IN OF THE BLUE

In MACDO (FID 2025), Racornelia unpicked the dynamics of domination and oppression within the nuclear family by dramatising a Christmas dinner in 90s Mexico. Towards the end of the film, the blue screen of the DV camera marked the threshold between the living room, the scene of the family drama, and the bedroom, the theatre of conjugal confrontation. As an extension of this, Dentro de lo Azul (In The Blue) opens in a room shrouded in quivering azure light as though it has passed through flowing water, and thrusts us into the private life of a lesbian couple divided by a violent first fight. The jilted partner, dressed in a red kimono, appears crushed and blurred behind a pane of ribbed glass. To portray this break-up “through the prism of sapphic nostalgia”, Racornelia chooses to distort both the image and the sound. The desynchronised words of the two women echo back and forth, muffled noises endlessly loop, and images are duplicated, superimposed before splitting up. The reiteration of visual and auditory elements mirrors dwelling on life ‘before’ and the sense of confinement brought about by constant recollection. Memories, lies and illusions cohabit in this melancholic, inscrutable fog that lies between the layers of digital images, simultaneously bringing to mind the fleeting nature of this marriage and its scars in time and space. Within this visual opacity, only the colours are distinct. Red, yellow, green and blue. In her book Bluets, Maggie Nelson writes “But I am not interested in longing to live in a world in which I already live. I don’t want to yearn for blue things, and God forbid for any “blueness.” Above all, I want to stop missing you.” A potential outcome that all heartbroken lovers might hope for - something Dentro de lo azul perhaps implicitly offers.
Louise Martin Papasian