Pluralism and cultural imperialism in the network films Babel and Lantana

Abstract

The multinational film Babel (2006) and the Australian film Lantana (2001) dwell on controversies surrounding international and multicultural relationships. They belong to a genre termed network cinema, which focuses on social problems and responds to the paradigm of network society. Babel and Lantana aim to represent cultural pluralism, yet their narrative politics compromise this aim. Although they seek to decolonize the marginalized and give equal voice to broad cross sections of society, these two films rely on narrative tactics which colonize, stereotype and essentialize cultural others. This paper argues that the ways in which the two texts reterritorialize multicultural and gendered relationships undermine their thematic concern with the need for cross cultural understanding and trust. In many ways these narrative tactics align with those popular in Hollywood films, which challenges the notion that world cinema consists of oppositional film industries. Nevertheless, the production and distribution of these two films reveal concretely asymmetrical power relationships. These findings suggest that the common notion of a clear divide between Hollywood and national art cinemas (implicit in the term “world cinema”) requires revision.