Pulsos subterráneos is a three-projector 16mm work that offers a subjective, expanded cinema account of the resistance of different Mexican communities to corporate mining and their defense of territory, life and culture. This project seeks to understand the struggle through the stories told by its inhabitants and the experiences evoked by its landscapes.
EN
“Homing in on the human face and the ecological world as registers of labor power’s varied forms, Elena Pardo’s film wonders how such distinct expressions of resistance and exploitation are made manifest. Screened simultaneously across three overlapping 16mm projections, Pardo’s work is both expansive and occasionally claustrophobic. As we move from wide landscapes deep into one of the mines, the film winnows into a single beam of light, as though the walls are closing in. On the other hand, in pulling apart the lap dissolve until the spaces between images become actual space, Pardo concretizes the disparity between the regions of Oaxaca and Zacatecas, and the time that has passed since the world was the green thing at the film’s outset, as opposed to the arid rock upon which she closes.”
Jadie Stillwell1
- 1Jadie Stillwell, “Crossroads 2023,” Screen Slate, 20 September 2023.