Identity and Intercultural Relationships in Guarani: a journey as a narrative strategy

Abstract

This article contextualizes the concepts of interculturalism, transculturalism and transnationalism and their cinematic representation by analyzing the film Guarani, a story about Atílio, an old Paraguayan fisherman from a Guaraní community, living on the banks of the Paraná River with his daughters and his granddaughter Iara, whom he raises as if she were a boy. The news that Helena, Iara’s mother, who left her village in pursuit of a better life in Argentina, is pregnant and expecting a boy, makes him want to go to Buenos Aires to convince his daughter to have her baby where she was born. He brings his granddaughter Iara with him in this long journey, which starts in his old boat and ends up with both of them on the road, hitchhiking. The film takes on a semi-documentary approach in order to portray the conflicts between the preservation of Native American customs within a globalized economy (which increasingly suffocates traditional means of production) from the perspective of Atílio, who can no longer find his place in this new reality, and the perspective of the young protagonist, who can walk between these two worlds, but is afraid of taking ownership of her adult life and leave her origins behind.