Recinfernalia: a city that is desiring mutation and permanent invention

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to historically appropriatethefilm Recinfernália (1975), by the Pernambuco philosopher, poet, actor, filmmaker and cultural agitator Jomard Muniz de Britto. The text will seek to address, mainly, the author’s contributions to the effort of bricolage and identity (re)invention of the city of Recife, a bricolage that would be carried out through an intense artistic activity aimed, among other things, at a submission of the “tropicological pernambucanidade” to a delirium that forced her to transform herself into “tropitcalist pernambucália”. In the case of the film under study, it is an effort by Jomard Muniz de Britto to reposition the spatial identity of the capital of Pernambuco, forcing it to escape the appearance of identification with itself that the tropicological tradition, from the point of view of the subject now studied, sought to impose on Recife and even on the object of Brazilian culture. In Recinfernália, therefore, Jomard carries out Michel de Certeau's tactical program: seeing the city, he prefers to mix with it, practicing it and, consequently, blurring the postcard.