Dona M. Kercher

Hitchcock in Argentina: Seeing Psycho through Taxidermy

Although Hitchcock’s movies have been screened in Argentina since The Lodger, (1927), their local reception history has received minimal attention.  Psycho is a key referent for this analysis. Two contemporary thrillers, Fabián Bielinsky’s The Aura (2005) and Benjamín Naishtat’s Rojo (2018) spotlight the continued significance of Hitchcock to 21st century Argentine cinema. These films mine Psycho’s taxidermy motif, Norman Bates’ hobby, through closed narratives to interpret Argentine economic and political issues. Through this powerful metaphor of predation, these films expose the hidden circulation of funds in the case of Aura, and the extra-judicial killing of the Dirty War in Rojo.  Both plots revolve around a “disappeared” victim. Their box office success has been attributed to the presence of transnationally important stars. Although true, this presentation proposes that the reworking of this recognizable Hitchcockian motif played a significant role in these films’ commercial prowess.

About
Dona Kercher is Professor emerita of Spanish and Film at Assumption University, Worcester, MA, where she taught Spanish language and culture, including cinema. She is the author of ‘Latin Hitchcock: How Almodóvar, Amenábar, De la Iglesia, Del Toro and Campanella Became Notorious’ (Wallflower/ Columbia UP, 2015) as well as articles on the filmmakers Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón, Alex de la Iglesia, Pedro Almodóvar, and Santiago Mitre. She has two essays, one on Hitchcock in Spain and another on Hitchcock in Argentina in the forthcoming collection ‘Re-viewing Hitchcock’ (BFI/Bloomsbury, 2025).