Sobre los diversos caminos hacia el pasado

The historiographic work Vida, muerte y mito del Dr. Ricardo Moreno Cañas (1985), by Eduardo Oconitrillo, compiles the details of one of the most famous criminal events in Costa Rican history. Oconitrillo does not restrict his inquiry to the dark circumstances of the murder of the doctor and politician, but pursues the investigation further and into the present, to delve into Moreno Cañas’s place in Costa Rican popular culture. Years later, the book became the starting point of an audiovisual project, directed by Andrés Heidenreich, whose production lasted for over a decade (1998 to 2009) and resulted in two audiovisual texts, both titled La región perdida. These products are a documentary about the magical-religious appropriation of Moreno Cañas (2004), and a fiction feature film about a contemporary investigation of the murder released in 2009, which combines historical, police, and fantasy genres. The purpose of the present paper is to compare and contrast these texts, especially the book and the feature film. The central question is: How is Costa Rica’s past recreated in Vida, muerte y mito del Dr. Ricardo Moreno Cañas (1985) and La región perdida (2009)? The analysis takes into account the narrative resources and contents, the contracts proposed to the reader and to the spectator respectively, and the creative intentions that apparently motivate both texts

Art · Humanities · Latin American Literature Studies · Media and Digital Communication · Radio, Podcasts, and Digital Media