The critical montage in Jonathan Perel

Landscape and memory of fhe Argentine dictatorship in the film Toponymy

Abstract

The article analyzes the critical montage in the film Toponimia (2016) by Argentine filmmaker Jonathan Perel, in which themes such as landscape, memory, and Argentina's last military dictatorship (1976–1983) are examined through a critical reflection on state violence and the role of space as a bearer of historical trauma. Perel investigates four small villages in the Tucumán province, built by the military regime as part of a counterinsurgency strategy. The film employs long, static shots of these landscapes, devoid of human presence, accompanied by official documents highlighting the regime’s repression of workers and the deep involvement of the military in shaping these spaces. The absence of a narrator guiding the narrative allows viewers to confront the landscape as a monument, transformed by Perel's critical montage into a kind of counter-memory.