Multilingual Iberia in twenty-first century cinema: Iberian polyglot films and multilingual imagination

Gimeno Ugalde, Esther

doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/ijis.32.1-2.83_1

Multilingual Iberia in twenty-first century cinema: Iberian polyglot films and multilingual imagination

Citation

Gimeno Ugalde E. Multilingual Iberia in twenty-first century cinema: Iberian polyglot films and multilingual imagination. International Journal of Iberian Studies. 2019;32(1-2):83-97. DOI: 10.1386/ijis.32.1-2.83_1

Abstract

The increasing multilingualism in films produced on the Iberian Peninsula simultaneously stems from and promotes one of the most salient traits of the Iberian geocultural space: its linguistic diversity. Paradoxically, however, film distributors tend to de-emphasize this diversity – or even render it invisible – in DVD and VOD-platform releases. Framed within the field of Iberian Studies, this paper analyses from a polycentric perspective several multilingual films produced in twenty-first-century Iberia. I argue that polyglot films screened in their multilingual original versions have the potential to create a ‘multilingual imagination’ (Kramsch) in Iberian audiences. Through the analysis of examples such as the Portuguese film Lisboetas (2004) and the Galician Os fenómenos (2014), I propose that the sensory experiences created by films’ multilingual ‘spoken landscapes’ (Balázs) can serve as triggers for new viewing habits, making audiences more receptive to the Peninsula’s diverse autochthonous and immigrant languages. However, as other examples illustrate, the interaction of multiple languages on screen is not, by itself, enough to foster multilingual imaginations.