Dreamlike reverie through Maria Casares’s voice-over in the 1950 documentary Guernica, directed by Alain Resnais and Robert Hessens

This article analyzes the 1950 documentary Guernica, directed by Alain Resnais and Robert Hessens. Through close reading that integrates film analysis and sound studies, it examines how visual, narrative, and auditory elements combine to construct an impression of reverie and hypnotic absorption in the viewer. Central to this effect is the voice-over performance of actress María Casares, whose delivery of Paul Éluard’s text contributes to transforming the film into a poetic, affective interpretation of historical trauma. Moving beyond an objective account of the Spanish Civil War, the film fuses Picasso’s artworks, Éluard’s poetry, and sound design to construct a mediated memory of the bombing of Guernica. The article argues that the film offers an early instance of what Josep M. Català has termed the ‘oneiric mode’ in documentary, positioning Guernica both in relation to the essay film tradition and as a significant work for sensory and affective approaches to historical representation.