Vertigo

The Silencio series is a nostalgic homage to cinema. Elisa’s stylized images blur the line between pop culture references and the personalities of the women she portrays, while playing with the boundary between fantasy and reality.

The work raises questions about how society shapes and depicts women’s images in movies. While deep female characters are occasionally portrayed, it is still very rare. The roles typically assigned to women in films restrict the range and potential of their identities. Cinema presents women from a male perspective, reducing their role to being a mere accessory or a means to showcase nudity, solely existing for the visual pleasure of men.

Revealing the female psyche through a female gaze, it asks questions about inner strength, self-perception, solitude, fragility, and vulnerability in a world shaped by men, which Elisa explores through her cinematic lens.

Starting with characters from films she loves, Elisa creates a new narrative that imagines their lives beyond the edge of the frame. Each image exists as if it is a still taken from a film, but after the camera has stopped rolling. Miller is changing the script by re-envisioning the possibilities for these women, by giving them freedom, much like opening a birdcage.

It is quite striking to see how much control men had in films, like Hitchcock’s Vertigo. This control was exerted over women, who were expected to be submissive and obedient. It is important to recognize how this portrayal of women in films has had a lasting impact on society and how it has contributed to a culture of misogyny. We can see this same pattern of control and oppression in many aspects of our lives today, from the gender pay gap to the underrepresentation of women in positions of power. It is crucial that we continue to challenge these norms and work towards a more equal and just society.

“Woman stands in patriarchal culture as a signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his phantasies and obsessions through linguistic command by imposing them on the silent image of woman still tied to her place as bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning.”
– Laura Mulvey, Visual pleasure and narrative cinema – 1975