Page - 102 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/02

102 | Héctor M. Varela Rios www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/2, 87–106 made present or augmented not by a priest (especially an aloof one!) but by family and friends, that is, by a loving community in solidarity throughout days and nights of mourning. Seen from the perspective of the poor, this wake turned the family home into a church of the poor, a fact emphasized by Oller’s placement of the roast pig as Christ icon. A decolonial reading sees this icon-pig not as idolatrous but as mediating the sacredness of family and friendship. Another important aspect of lo cotidiano is movement, the everyday com- ings-and-goings of life in general. Oller the impressionist uses movement in El Velorio to wonderfully balance existence. For Latinxs, movement is a fact of life, many times tragic yet ultimately salvific under the grace of God. El Velorio is a factual snapshot of this movement among life and death. There is chaos but also order: one side of the painting is happier, the other sadder; folks and food are coming in through one door and others have already left (or are thinking of leaving) through the opposite door, perhaps after a long night of celebrating. Human and non-human glances crisscross. The dead child lies still and the old man stands without moving while children and adults play. A decolonial reading of El Velorio sees the painting’s chaos not as lack of discipline or decorum but as creative force. Indeed, the chaotic scene counteracts the presumed finality of the child’s death (“left forever”, wrote Oller) and confirms the continuity of the child’s soul. And it is a creative continuity in which all creation participates: human and non-human; man, woman, and others; child, adult, and senior; nature and culture; powerful and powerless, sacred and profane. Undoubtedly, there is darkness and light in this celebration: sadly a child is dead, even if happily now an angel. But that duality powers the moving cotidiano, a self-evident salvific process as ineffable as its ground of being, God. Oller wittingly represented a racial cross-section of Puerto Rican society distinguishable in his time, and to this day. In the painting, some are or can pass as white while others are dark-skinned.36 Seen as a spectrum with Taíno, Spanish, and African influences, all are inside of what could be called a “Puerto Rican” race where skin color and phenotype are undetermined within the spectrum. Indeed, for those of Latinx ethnicity, questions about race are fraught and extremely difficult to answer. Some Oller scholars have 36 These racial categories certainly would not mean the same thing in Oller’s time and in our time. “White” would be much more associated with Spanish heritage, and “dark-skinned” would signify mestizaje and mulatez to varying degrees (from the miscegenation of Taíno, Spanish, and/or African peoples).