The montage as a game space in the film El mar la mar: thresholds and glimpses of a migratory crossing

Abstract.

From El mar la mar, a film documentary that narrates the stories and testimonies of migrants who take the risk of crossing from Mexico to the USA through the Sonoran desert, the article will probe how this cinematographic exercise allows opening of paths, of some “other spaces” constituted by the film in the desert immensity: in them, we will try to consider the singularity of the lives that make the difficult crossing towards the border. We will approach these existences through the voices that challenge us from the objects left behind, the reports of themselves offered between tears, the words of encouragement written to those who will continue to come in search of a dream. Along these questions, we will also explore some concepts: Spielraum, constellation and dialectical image (Benjamin), the notions of thresholds and heterotopias (Foucault) and the concept of critical fabulation (Hartman) and how all of them are linked to the light of migrant lives.

Keywords:
Migrants; constellation; forms of life; heterotopias