Ropajes de la pasión. En torno al cine de Valeria Sarmiento

In this paper I carry out a comparative analysis of three movies directed by Chilean filmmaker Valeria Sarmiento: Notre mariage (1984), Amelia Lopes O’Neill (1991) and Rosa la china (2003). All of them can be considered as melodramas, because they place passional love, confronted with one or several obstacles, at the core of the plot. I examine the way in which Valeria Sarmiento stretches in different directions the threads of this plot, trying to identify the narratives and formal operations through which the filmmaker interrupts the audience’s emotional identification, and at the same time undermines the moral values of a culture that often writes passional love, especially feminine, in a melodramatic key.