Film Theory Research Articles

Filmic Representation of ‘A Community with a Shared Future for Mankind’ in The Wandering Earth Series

Over the past 4 years, The Wandering Earth series has garnered significant acclaim and recognition within the market and film festival circuits. This study examines The Wandering Earth series, including The Wandering Earth and The Wandering Earth II, through the lens of ‘a community with a shared future for mankind’. Utilising qualitative content analysis, it explores the representation of global cooperation in these Chinese science fiction films, transcending conventional Western-centric narratives. The study reveals a unified international community by analysing film narratives, characters and visual symbolism, focusing significantly on China and non-Western countries’ roles in saving humanity. This approach aligns with global governance and post-colonial theories, highlighting the series’ challenge to Western hegemony and its contribution to the discourse on China’s growing cultural industry influence. This research enriches understanding of Chinese cinema’s role in shaping cultural values and international cooperation, emphasising the potential of the science fiction genre to reimagine global dynamics from a non-Western perspective. Its implications extend to enhancing the global understanding of China’s cultural narratives and contribute to the international dialogue on the evolution and influence of Chinese science fiction films.

Decolonizing Forest: The Myth of Panjurli and Guliga in Kantara (2022)

Colonial ideologies reduce nature to a repository of extractable resources and portray the Indigenous communities’ religious understanding of nature as primitive and unscientific. Decolonization foregrounds the silenced Indigenous epistemes that critique exceptional human paradigms of colonial modernity. This paper examines how traditional religious rituals function as a method of decolonization and discusses their exclusion from Western academia. It focuses on Kantara’s cinematic representation of the Indigenous ritual of Bhoota Kola and the worship of forest deities, Panjurli and Guliga, in the coastal areas of southern Karnataka and Kerala. These rituals emphasize the agency of the environment, where the forest, humans, and deities are porous and permeable. This non-anthropocentric understanding of humans questions the dominance of the secular narratives of posthuman theories in Western academia. Rituals foster ecological behaviours and highlight multispecies relationality, providing alternatives for sustainable futures. In emphasizing Indigenous religious practices, the paper undisciplines the Eurocentric study of religion and questions the disciplinary boundaries between scientific thought and Indigenous knowledge. Thus, this paper argues for the inclusion of regional cinemas from the Global South in Western academia to foreground Indigenous epistemes that undiscipline the study of religion and science.

A Rootless Duckweed-Inspired Flexible Artificial Leaf from Plasmonic Photocatalysts.

The naturally existing leaves are ubiquitous two-dimensional flexible solar-to-chemical conversion systems that can run continuously in a sustainable manner. However, the current artificial photocatalytic systems are unable to achieve this due to the grand challenge in integrating existing photocatalysts in a flexible layout with high conversion efficiency and the ability to function independently. Here, we report on a rootless duckweed-inspired artificial leaf based on a lightweight, flexible, Janus plasmonic nanosheet-integrated sponge. The Janus plasmonic catalytically active nanosheet was made from self-assembled gold nanocube nanoassemblies grown on the porous sponges, which were further coated with an ultrathin palladium layer on one side via a ligand symmetry-breaking method. This sponge-based photocatalytic system is lightweight yet able to float on a water surface and conducts the gas-liquid reaction without auxiliary pumping and mixing devices. In a model reaction of 4-nitrophenol reduction, this floating leaf could achieve 2.5-fold and 65-fold higher efficiency than the corresponding dispersion and precipitation systems, respectively. The film theory is used to explain the sponge-based lightweight solar-to-chemical conversion system in a detailed kinetic and thermodynamic analysis, including the reaction rate constant, activation energy, enthalpy, entropy, Gibbs energy, and equilibrium constant.

Disrupting Epistemology and Coalescing Community

Trends in critical disability studies have taken issue with the absence of representations of disability beyond images of heroism or charity cases (Chaturvedi; Ferri; Sherry). In addition, an absence of representation in cinema and literature reinforces an existing bias that individuals with disabilities are uninteresting and have less value than nondisabled people (Beckett et al.; Hodkinson). The article explores the frontier of disability activism on social media as a space where new onto/epistemologies grapple among existing biases of disability. Particularly, the autoethnographic study looks at the experiences of two women, one who has a physical disability and one who has a child with a disability, as disability activists on social media.

Artistic-Stylistic Search for Cinematic Expression and Hybrid Documentary: To the Question of Genealogy of Mockumentary

The purpose of article is to analyse the artistic-stylistic search for cinema expression in connection with the emergence of hybrid documentary as an audio-visual environment and a context for the development of mockumentary. Research methodology is based on the culturological approach that allowed us to expand the context of consideration of the problem genealogy of mockumentary and special-scientific methods of art history. Considering the synthetic nature of the researched phenomenon, the work is comprehensive and interdisciplinary. Without involving knowledge in philosophy, aesthetics, the theory of cinema and television is difficult to understand such multifaceted and complex phenomena, such as hybrid documentary and mockumentary. Scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time, at the level of a single research, attention is focused on the role of artistic-stylistic searches for cinematic expressiveness and hybrid documentary in shaping the context of the formation of mockumentary as a genreform and phenomenon of audio-visual culture in the second half of the XX century. Conclusions. If is proved that they should not exclude the practice of embodying life material in a work of fiction and documentary, which is directly related to the stylistic search for cinematic expressiveness as an important determinant of the genealogy of mockumentary. It is affirmed that the advent of television convinced us that the mobility of the boundaries between the chronicle and the staged aspect is not limited to on-screen synthesis and experiments with form, but also refers to semantic hybridisation, which has led to the formation of various genreforms within television documentaries, such as mockumentaries, documentary drama, or “docudrama”. Genre mutations and convergent processes, which also encompassed hybrid documentaries, eventually led to the expansion of the documentary sphere towards the emergence of mixed forms as hybrids of the fiction, fictional and real spheres, i.e. the transformation of the artistic-aesthetic system of documentary led to the emergence of mockumentary as a fiction film with fictional content in documentary form in the audio-visual culture of the second half of the XX century.

Extract And Reconstruct: Research On the Content Of “Second Creation” Short Videos for Film Promotion

Short videos have surged in popularity, particularly on platforms like Douyin, Kuaishou, WeChat Channel, and Little Red Book in China. These brief yet engaging videos are extensively produced and consumed, making them a potent tool for promoting theatrical films. Among the various types of short videos, second-creation short videos—those that creatively reinterpret or remix original content—are particularly effective in driving platform users to theaters. This research focuses on these second-creation short videos used for film promotion. Through extensive viewing and creating these videos during an internship, the author observed notable deviations in meaning between the original films and their second-creation counterparts. To delve deeper, this study analyzes short videos related to “The Boy and the Heron”. Starting from the unique characteristics of second-creation short videos, the research identifies issues such as the narrowing of meaning that can occur in the adaptation process. By highlighting these problems, the study aims to offer insights into how audiences should interpret short videos in the context of film promotion. Finally, the research proposes recommendations for better alignment between original films and their promotional short videos, ensuring a more accurate representation of the cinematic works.

Film Theory

Abstract This chapter discusses four notable books concerning film theory that were published in 2023 and early 2024. Two of them are translated from languages other than English, and two are wide-ranging edited collections. The chapter is divided into five sections: 1. Nicole Brenez, On the Figure in General and the Body in Particular: Figurative Invention in Cinema, trans. by Ted Fendt; 2. Shiguéhiko Hasumi, Directed by Yasujirō Ozu, trans. by Ryan Cook; 3. Craig Fox and Britt Harrison, eds., Philosophy of Film Without Theory; 4. Julian Hanich and Martin P. Rossouw, eds., What Film Is Good For: On the Values of Spectatorship; and 5. Conclusion.

Backroads into buried pasts: Irish border mobilities and narrative film

ABSTRACT Because of the Irish border’s troubled history and heightened symbolism, filmmakers have since long relied on the border as a setting to thematise issues of national identity, belonging, and trauma. Departing from the concept of border poetics this article takes films featuring the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland as its topic of inquiry. Beyond compiling a border film archive in which all cinematic representation of the Irish border is collected, a close reading is conducted of border mobilities in a sample of 43 narrative fiction films (1937–2021). The article’s textual analysis makes the distinction between three border mobilities (1) border crossing, (2) border inhabiting, and (3) border (re)visiting, to investigate how filmmakers utilise the Irish border for various narrative, formal, and ideological ends. As such, the border’s cinematic legacy can be better understood.

Investigation of the Bending Process and Theory in Free-Boundary Pneumatic Film-Forming for Curved Image Sensors.

To explore the bending process and theory of the free-boundary aerodynamic film forming method for curved detectors, this study integrates practical forming structures with theoretical analysis and establishes a simulation model to investigate stress, strain, and morphological changes during bending. The analysis indicates that the shift from "projection" to "wrapping" in forming theory is due to the release of boundary degrees of freedom. The forming process can be summarized as the mold's arc characteristics, originating from the chip's corners, gradually replacing the chip's rectangular characteristics along the diagonal, resulting in corresponding stress and strain changes. The "wrapping" bending theory of this method has significant advantages over traditional methods and represents a crucial direction for achieving higher curvature in the future. However, this study found that the use of film pressure can only inhibit out-of-plane deformation to a certain extent, and the buckling phenomenon will still occur when the thinner chip is bent. It prevents the use of thinner chips in the thinning-bending method, so avoiding out-of-plane deformation during the molding process is the direction that needs to be broken in the future.

Christian martyrdom and Yusin censorship's conundrum: the 1977 screening suspension of Toward the High Place (1977–1981)

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the unconventional censorship case of Toward the High Place (1977), a religious film that dramatized the life of Reverend Ju Gi-cheol. Despite passing censorship with ease, even selected as a ‘superior film’ by the state, Toward the High Place's screening was delayed multiple times and ultimately prohibited, only to be shown after the collapse of Park Chung Hee regime. Given the Protestant Church's crucial role in the state's diplomatic relations with the United States, the decision to prohibit the film's screening was highly unusual. Through a close reading of the film's censorship file and other archival documents, I reconstruct the various censorship processes that came to constitute the film's visual grammar. As an instance of unofficial censorship, I argue that Toward the High Place demonstrates how censorship practices, socio-political conditions, and the changing status of organized religion influenced cinematic representation, while also revealing the limits of official censorship procedures.

Questions of (un)framedness in the post-cinematic road movie/travelogue

Image of the Road and Virtual Realis (Pruciak 2023) are travelogue video projects selected as a vantage point from which to examine our understanding of image since the disappearance of the frame and collapse of the cinematic form in VR video. Exploring the concept ‘frame’ in dialogue with theories of cinema and VR and an analysis of VR video’s characteristics, we question whether it may effect changes of perception and new understandings of the road as a virtual site/sight explored by travellers. We suggest that VR video’s ‘unframedness’ gives the unlimited freedom that allows a cognitive shift in the experience of non-narrative travelogues. This allows an inherent potential for an experience of transcendence akin to the overview effect. VR video gives spectators the opportunity of making autonomously their own journey and thus encountering new understandings and experiences in the travelogues presented to them.

Malabou, Medicine and Film: Screening Brain Injury, Organ Transplantation and Plasticity in Katell Quillévéré's Heal the Living

This article brings Catherine Malabou's explorations of bodily mutation and metamorphosis at the intersections of philosophy and biomedical science into contact with film. In particular, it explores dialogues between Malabou's work on biomedical understandings of bodily plasticity and filmic representations of medical interventions in the body. This article specifically explores Malabou in relation to Katell Quillévéré's film Heal the Living ( Réparer les vivants, 2016), an adaptation of Maylis de Kerangal's novel The Heart ( Réparer les vivants, 2014). The film tells the story of Simon Limbres, who is taken to a hospital following a road accent and pronounced brain dead. The film then explores how Simon undergoes organ donation, following his organs on their journey to other bodies in need. I argue that Heal the Living allows us to challenge and extend Malabou's central thinking of (neuro)plasticity, precisely by emphasising the plasticity of the body beyond and in the wake of the brain. Further, the film's emphasis on transplantation allows for an exploration of interpersonal plasticity, developing an ethics of transplanted plasticity in testing and extending conceptions of otherness and alterity central to Malabou's thinking.

The Social Cults of Cinematic Gendered Violence: A Challenge and Transformation

The modern female rape–revenge cinema polarizes gender relations as it endorses a misandrist logic and brutal forms of reprisal. Wilson Harris, the British/Guyanese fiction writer and theorist, argues that these hypnotic forms of female-revenge media are social cults of violence that generate a conflict of gender. Using the film, I Spit on your Grave and Rihanna’s music video Man Down, this research demonstrates that the female-revenge mediascape is prime corollary to the promotion of misandry and violent vigilante justice. The film theories of Claire Henry, Hilary Neroni, and Jean Baudrillard will undergird the arguments of this research. The research methodology for this study employs a narrative analysis intersected with the lens of Wilson Harris’s shamanistic ontology of gender. The findings of this paper reveal that a shamanic vision of gender could therapeutically convert the psychical imprisonment of cinematic rape-revenge violence.

Derivative Desires and Plastic Pedagogies: Malabou, Psychoanalysis and The Big Short

This article explores Catherine Malabou’s philosophical foray into neuroscience, especially her continuing work on the topics of brain plasticity and epigenesis. I lay the groundwork for a productive intersection of Malabou’s philosophy with Lacanian psychoanalytic film theory, despite Malabou’s tendency to treat the brain’s plasticity as an issue beyond the scope of the Freudian-Lacanian conception of the unconscious. Through consideration of Todd McGowan’s development of a Lacanian ontology, and by reference to the structure of derivative finance in late capitalism, especially as depicted in The Big Short (Adam McKay, 2015), the article argues in favor of an epigenesis of desire, in which attentiveness to the sedimented layers and conflicted temporalities of the brain’s synaptic connections may prove illuminating for philosophical studies of films that adopt a pedagogical stance toward recent historical or political events.

The Female Body and the Body Politic in Sex Scenes of Lou Ye’s Film: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of <i>Summer Palace</i>

This article discusses the body politic of Yu Hong in the postsocialist Chinese film–Summer Palace (2006). Director Lou Ye places Yu Hong’s body in the sex scenes that metaphorically expresses a traumatic and sensitive political event, the “June Fourth Incident.” The portrayal of sexual intercourse, nudity, and this historical event is the unspeakable “secret” in mainland Chinese media. Therefore, the authors raise the question that, when sexual intercourse and the female body enter political discourse, how do we deal with the complex and dynamic power structures behind bodily attributes and the “anachronistic” historical objects that do not fit into the mainstream narrative and epistemological spaces? Drawing on body politic theory, feminist film theory, and a semiotic framework, we adopt multimodal critical discourse analysis to assess power relations and ideologies behind Yu’s body attributes in the sex scenes. The findings indicate that Lou constructs a complex communication system, using her body as a carrier of communication to express self-consciousness, constructing female subjectivity through the writing of feminine discourse, with the political purpose of seeking the freedom of the written word. Sexual liberation is sought by establishing a transgressive body that is not accepted by the mainstream and opposes the inherent power of government. Yu’s bodily pleasure is set up as an expression of narcissistic individualism through love, producing a vision of political ecstasy. Her melancholy body metaphor for the discomfort and confusion that preceded the student movement and the post-traumatic ambivalence. Using the female body as a site of political discourse and sexual liberation offers a new reading strategy for analysing the representation of the female body in film and other forms of media. In making the argument, the study contributes valuable scholarship to the film studies focused on sexual, gender, and political marginalised discourse.

Instinct(ive) senses: the haptic experience of feminist postpornography

ABSTRACT Is feminist postpornography a medium through which it might be possible to experience porn not only from a voyeuristic perspective? Can feminist postpornography provide a deeper sensorial experience? Through the feminist close-reading analysis of one short film, Instinct (2019), directed by Marit Östberg, Adrienne Teicher, Ester Martin Bergsmark and Mad Kate, from the Swedish feminist porn collection Dirty Diaries (2019), this article demonstrates how this kind of approach to pornography can awake senses and lead the spectators to experience porn at a deeper level stimulating an engaged spectatorship. Spectators are active agents in the construction of meaning and value of the artistic product, going beyond the mere passive role of recipient of information. The analysis employs mainly Laura Marks’s concepts of “haptic visuality” and “haptic hearing,” as well as Irina Leimbacher’s “haptic listening,” together with key insights of feminist film theory.

The more, the better: queer urban spatialities of Seoul in three films

ABSTRACT Queer space in South Korea’s primate city Seoul has historically remained excluded or invisible across multiple temporalities: in official histories and accounts of the past, in present urban life, and in planning for the future. This is especially noticeable in the municipal government’s numerous revitalization plans which focus on known ‘gayborhoods’ such as Jongno 3-ga. This article identifies and analyzes the structure of differing queer spatialities present in Seoul through close reading and examination of three films: the auteur produced A Cheonggyecheon Dog (2008), the realist documentary Miracle on Jongno Street (2010), and the archival art film Dadaikseon (2018). In these filmic representations, we observe multiple spatialities in Seoul that reflect the precarity and isolation faced by queer individuals in processes of urban redevelopment, the Janus-faced nature of urban space during the night versus the day which can allow or inhibit queer collectivity, and the dynamic erasure of urban spaces which fall outside of hegemonic norms in the face of urban change and gentrification. In the face of the homogenization of Seoul’s urban space, we argue that the identification of a multiplicity of queer spatialities opens up possibility and alternatives to dominant processes and patterns of urbanization, modernization and homogenization – that is, the more non-normative spatialities, the better.

‘Slow Time Like the Present’

Abstract Romanian New Wave cinema (rnw) has been recognised as a medium that addressed the way people felt about their historical trauma, a vernacular insertion nuancing declarations that Nicolae Ceausescu was a ‘megalomaniacal dictator’, and a means to attract and negotiate international interest in the country’s culture. rnw was a subversive and self-conscious commentary on the experience of transition from communism to capitalism as much as aesthetic entertainment. This article argues that rnw was critical of the idea of a transformative watershed – predominant in conceptions of 1989 across the Euro-Atlantic space – and qualifications of the teleological imaginary that encompassed it. Drawing on film theory, as well as the tension between collective and individual memory, the author argues that rnw was a self-conscious and creative effort at commemorating a past, contributing to a more democratic debate about the ways in which recent history bears upon the present.

Cinematic Desire and Fantasy in Adolfo Bioy Casares’ La Invención De Morel (1940)

This paper aims to analyze the relationship between the concepts of desire and fantasy, as understood by Lacanian theory, and their manifestation in cinema. In order to do so, it explores and discusses cinema’s influence over literature, focusing on how this relationship is reflected in the novel La Invención de Morel ([1940] 1953), written by Argentinian author Adolfo Bioy Casares. The analysis employs scholarship from film critics McGowan (2007), Metz (1982), Zizek (1989, 2006), Mulvey (1975, 1989), and others through the lens of Psychoanalytic Film Theory.

Unveiling The Corporeal: The Female Body, Subjectivity and Politics of Visibility in Maryam Touzani’s Film Adam

Throughout the history of cinema, the female body has often been a scopic site of pleasure and subjugation. Female filmmakers have long sought to refute the sexist scrutiny of women onscreen and work for healthier cinematic representations of the female body. This article aims to cast light on the different textual and visual tactics and aesthetics employed by the transnational Moroccan filmmaker Mariam Touzani in her film Adam (2020) to de-romanticize women and deconstruct the conventional cinematic framework where the female body is restrained to adhere to the patriarchal ideologies. The female protagonists Samia and Abla reflect the determination of the filmmaker Mariam Touzani to provide an understanding of the female body as an organism full of life, emotions, and agency, rather than an erotic, static icon. In analysing the film, the article embraces a feminist discourse to highlight the multifaceted dimensions of womanhood and contemplate the complexities surrounding the female body. Adam is a feminist firebrand against the alienating conditions of women and the objectification of the female body.