The Anti-Extractivist Documentary in Latin America: The Aesthetics and Affordances of When Two Worlds Collide and Surire

By comparing the environmental documentaries, When Two Worlds Collide and Surire, this paper explores the affordances and limits of the expository and observational documentary modes as expressions of anti-extractivism. Situating this analysis within the larger tradition of social documentaries in Latin America, the paper considers how the aesthetics of these different forms invite viewers to question the rhetoric of an extraction-based development. While When Two Worlds Collide applies and subverts the norms of the expository mode to emphasise its call for tangible collective action, Surire uses the observational mode to challenge the ontologies of landscape and the neat boundaries it draws around and inside the extractive zone. The article does not recommend one form over another, but rather a combined viewing that makes room for the two modes of social documentary.