Cinematic Space Research Articles

On the Limits of Islamic Cinema: The Politics of Halal Cinema Discourse in Kerala, India

Some of the most crucial debates surrounding Islamic legitimacy and cinema rotate around the question of the permissible ( ḥalāl) and prohibited ( ḥarām) in Islamic law and how these function for Muslim theology and politics. Emerging from these debates, halal cinema has been one of the recent critical interventions in the field of Indian and Islamic cinema. Rather than making cinema Islamic from an ideological position, the new halal experiments with the visual language of cinema without compromising the popular dimensions of its viewership. This article looks at the politics of halal cinema within the context of the state of Kerala in South India and argues that the space of halal cinema shows the aspirations and negotiations of the Muslim community in Kerala. Halal cinema thus becomes an immanent critique of Islamic cinema by destabilizing the dominant practice that connects the relationship between Islam and cinema.

Cinematic Space and Time in the Huayan jing/Hwaŏm kyŏng

Cinematic Space and Time in the Huayan jing/Hwaŏm kyŏng

Reimagining Scholars and Eunuchs: Nationalism, Masculinities, and Historicism in King Hu’s Martial Arts Films

ABSTRACT The historicist and cultural-essentialist filmmaker King Hu set most of his martial arts films in the Ming dynasty, a turbulent but legendary period in Chinese history. This article examines two archetypes in Hu’s films, namely the righteous Confucian scholar-xia and the politically powerful eunuch, who engage in contestations of masculinity within ideal cinematic spaces (jianghu, milieu). These settings and character designs profoundly influenced the martial arts genre. Hu’s cinematography embodied a field for negotiating Chinese masculinities that deviate somewhat from Euro-American theorising about gender binarism and masculinity. By tracing the historical and cultural origins of the scholar and eunuch archetypes, and scrutinising their cultural identities, power structures, gender negotiations, and distinctive notions of nationhood, this article illustrates that Hu’s works parodied and critiqued the problematic authoritarianism of the James Bond film series, despite the prevalence of Bond-esque Western ‘heroes’ in Hong Kong popular culture during the Cold War. He idealised the politically marginalised scholars, critically appraised the hegemonic and transgender eunuchs, and constructed unconventional and resolute swordswomen, and thereby re-articulated the gender and power systems of wen and wu, yin and yang, to revive Chinese cultural traditions and allegorise the sociopolitical landscape.

At the Intersection of Cinema and Architecture: An Exploration of How Architectural Space Design Transforms into a Subject of Resistance in the Film 'Leyla's Brothers'

The use of space holds a distinctive place in cinematic narrative, as spaces created primarily in adherence to the story are also intertwined with the ideological stance within the narrative. Transforming a place into a space is possible through communication established with that place, and a location initially planned as four walls becomes a space through interaction with individuals. In cinema, space is a distinctive area where the story unfolds, and the narrative is directly shared with the audience. Thus, the ideological nature of space within the context of the story also finds its place in the cinematic narrative. The relationship between cinema and space signifies the combination of visual and spatial elements in the art of cinema, conveying a specific atmosphere, emotion, or meaning on the aesthetic plane to the audience. This relationship involves the ability of filmmakers, producers, and cinematographers to offer a certain experience to the audience by selecting specific locations, while also reflecting the director's subjective perspective in the film, taking the audience on a journey. Architectural design of spaces not only advance the flow of the story and lead the character development but also manage conflict areas. A specific location can alter the dynamics of relationships between characters. The film "Leyla's Brothers" (2022), directed by the Iranian filmmaker Saeed Roustaee, serves as a symbolic example of the strong structure of cinema by attempting to convey inter-sibling conflicts to the audience in ideological, cultural, and societal terms. It also emphasizes the significant role of architecturally designed cinematic spaces in conveying these nuances. In this context, the study attempts to discuss the film "Leyla's Brothers" within the framework of Henri Lefebvre's spatial theory, providing a comprehensive perspective that goes beyond the physical environment to understand social relationships, power dynamics, and cultural structures. Lefebvre regards space not only as a physical area but also as a social, cultural, and political phenomenon. His space theory argues for the understanding of space in conjunction with social relations. The analysis aims to explore the film within the power of cinema to reflect social dynamics and cultural elements, considering the societal dynamics of Iran.

Filmic space

The projects collected here under the banner of Filmic Space are seen as an extension of the ideas brought to light in the publication Interior Cities. Interior Cities represents the outcomes of the last seven years of the program grouped within specific conceptual concerns. The book chronicles ideas of spatial perception, sensing space, elemental space, contextual space, cross cultural space, space of the imagination, incisions into the metropolis and virtual space.

Inventory of cinematic spaces. A fictional library

Inventory of cinematic spaces. A fictional library

Aesthetics of Color in Afghan cinema

In the world of existence, everything takes its existence to be visible from the light. Light gives color and beauty to objects and creatures. Color gives them an expressive profile. When objects have color, they are seen better and the audience is more attracted to them. In many cases, manufacturers use colors to attract their buyers so that they can attract them to that product.This issue also exists in the cinema. Since the beginning of the cinema until today, all filmmakers have been trying to create a dream space for their audience so that they can convey their desired message to the audience in that space. Therefore, in different eras, new technologies entered the visual space of cinema. Color was one of the effects that entered the silver screen and changed the world of cinema. Color is like spice in food. Just as spice gives food lust, color gives soul and feeling to the image. Today, many filmmakers, apart from feeling and attractiveness, give meaning to the image through color. Because the image is a visual medium, the filmmaker can use the psychological states of colors to induce certain feelings of the scene and story to his audience.In the western world, the use of color and sense of color in the scene has become a common category and all filmmakers use it well, but this case has not grown much in the cinema of Central Asia, especially in the Middle East countries. In countries like Iran and Afghanistan, they cannot use color properly because many filmmakers in these countries do not know color properly, and this lack of knowledge about color in many cases makes them unable to use color correctly and have amazing effects. have it on the audience and convey the message to the audience.In many Central Asian films, the absence of color psychology in the films is clearly understandable. Few filmmakers like Asghar Farhadi in Iran try to use color correctly. But in Afghanistan, it can be said that there is no filmmaking that can use color in the right way. But in Indian cinema, they use color in an exaggerated manner, of course, it should be said that part of this exaggeration is due to the type of Indian culture that they are more interested in happy colors and in their country they have a special festival called the festival of colors. But in European and American cinema, color is used to convey the feeling of the scene and story. For example, in the movie Avatar, blue color can be seen in most of the film space. And it evokes a special feeling towards the scenes of the movie, or like Stanley Kubrick who uses colors with a very special skill in the movie «Eyes Completely Closed».Such scientific and meaningful uses are not seen in any of the Middle East films, especially in Iran and Afghanistan. In many cases, it can be attributed to the low level of study and understanding of color and the scientific concepts of color in cinema by Afghan filmmakers.

Relocating Subjectivities: An Inquiry into the Filmic Space of Moving On (2019)

Relocating Subjectivities: An Inquiry into the Filmic Space of Moving On (2019)

Values and symbolization of success in modern cinema

The subject of the study is the figurative and symbolic reflection and transformation of the dynamic reality of life in the cinematic space of modern culture. The purpose of the work is to identify and substantiate trends in the development of cinematographic cultural texts based on the figurative and symbolic representation of the phenomenon of success in the existential space of human existence. The scientific novelty of the work is represented by the evidence base of the study, which determines the figurative correspondence of the philosophical and sociological representation of cinematic texts to the phenomenon of success as a value-symbolic aspect of personal activity. Based on the analysis of cinema screen products created at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries and devoted to the characterization of the image of a subject whose existential level of being is characterized in the symbols of success/ failure, several trends in the development of cinematic culture can be identified. Firstly, the characteristic of the "sunset" of the previously dominant ideological trend of symbolization of the actual phenomenology of success. Secondly, the stage of axiological instability and ambivalence in the evaluation of the symbols of success, unevenly implemented in the scenario and staging part. And, thirdly, the formation and consolidation of new cinematic paradigms through the constant convergence of private symbols of success, manifested in different ways both in reality and on the cinema screen, and accompanied by constant attempts at their non-contextual universalization.

Feasting on the land: Haunted political space in recent Welsh language films

This article will focus on spectrality in the cinematic spaces of two Welsh language films, Yr Ymadawiad (The Passing) (2015) and Gwledd (The Feast) (2021). Both films envision spectral happenings as a means of exploring and re-exploring past and present debates about the endlessly contested nature of the Welsh landscape and the resulting hauntological traces within the national psyche. The films suggest contradictory versions of the Welsh landscape. Often described as empty and barren, Wales has simultaneously been seen as a rich resource for extensive extraction of its natural resources. With located hauntings by ghosts that are specific and placed, Yr Ymadawiad’s temporal indeterminacy imagines ghostly presences beneath the waters of a drowned village, while Gwledd depicts the horrific revenge of an earth at the mercy of humans, characterizing human use of rural space as monstrous and destructive. Both films are highly located and rooted within specific Welsh landscapes, depicting both the uniqueness of the Welsh experience and its intimate connection with global issues relating to the loss of land.

On the Anarchic Organization of Cinematic Spaces

On the Anarchic Organization of Cinematic Spaces

Percepts, affects, clinamen: Alienation and entanglement in What Time Is It There? (2001)

This article takes as its starting point an uncanny dialectics of alienation, desire and connection that permeates Tsai Ming-liang’s oeuvre. Through approaching the non-intersecting parallel narratives in What Time Is It There? (2001) with the Epicurean and Lucretian notion of clinamen and the Deleuzian concepts of any-space-whatevers, percepts and affects, this article explores the relation between non-intersecting parallel spaces and times and a liminal, spectral cinematic space and time that is created by moving images themselves, which makes the dialectics of alienation and connection possible. This article argues that What Time involves Tsai’s meta-cinematic approach to cinema’s potentiality that enables both characters and spectators to engage directly with moving images and reimagine the world through its spectrality and non-human perception.

Ways of depicting speech deficits in the cinematic space: selected examples

The article discusses an important social aspect concerning speech disorders, also in people with disabilities, and the methods of their presentation in the film space. The main aim of the article is the way of presenting dysfunctions in the field of communication in a cinematic work. Other tasks of the article include attempts to answer the following questions: “does the environment influence the development of communication skills of people with disabilities?”, “how does the film show the relationships of people with speech disorders and disabilities in contacts with loved ones?”, and to “what extent is the film image consistent with the scientific description of a given disorder?”. The analytical chapters in the article are devoted to three disorders and selected feature films in which the actors present the language and communication skills of film characters struggling with speech disfluency, hearing dysfunction and cerebral palsy.

Space and Time in African Cinema and Cine-scapes, Kenneth W. Harrow (2022)

Review of: Space and Time in African Cinema and Cine-scapes, Kenneth W. Harrow (2022) New York and London: Routledge, 238 pp., ISBN 978-1-00328-889-3, e-book, $35.09

Space and Time in African Cinema and Cine-Scapes

Space and Time in African Cinema and Cine-Scapes

The Monstrous Mark of Cinema: Mulholland Drive, Spherology, and the “Virtual Space” of Filmic Fiction

This article interprets David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (2001) to argue for the morphological influence cinematic images have on modernity's monstrous identity. It shows how Lynch's tactic of interweaving apparently discrete spaces of dream and reality – one often inverting or uncannily ironising the other – relies on the virtual space of cinema, which leaves a mark on understanding, irrespective of its apparent truth. To do so, I employ Peter Sloterdijk's philosophy of space – especially the spherology developed in his Spheres trilogy – and Bernard Stiegler's approach to cinematic phenomenology to consider the transferential force of cinema, and its power to cultivate and shape popular consciousness. Mulholland Drive is acutely aware of this force, and its interplay with the expectations and disappointments of Hollywood monstrosity inserts itself into the sphere-forming traffic of modern meaning-making. In doing so, I argue, the film takes up Lynch's familiar approach to irony and the weird to unwind the destructive uniformity of Hollywood hegemony. The productive bifurcations that result, inscribed in between cinema and consciousness, and forgettable as the very spheric intimacy of memory, gesture to what might live beyond discrete forms.

Order in Andrzej Żuławski’s Chaotic Possession: Insurmountable Divisions

Polish filmmaker Andrzej Żuławski made Possession (1981) after his self-exile in France and the great success of The Most Important Thing: Love (L'important c'est d'aimer, 1975). Set in West Berlin, Possession explores Anna and Mark’s marriage dissolution into chaos, and, in that sense, it is a domestic drama, full of political connotations implanted by the constant depiction of the Wall. However, due to its puzzling story that includes violent fights, unexpected killings, inexplicable doppelgängers, hysterical performances, and a notorious miscarriage scene in a subway station, somehow explaining the presence of the film’s polymorphic monster, Possession is often limited to the genre of horror, and its complexity is overlooked. Indeed, the state of Possession is pandemonium, and Żuławski’s anarchic artistic mentality, attracted by a turbulent directorial approach, only intensifies the sense of disintegration, despair, and horror in the film. But chaos only rules in a well-designed form, as little seems incidental in Żuławski’s compositions. Taking a closer look, one can observe a solid geometry that divides the cinematic space while imprisoning the protagonists into two separate worlds that do not communicate. Division, therefore, becomes a kind of ‘leitmotif’ in Possession, present in Anna and Mark’s alienated relationship, in the characters’ contrast between themselves and their doppelgängers and, finally, in the partitioning of Berlin.

Liquidity and Stillness: The Sea and Shore and the Furo in Kore-eda Hirokazu’s Cinema

This paper focuses on two recurring cinematic spaces of water: the sea and shore and the furo (Japanese bathroom) in the films of the contemporary Japanese auteur Kore-eda Hirokazu. 1 To develop a somatechnical perspective to address the dynamics between water, bodies and technologies, I deploy the notion of ‘the domestication of water’ ( Macauley 2005 ), denoting the process of how humans make a constant effort to maintain water in a state between liquidity and stillness. This lived interaction between humans and water can illuminate the leitmotif of kinship through the two cinematic spaces. In so doing, I firstly focus on the final shots of the sea and shore from Maborosi (1995) and Our Little Sister (2015). The mise-en-scène of the sea and the shore can create a vision of stillness on the surface but also a sense of liquidity underneath, illustrating that kinship is an ongoing process which can never be shaped but is constantly being re-shaped. Following the flow of water, I then observe the space of the furo in Still Walking (2008) and Like Father, Like Son (2013). By examining two bath routines, co-bathing with children and bathing-in-turn, I argue that the water in furo is by no means in a still state but rather is always circulating between different bodies. The circulation can not only help nurture the parent-child intimacy through co-bathing, but it also enables a theatrical stage on which to convey conflicts of kinship via bathing-in-turn. In conclusion, by further linking the representation of water and kinship in Kore-eda’s cinema, I propose the idea of liquid kinship: a lived process of making rather than a static state of being. The domestication of water between stillness and liquidity epitomises this liquid form of kinship.

Creativity as the driving force of screen adaptations (based on the “Lost Symbol”)

The article deals with the creative aspect of screen adaptations as a form of intersemiotic translation. It considers the film-makers’ creativity as a tool employed to ensure commercial appeal of the target media product while following the conventions of meaning-making in the multimodal space of cinema and preserving social and cultural features of the source. Adapters are not bound by the equivalence criterion to the same extent literary translators are. However, the choice of the work of literature is never made at random, it is determined by the value of the source text for the target audience. Consequently, its reinterpretation shall meet the expectations of those familiar with the original but also respect the affordances in force in a medium where the visual aspect prevails over language. The current paper studies the screen adaptation of “The Lost Symbol” by Dan Brown, a novel filled with mystery but also focused on the broad historical and cultural perspective on the facts and myths surrounding the Order of Masons. The film-makers choose to emphasize the quest-like nature of the narrative by increasing the number of riddles in the spirit of Freemasonry in order to reinforce suspense. Their characters also evolve in terms of personalities they endowed with. Their feelings and emotions in the novel are solely restricted to what is required in order to pursue the search. The actors’ play, however, cannot be as simple as that which urges film-makers to elaborate on every facet of their individuality. A complex mixture of fear, love, curiosity, regret, inspiration and much more become the driving force of the story. Meanwhile, the ancient wisdom they seek is no longer reserved for a limited circle of the enlightened but for anyone able to see through the symbols.

‘Take the longest way to cross the street’: mobile women in Wong Kar-wai’s films

As an acclaimed Hong Kong director, Wong Kar-wai has created numerous figures of mobile women, such as the martial artist in The Grandmaster (2013) and the lone traveler in My Blueberry Nights (2007). However, the issues pertinent to women in his films are often overlooked. In recent decades, feminists have examined women’s mobility as a challenge to the gendered spatial division between public and private spaces. In society, popular media is powerful in constructing the notion of space, while cinema can question the fixed ideas of gendered space. However, feminist work in media geography is still relatively rare. By subverting the conventional elements of various genres, Wong repositions women in cinematic space and reflects the global trend of women’s mobility. Wong’s films demonstrate the geographical power of cinema by deploying the transnational elements of Hong Kong and Hollywood genres to negotiate the meanings of gendered space. By revealing the cultural significance of Wong’s works in relation to gender and space, this article argues that the studies of genres and their variations are crucial at the intersection between media geography and feminist geography as an emergent research direction that could broaden the horizons of both fields.