On the Beginnings of Contemporary Cinema: Close-Up by Abbas Kiarostami and Dream of Light by Víctor Erice – The Fraternity between Documentary and Fiction as a Synthesis of Early Cinema and Cinematic Modernity

This article offers an analysis of the common characteristics of two foundational experiences in a new contemporary cinema that challenged the postmodern audiovisual hegemony of the early nineties: Close-Up (1990) and Dream of Light (1992). To this end, my starting point is the definition offered by Victor Erice of his way of under- standing the cinematic experience, which I also consider to be the defining feature of this contemporary cinema: the fraternity between reality and fiction. The analysis of the different elements of this fraternity between documentary and fiction shows how both filmmakers establish a new gaze that makes the film a poetic and self-reflexive work. These cinematic experiences achieve a synthesis between early cinema and cinematic modernity capable of problematising the notion of realism in a quest for the revelation of a certain truth, contained in reality, which only cinema can attain.