The Structure of Sympathy in “Las oscuras primaveras” [DOI:10.37785/nw.v5n1.a7]

Abstract

Cognitive film studies are a research program that addresses various phenomena related to the viewer’s mental, emotional, and affective processes based on the interdisciplinary contributions between film theory and cognitive sciences. Murray Smith (2004), in his book Engaging Characters, has developed the “Structure of Sympathy”, a textual analysis system that allows explaining the emotional responses of viewers to fictional characters. This scheme conformed by the processes of recognition, alienation, and loyalty applied to the film Las oscuras primaveras (Ernesto Contreras, 2014), as part of a theoretical methodological approach for the study of the construction of the loving imaginary in contemporary Mexican cinema, shows that affective mimesis has an extraordinary power to interrupt or change the moral reorganization of the narrative structure of a film, forcing the viewer to reflect on their moral judgments about it.