Lorenzo J. Torres Hortelano
This analysis draws on the concepts of the paratext (Genette), intensified listening (Chion) and expanded temporality as ways of representing trauma. I examine silence as an affective language that allows for emotional translation between characters, linked to the containment of desire and the elaboration of grief.
The question that guides the analysis is the following: does Hamaguchi construct a poetics of silence that articulates desire, narrative and emotional translation between characters? To answer this question, I analyse the beginning of the film, paying special attention to Oto´s oral narrative, the posthumous voice that structures the protagonist´s emotional experience.
This approach considers silence as a saturated presence, a space of resonance for trauma and sustained desire.