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This thesis explores the potential of domestic space to act as the ground for new forms of community and sociability in Argentine and Chilean films from the early twenty-first century. It thus tracks a shift in the political treatment of the home in Southern Cone cinema, away from allegorical affirmations of the family, and towards a reflection on film’s ability to both delineate and disrupt lived spaces. In the works examined, the displacement of attention from human subjects to the material environment defamiliarises the domestic sphere and complicates its relation to the nation. The house thus does not act as ‘a body of images that give mankind proofs or illusions of stability’ (Bachelard), but rather as a medium through which identities are challenged and reformed. This anxiety about domestic space demands, I argue, a renewal of the deconstructive frameworks often deployed in studies of Latin American culture (Moreiras, Williams). The thesis turns to new materialist theories, among others, as a supplement to deconstructive thinking, and argues that theorisations of cinema’s political agency must be informed by social, economic and urban histories. The prominence of suburban settings moreover encourages a nuancing of the ontological links often invoked between cinema, the house, and the city. The first section of the thesis rethinks two concepts closely linked to the home: memory and modernity. Analysing documentary and essay films, Chapter 1 suggests some political limitations to the figure of the fragment which dominates scholarly discussion of memory in Latin America. Chapter 2 studies films which explore the inclusions and exclusions created by modernist domestic architecture. The second section focuses on two human figures found on the threshold of the home: the domestic worker and the guest. Chapter 3 analyses unorthodox representations of domestic work, and explores how new materialist approaches can enhance readings of the political potential of ‘art cinema’. Finally, in Chapter 4 I examine films depicting household visitors that upset urban class divisions, and question the possibility of ‘domestic cosmopolitanism’ (Nava 2006) in contemporary Latin America. My comparative analysis of these films explores a rupture between physical dwelling and imagined home that points towards new political practices in a neoliberal, post-dictatorship context.

This thesis takes a historical approach to its subject and focuses on Swedish cinema of the 1940s and 1950s. The thesis argues that Swedish cinema experienced a renaissance in the 1940s, lasting approximately from 1940 to 1953. It further suggests that one of the most important filmmakers in this renaissance was Hasse Ekman. By focussing upon Ekman and this renaissance, a much-needed contextualisation of Ingmar Bergman will be achieved. Ingmar Bergman is one of the most well-known and well-researched filmmakers of all time, but there are still gaps in the material surrounding him, and one such gap concerns his cinematic origins. Bergman was a part of the 1940s renaissance, during which Bergman worked with, and was influenced by, other filmmakers and in particular Ekman. The thesis is divided into three parts. The first part introduces the relevant literature and discusses ideas of authorship and national cinema. It also provides a historic overview of Swedish society and cinema during the 1940s and 1950s, providing the context needed to better understand the films of Ekman, and Bergman too. This part also looks at the 1930s to illustrate what came before this renaissance, and how the films of the 1940s differed from what had gone before. The second part is a chronological overview of Ekman's career from the late-1930s to his move to Spain in 1964. The last part is a discussion of Ekman's relation to Swedish society and his view of the world, based on close textual readings of his films. The aim of the thesis is to present, for the first time, a coherent and extensive overview of Ekman's career and body of work, while also situating it in the specific context in which it emerged, thereby shedding new light on an important, though neglected, episode in cinema history.