Colonial Captivations: Textual and Cinematic Representations of Captivity in Brazil and Chile

The latter two films evince the continuing popularity and symbolic malleability of the Spaniard Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca's Relación [Account] (1542), which relates his decade-long travels and travails across North America, and the German Hans Staden's Warhaftige historia [True History] (1557), describing his nine-month captivity among the Tupinambá Indians of Brazil.1 The emphasis placed by these two films on the subordinate and powerless role of the European protagonist with respect to the indigenous peoples that he encounters shed an anticipatory critical light on the quincentennial celebrations of the "discovery" in the year following the films' releases in their respective countries.