ship in many ways, Diego is able to cater to her needs where a string of argu-
ably even less suitable boyfriends could not.
Before we see the film titles, we read the above-mentioned paratext that de-
clares:“These are documentary images. The moments and characters are real //
Only the story is fictional”. We are introduced to Molly at the metro, an ama-
teur photographer and exchange student from New York. We hear her voice
first in Spanish, thereafter in English, as she reflects on the subway tunnel sys-
tem’s potential for photo opportunities, complaining about her boyfriend’s ha-
bits and mulling over her situation as a student in a foreign land. The position
of this voice is ambiguous: It could be considered an interior monologue–the
thoughts of Molly running through her head during the moments of the se-
quence of stills–or is it off-stage commentary–Molly’s voice-over reflecting on
the scene we see later that same day or days or weeks later? Given that this is
the very first voice we hear and the fact that the very first thing she mentions is
her photography, this ambiguous position seems to destabilize the position/sta-
tus of the written text presented just prior to the film titles: was that the film-
maker’s words or Molly’s? Or is Molly playing the character of the photogra-
pher on which this film is based?
After a few moments, the inter-title with her name–Molly–establishes a
more stable status for her: this is a story about Molly told by someone (that
might be Molly herself or someone else) treating her as a characterina universe
rather than the narratorofthat universe. Then we are introduced to a less-am-
biguous male voice, as it is more obviously an interior monologue, a boy’s voice
reflecting on how his sexual fantasies about his cousin (Emilia) have caused his
falling out of shape for the soccer matches, an image we can see from a distance.
The second inter-title presents his name, Diego. A few scenes later an inter-title
indicates the first season:verano, summer, which appears as the story of Molly
and Diego starts at with the beginning of summer.
Still, the introductory text has the potential to keep the characters ambiguous:
How can the characters be real while the story is fictional? In narrative theory, a
character is often considered subordinate to the narrative’s action. This theory
goes back to Aristotle’s poetics–a normative poetics meant to prescribe the
Greek tragedy, but still influential on modern theories of narrative–in which
the fable (the story) has primacy over character (before reasoning, diction, song,
etc.).Being secondary to story is still quite different from being independent
of it, however. Most scholars of narrative theory would agree that character and
story should be treated as interdependent. This is often seen as the thrust of
Henry James’s famous dictum:“What is character but the determination of in-
cident? What is incident but the illustration of character?”A character is, in
other words, normally seen as part of the narrative and not an entity that exists
independent of the narrative. In my view, this interdependency is crucial in dis-
92 Liv Hausken