The archaic man and the sanctification of the land. Geographic conjectures and philosophical evocations inspired by "Seo Chico, a portrait", a documentary film by José Rafael Mamigonian

Abstract

The article is an attempt to asses the geographic contents of the cinematic documentary about the strong changes that have been taking place in Santa Catarina Island since 1960. Seo Chico, the center character, represents an enormous effort of one islander to keep their Azorean subsistence pattern of life through archaic fishing and farming with incipient industries such as distillery (sugar cane “cachaça”) and mills (manioc flour). The approach is basically a pretense to focus a possible relation between Science (Geography) and Art (Cinematography), since the first sees the space through the “landscape” and the second fits the succession of “images”. In this difficult mission, the author tries to use Philosophy as a mediator in this possible correlation. Seo Chico’s obstinacy to pursue a “permanence”, in spite of the “changes”, assumes tragic dimensions with the murder of the character, an event that results both in the rise of the geographic value and in the aesthetic content of the documentary as well.