The Melancholy of Desert(ed) Places
The Melancholy of Desert(ed) Places

Summary/Abstract: Being traditionally associated with Saturn (or Chronos, the god of time), the melancholic mood has been most often analyzed in relation to a specific temporality. On the contrary, the aim of this paper is to explore the theme of melancholy as it appears in two films, relating it to cinematic space and to show that certain spaces or places have a privileged relationship with the solitude of man and his melancholic mood, namely the desert or deserted places. Even if we refer to the badlands of the Northeast region of Brazil from Behind the Sun, by Walter Salles, to the real deserts of Texas and Mexico or to the deserted border town from The three burials of Melquiades Estrada by Tommy Lee Jones, these spaces are not a mere background/setting in which things happen – they are places that make things happen, that actually generate the narrative (as shown by film theorists and critics like Martin Lefebvre and Myrto Konstantarakos, in their studies on cinematic space). That is why in these films desert spaces are, on the one hand, an object of (confusing, inexplicable) desire and, on the other hand, a catalyst for the emergence of melancholy. In Behind the sun, the melancholic affect occurs due to the collision of two opposite vectors: the ferocious attempt of the deserted land to keep the characters in a physical, psychological and mental captivity, and the manifest or subliminal desire of the characters to release themselves from these constraints; while in Tommy Lee Jones’ film an entire community is contaminated by melancholy because of the liminal position of a small deserted border town.

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