A Deleuzean Look on Tony Gatlif’s Accented Cinema

Abstract

This study aims to discuss Tony Gatlif's "accented cinema", which deals with the lives of minorities and nomads and the reflexivity brought by these lives in many of his films, in terms of philosophical expansions. The original style which the director build by using cinema’s means about being a Gypsy or from an ethnic minority, while opening the majorities to questioning, it transforms the film watching experience to a specific intellectual adventure. In Gatlif's approach, which includes elements that coincide with Hamid Naficy's definition of "accented cinema", nomadism emerges as a minor element and, nomadic Gypsy communities, inside all the inhabitants of the world, display a minor existence. This philosophical reflexivity in Gatlif’s films, which is similar to Kafka in terms of masterfully presenting words of a minor community, is examined by focusing on, Latcho Drom (1992), Gadjo Dilo (1997), Exils (2004), Transylvania (2006) and Korkoro (2009) films. Questions like revealing reflexivities in terms of director’s accented images and what these elements mean on account of difference and minor cinema debates, form the film analyses’ basic questioning fields and the obtained findings are discussed by taking reference of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s concepts who see cinema as a philosophical perception and thinking activity. In this context, Deleuze and Guattari’s ontology of difference and minor cinema approach are the intellectual background of this study to be made on Gatlif cinema.