AN INTERPRETIVE APPROACH ON BOTH SCREEN & FOREST.
This study uses an interpretive approach grounded in critical film theory and transnational cinema studies. The objective is to explore how Green Frontier (Netflix, 2019) embodies Deborah Shaw’s framework of transnational cinema, like a river system branching through Amazonian storytelling terrain. Rather than relying on numerical data, this approach listens to the murmurs of the forest, its symbols, silences, and metaphors, to interpret cultural depth and narrative power.
The method resembles a trek through interconnected trails, and enables close readings of visual and sonic cues, analysis of character journeys as mythic migrations, and theoretical mapping across Shaw’s three key themes analyzed in the series; narrative hybridity, globalization, and ethical representation. Our investigation into these themes is further guided by the critical thoughts of Mette Hjort, Tom Zaniello, and Tom O’Regan, like tributaries feeding a broader understanding of cinematic globalization.
Yet, while Green Frontier offers fertile ground for symbolic and theoretical interpretation, there is a notable absence of academic material or critical discourse surrounding the series. Its complexity, however, demands such engagement. Deborah Shaw’s theories provided essential anchoring in this analytical jungle, illuminating paths through its cultural hybridity, aesthetic blend of genres, and embedded critiques of power. As a British researcher who lived and worked in Mexico for over a decade, I experienced many of the tensions the series evokes, such as the contrast between center and periphery, gendered hierarchies, and the often invisible power dynamics in globalized cultural labor, and feel in a position where I can further expand the discourse surrounding this series. In particular similarly to the protagonist's Helena’s experience with the show itself, I encountered machismo, where the superiority of the male voice often silenced the female one.
Scenes such as the final resting place of Ushe (Episode 7, 18:13) are approached like ceremonial clearings in the forest; places where meaning accumulates. Here, natural light, ritual silence, and the collective stillness of the community work together as forms of visual prayer, demanding respect and interpretation. These moments are not isolated but rooted in a larger cinematic canopy that draws on both indigenous epistemologies and global production aesthetics.
Ethically, this research treats representation like the stewardship of sacred land. It interrogates how characters like Ushe and Yua are given agency as narrative protagonists and keepers of spiritual lineage. The methodology questions not only who speaks in this audiovisual rainforest, but also how they are framed, translated, and remembered.
The choice of the series emerges from its nature as a hybrid organism; nurtured in the soil of Colombian storytelling but cultivated through the algorithmic rainfall of Netflix’s global reach. Its layered narrative, environmental themes, and indigenous presence make it a fertile case to study how stories can grow across borders, rooted locally, flowering globally.
Ultimately, this methodology treats cinema like the Amazon itself; living, multilayered, and full of hidden secrets that only the forest has witnessed. It calls for patient observation, deep listening, and a respect for the rhythms of both the screen and the forest, where transnationalism, like the jungle, is tangled, wild, and never one-dimensional.
References
Shaw, D. (2013) ‘3 Deconstructing and Reconstructing ‘Transnational Cinema’, in S. Dennison et al. (eds) Contemporary Hispanic Cinema. Boydell and Brewer, pp. 47–66. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781782041306-006. (Accessed March 2025)
