguing perspectives” (Koepnick, 2014: 191) on how trauma can be represented in art, this thesis seeks to consider the equally important aspects of trauma duration, trauma’s latency period and the slow development of characteristic symptoms. With the present work, I expand on current notions of Trauma Cinema, which places emphasis on speed and the unpredictability of intrusive memories. Furthermore, I aim to broaden the area of Slow Cinema studies, which has so far been largely focused on the films’ respective aesthetics, by bridging form and content of the films under investigation. Rather than seeing Diaz’s slow films in isolation as a phenomenon of Slow Cinema, I seek to connect them to the existing scholarship of Trauma Cinema studies, thereby opening up a reading of his films.