Parents, children and others: eran unos que venían de Chile and the narrative of filiation

Abstract

In the narratives of the Southern Cone post-dictatorship, the filial relationship has been one of the most frequent topics, as well as the division between the productions of the parents’ generation and that of the children. Recent critical approaches give account of a numerous corpus that entangles the familiar theme and the perspective of the children with elements of biography, autobiography and fiction. This article proposes the documentary Eran unos que venían de Chile (Claudio Sapiaín, 1986), as an early antecedent for that current production. Through the analysis of narrative strategies, places of enunciation and ways of involving the private and public spheres, we reflect on the relationship between documentary and novel and extend the time frame to think about the narrative of filiation.