Cinematic Orientalism: Bab el Oued City &amp; The Time that Remains

Volkan Yücel,Ziya Toprak

doi:10.5195/cinej.2017.179

Abstract

This paper focuses on orientalism as a cinematic paradigm in Islamic imagination. We compare two movies, “Bab el Oued City” (1994) and “The Time That Remains” (2009) that present different cases with regard to orientalism, fundamentalism and gender. We identify basic characters, their agency and roles in the whole setting. Our main argument about the movies, though originating from different contexts and historicity, is that they present somewhat conflicting cases with regard to issues we named above.

Highlights

Cinema as such, provides unique spaces of documental materiality that present promises, aspirations, failed hopes, distorted affections, and narratives that bind micro and macro realms of making nations and imagined individuals
By producing a certain antagonism, the movie tries to read the conditions that eventually yield to the civil war
We see the coming of the civil war and conditions that set the social background of the war

Summary

Introduction

Provides unique spaces of documental materiality that present promises, aspirations, failed hopes, distorted affections, and narratives that bind micro and macro realms of making nations and imagined individuals. Bab el Oued City (Merzak Allouche, 1994), and The Time that Remains (Elia Suleiman, 2009), are among the Arab classics that exemplifies these unique, yet contradictory spaces that in the paper we dwell upon. The Time that Remains (Elia Suleiman, 2009) presents quite a different case. We discuss these broader issues in the light of what the movies display. We will conclude our paper with a discussion of the overall failure of the revolution, the place of the film in this broader context and a postscript on the coming of the civil war. Our main argument about the movies, though originating from different contexts and historicity, is that they present somewhat conflicting cases with regarded similar issues

The Context Bab el Oued City

The Characters Bab el Oued City

Conclusion