Mourning and melancholia in Almodovar’s colors

Abstract

In this article, we reflect about Freudian elaborations on mourning and melancholia, as well as its possible outcomes and boundaries. Our starting point is Pedro Almodóvar’s Julieta (2016), in which the Spanish director employs a variety of cinematic elements, such as framing, cinematography, and transitions, to express the subtleties of loss of the Object and to convey the story of a melancholic character, with its losses, guilt, and pain. Thenceforth, we articulate the Freudian notion of mourning and melancholia to the ideas of other authors, such as André Green, Roland Barthes, and Maria Rita Kehl.