Costa Rican Exceptionalism: Nostalgia, Costumbrismo, and Patriotism in Maikol Yordan de viaje perdido (Miguel Gómez, 2014)

Harvey-Kattou, L. 2023. Costa Rican Exceptionalism: Nostalgia, Costumbrismo, and Patriotism in Maikol Yordan de viaje perdido (Miguel Gómez, 2014). in: Espinoza, M. and List, J. (ed.) The Rise of Central American Film in the Twenty-First Century University of Florida Press.

Chapter titleCosta Rican Exceptionalism: Nostalgia, Costumbrismo, and Patriotism in Maikol Yordan de viaje perdido (Miguel Gómez, 2014)
AuthorsHarvey-Kattou, L.
EditorsEspinoza, M. and List, J.
Abstract

Costa Rica’s film scene has boomed since the twentieth century when only nine feature-length, fiction productions were released, and every year since 2009 the nation has witnessed several new cinematic releases. Both the highest-grossing and most-viewed Costa Rican film to date, Maikol Yordan de viaje perdido, came out in cinemas in 2014, attracting 770,000 viewers to these screens alone (Cortés 17)—a huge 17% of the population of the country—and breaking records along the way. The film’s director, Miguel Gómez, is far from an unknown quantity in the world of Costa Rican filmmaking, having made seven films to date and four before the release of Maikol Yordan. His works encompass many genres, and while he is the most prolific of Costa Rica’s directors, his productions show only a few consistent elements. In El cielo rojo (2008) and its sequel, El cielo rojo 2 (2015), a group of three young friends consider what they want to do with their adult lives, and a bildungsroman plays out against the backdrop of local humor. El sanatorio (2010), on the other hand, is a horror film set in an old sanatorium which is said to be haunted; El fin (2012) is an apocalyptic comedy; Italia 90: La película (2014) is a docu–drama which tells the story of the (now second) most successful Costa Rican national soccer team’s exploits in a World Cup (the 1990 tournament in Italy); while his most recent film, Amor viajero (2017), is a romantic comedy. Perhaps what all these films have in common is their deep-rooted tico characteristics, which can be seen in the actors and backdrops on screen, as well as the language and jokes woven into each narrative. Gómez is clear when he thinks about how he likes to make films: they must be profitable, and the only way of making a profit in Costa Rica seems to be to make films cheaply, almost exclusively for a local audience, and hope that this patriotic appeal brings in sales. This formula certainly worked in Maikol Yordan, and this chapter will consider the roots of its popularity, suggesting that in representing a type of nationalist nostalgia that harks back to the mythical creation story of Costa Rica, the film uses costumbrista techniques to revalorize an idealized past and evoke feelings of patriotism in its audience. Discussing the film in light of questions around presentations of the past and the interaction between cinema and national identity, this chapter analyzes the extent to which this film plays on the trope of the Euro-descendent, heteropatriarchal, humble farmer as common ancestor of all ticos in order to make a profit using patriotism as a popularity tool.

KeywordsCosta Rican cinema
Miguel Gómez
Maikol Yordan de viaje perdido
nostalgia
costumbrismo
Book titleThe Rise of Central American Film in the Twenty-First Century
Year2023
PublisherUniversity of Florida Press
Publication dates
Published29 Aug 2023
ISBN9781683404088
9781683403715

Related outputs

Creating A Feminist Gaze?: Motherhood and Identity in Recent Costa Rican Cinema
Harvey-Kattou, L. 2025. Forthcoming. Creating A Feminist Gaze?: Motherhood and Identity in Recent Costa Rican Cinema. in: Vania Barraza and María Helena Rueda (ed.) Female Agency in Films Made by Latin American Women Palgrave Macmillan.

A Domestic Revolution: Feminist Awakening in the Home in Rosario Castellanos’s ‘Lección de cocina’ ['Cooking Lesson’] (1971) and Antonella Sudasassi’s El despertar de las hormigas [The Awakening of the Ants] (2019)
Harvey-Kattou, L. 2025. Forthcoming. A Domestic Revolution: Feminist Awakening in the Home in Rosario Castellanos’s ‘Lección de cocina’ ['Cooking Lesson’] (1971) and Antonella Sudasassi’s El despertar de las hormigas [The Awakening of the Ants] (2019). in: Fiona Noble and Nadia Albaladejo Garcia (ed.) Alternative Voices: Curating Femininity in Hispanic Art (1920-2020) London Palgrave Macmillan.

Imagining Latin America: Magical Realism, Cosmopolitanism, and the ¡Viva! Film Festival, By Nicola Jones. Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2021. Pp. 231. £75 (hardback). ISBN 9781855663299
Harvey Kattou, Liz 2024. Imagining Latin America: Magical Realism, Cosmopolitanism, and the ¡Viva! Film Festival, By Nicola Jones. Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2021. Pp. 231. £75 (hardback). ISBN 9781855663299. Hispanic Research Journal. 24 (1), pp. 104-105. https://doi.org/10.1080/14682737.2024.2318987

Book Review: Whiteness in Puerto Rico by Guillermo Rebollo Gil, London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2023, 145 pp., £85.00 (hardback), ISBN: 9780755635504
Harvey-Kattou, Liz 2024. Book Review: Whiteness in Puerto Rico by Guillermo Rebollo Gil, London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2023, 145 pp., £85.00 (hardback), ISBN: 9780755635504. National Identities. Advanced online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/14608944.2024.2314799

Quince Duncan Moodie
Harvey-Kattou, L. 2021. Quince Duncan Moodie . Literary Encyclopedia.

Collective Culpability in Costa Rica: The Case of Quince Duncan’s Kimbo
Harvey-Kattou, L. 2019. Collective Culpability in Costa Rica: The Case of Quince Duncan’s Kimbo . in: Lange, C. and Peate, A. (ed.) Crime Scenes: Latin American Crime Fiction from the 1960s to the 2010s Peter Lang.

Contested Identities in Costa Rica: Constructions of the Tico in Literature and Film
Harvey-Kattou, L. 2019. Contested Identities in Costa Rica: Constructions of the Tico in Literature and Film. Liverpool Liverpool University Press.

Living Behind Bars: Representations of the Costa Rican Home in Cinematic Works by Hernán Jiménez
Harvey-Kattou, L. 2018. Living Behind Bars: Representations of the Costa Rican Home in Cinematic Works by Hernán Jiménez. Journal of Romance Studies. 18 (2), pp. 205-225. https://doi.org/10.3828/jrs.2018.14

Performing for Hollywood: Coloniality and the Tourist Image in Esteban Ramírez’s Caribe (2004)
Harvey-Kattou, L. 2018. Performing for Hollywood: Coloniality and the Tourist Image in Esteban Ramírez’s Caribe (2004). Studies in Spanish and Latin American Cinemas. 15 (2), pp. 249-266. https://doi.org/10.1386/slac.15.2.249_1

The Supernatural as Decolonial Tactic: Afro-Costa Rican Motifs in Quince Duncan’s Fiction
Harvey-Kattou, L. 2017. The Supernatural as Decolonial Tactic: Afro-Costa Rican Motifs in Quince Duncan’s Fiction . in: Hart, S.M. and Biedermann, Z. (ed.) From the Supernatural to the Uncanny Newcastle upon Tyne Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 192-203

Rendering the Invisible Visible: Reflections on the Costa Rican Film Industry in the Twenty-First Century
Harvey-Kattou, L. 2017. Rendering the Invisible Visible: Reflections on the Costa Rican Film Industry in the Twenty-First Century. in: Delgado, M.M., Hart, S.M. and Johnson, R. (ed.) A Companion to Latin American Cinema Wiley. pp. 325-340

Permalink - https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/item/w0w74/costa-rican-exceptionalism-nostalgia-costumbrismo-and-patriotism-in-maikol-yordan-de-viaje-perdido-miguel-g-mez-2014


Restricted files

File

Under embargo indefinitely

Share this

Usage statistics

66 total views
1 total downloads
These values cover views and downloads from WestminsterResearch and are for the period from September 2nd 2018, when this repository was created.