Voices of silenced childhoods: Transience as decentering spatiality in three contemporary films

Abstract

The interconnection between space production, place configuration, and identity development is interrogated in this essay through the lens of three film directors with transnational backgrounds. These auteurs introduce with Huelepega: La ley de la calle (Elia Schneider), Le temps du loup (Michael Haneke), and Children Underground (Edet Belzberg) the complications accrued by abandoned children and problem young adults whose erratic lives have forced them to dwell in transitional places. This essay looks at the spatial consequences of the confrontation of childhood and reterritorialization, and explores the ramifications of these interactions in terms of spatiality and place resignification.