The flags of time: Temporal decoloniality in casa de areia and o ano em que meus pais saíram de férias

Abstract

In the films Casa de areia (2005) and O ano em que meus pais saíram de férias (2006), time serves as an avatar of the larger colonial matrix. Though both films explore other expressions of coloniality, such as race, ethnicity, gender, assimilation, and politics, what sets them apart is that their disobedience against colonial forces takes place on a temporal plane. Both protagonists, Áurea and Mauro, find themselves on geographic or social islands, wrestling against the power of time. Áurea’s story highlights many of the scientific issues of time reckoning. Mauro’s involves rejecting the fusion of a political and temporal colonial project during the 1970 World Cup. In crucial instances of disorientation for each character, they “delink” from colonial paradigms of time, revealing that neither coloniality nor time itself is absolute.