El prófugo: Prologue in Heaven (and in Hell). Horror and Melodrama of the Unknown Woman

Abstract

The article studies the prologue of El prófugo (2020), by Natalia Meta, which constitutes, in our opinion, an autonomous narrative unit – a very extensive one, by the way. The study is carried out in relation to theories about the horror genre and the gender representations associated with it. It also investigates, to a lesser extent, the film’s links with fantasy and melodrama. The modes of representation and construction of hegemonic, alternative and dissident masculinities and femininities articulate the links between desire, repression and the law. Within this context, the article focuses on the modes of repression and oppression that articulate the relationship between Leopoldo and Inés during the vacation in Mexico and how Leopoldo’s death functions as a framework for the rest of the film. Herbert Marcuse’s theories – and partly Juan José Sebreli’s reading of Marcuse – on leisure and modes of repression in the pa-triarchal capitalism of post-industrial society, as well as Noël Carroll’s theories on the horror genre and Robin Wood and that of Stanley Cavell’s melodrama are used to address the analysis. The working method consists of the discussion of the critical approaches to the film and, from there, the analysis of the film (close reading) and its links with the aesthetic and aesthetic-political theories of Marcuse, Sebreli and Cavell. Me-ta’s film, we intend to show, raises in an innovative and feminist way the links between desire, law, normality and the monstrous and largely subverts the mainstream tradition of the horror genre.