The Menippean film: a film genre with literary origins to denounce social ruin and the meaninglessness of life

Abstract

Menippean satire is a protean and ancient genre that has shone in periods of great civilizational and social crises. Its cultivation and recognition are minority, and it has been presented since antiquity in various forms: first as dialogue and then as short stories, poetry, essays, dramas or novels. Classic examples are the works of Luciano de Samósata, Gulliver’s Travels of Swift, Metamorphosis of Kafka, The Little Prince of Saint Exupéry or the Esperpentos of Valle Inclán. Its cultural mission and its aesthetic form are key to its identification: it expresses the denunciation of the ruin of a society that has separated itself from its values, as well as the loss of the meaning of life for its citizens. It brings together all forms of laughter and free imagination, so that it is a synthesis of humor, philosophy and fantasy. Since the last century it has also been presented as a film. We will describe in this article its different characteristics, taking as a reference the best moments of the theoretical debate on the menipea. We will trace its different cinematographic lines and we will try to demonstrate, through the hermeneutic analysis of Menippean films, that it is a priority genre for the fantastic cinema of social denunciation.