50% found this document useful (2 votes)

2K views203 pages

Shonini Chaudhuri - Contemporary World Cinema Europe, The Middle East, East Asia and South Asia

article by Shonini Chaudhuri

Uploaded by

Mikes Jetigan

We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.

Available Formats

Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

50% found this document useful (2 votes)

2K views203 pages

Shonini Chaudhuri - Contemporary World Cinema Europe, The Middle East, East Asia and South Asia

article by Shonini Chaudhuri

Uploaded by

Mikes Jetigan

We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.

Available Formats

Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

You are on page 1/ 203

Contemporary World Cinema

Europe, The Middle East, East Asia and South Asia

Shohini Chaudhuri

Edinburgh University Press

Shohini Chaudhuri, 2005

Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh
Reprinted 2007 (three times)
Typeset in Monotype Ehrhardt by
Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Manchester and
printed and bound in Great Britain by
Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wilts
A QP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 7486 1798 1 (hardback)
ISBN 0 7486 1799 X (paperback)
The right of Shohini Chaudhuri to be identified as author of this work has been asserted
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Vll

Introduction
1 European Cinema
2 Scandinavian Cinema
3 Middle Eastern Cinema
4 Iranian Cinema
5 East Asian Gnema
6 Hong Kong Cinema
7 South Asian Cinema
8 Indian Cinema

1
14
34
54
71
93
115
137
156

Bibliography
Index

175
187

Acknowledgements

I am enormously grateful to those who read chapter drafts: Margherita

Sprio, Julian Stringer, Asuman Suner, John Haynes, Erna von der Walde,
I-Fen Wu, Takaharu Saito, Howard Finn, Joseph Allard, Oradol Panbhat,
Eunju Hwang, Rita Lampen, Frida Wigstrom, Sam Hellberg, Matt
Prodger and Amal Chaudhuri. Many others offered help, support or advice
at other stages - in particular, Tony Mitchell, Lance Rickman, Jon
Cheetham, Christelle Bossard and Hamish Ford. I owe special thanks to
John Cant, who stepped in to teach at a difficult time, and to my students.
I would also like to thank the British Film Institute library staff, who were
always very helpful.
The University of Essex enabled my research by granting me two terms
of study leave, one of which was supported by the University Research
Promotion Fund. The University of Technology, Sydney, offered me a
Visiting Fellowship during the other study leave.
Oliver Craske read all my drafts and was incredibly supportive, even
while writing his own book. He knows how challenging it has been for me
to complete this work - and I don't think I would have been able to do it
without him.

Introduction

At the 1998 Academy Awards ceremony, James Cameron declared that he

was 'king of the world'. His film Titanic, at $200 million the most expen
sive of its time, not only surpassed US box-office records but more
than doubled its receipts abroad, becoming a mammoth hit even in post1
socialist territories such as China. Superlative (like the ship itself) in size,
expense and impact, the movie quickly became a symbol for Hollywood's
ascendancy as global entertainment. Yet, in Japan, the animation film
Spirited Away (2001) snatched Titanic** record for highest-grossing film.
In Sweden, Norway and Finland, the SwedishfilmShow Me Love (1998)
outdid Titanicy as did Shiri (1999) in South Korea. Meanwhile in India, the
world's most prolific feature-film-producing nation, Titanic made only a
2
'disappointing splash . . . before sinking without a trace'.
One major motivation for writing this book is to convey that Hollywood
i
is not the only form of global entertainment. World cinema' is a term which
has gained currency in recent years although its usage and meaning is far
from settled. It is sometimes deployed as a catch-all term, designating all
cinemas around the world, including Hollywood. This book, however,
adopts it in a more specific sense, not only to refer to national cinemas
outside Hollywood - another common use of the name - but also to assert
the importance of placing the national within regional and global perspec
tives. In an age where film practices and film audiences are increasingly
globalised, 'world cinema' raises a distinct set of problems* and issues and
invites a different critical approach from national cinema studies - although
there are many overlaps between the two. This often produces tensions
between cinemas, as some are more internationally formed than others.
This book focuses on feature-filmmaking in Europe, the Middle East,
East Asia and South Asia since the start of the 1990s. Its aim is not to rep
resent all cinemas in these regions, but to make thefieldmore approach
able to students through (1) overviews of regional aesthetic styles and
modes of production and (2) case studies of particular nations, showing
how they inflect regional patterns, with close analysis offilmschosen either
for their high local impact or for their international resonance. This will, it
is hoped, provide an introduction to the variety of world cinema and inspire

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

readers to consider further works by specialists who cover these areas in

more detail. The chapters can be read separately by readers interested in a
particular national or regional cinema, but they have also been written to
offer comparisons between regions and to enable readers to transfer ideas
developed in one region to the themes and practices of another.
In order to look at cinema in a regional context, chapters outline shared
features (socio-historic, geographic, religious, linguistic) in their territories'
backgrounds, enabling insights into a given region's shared cultural sphere.
However, the book also recognises that geographical location does not necessarily confer affinity, and emphasises diversity as well as unity. Each
chapter traces major industrial and aesthetic trends, focusing on significant
genres or leading figures and filmmaking movements. Due to its economic
and culturally dominant position, Hollywood has defined the choices available to other cinemas, which have frequently reshaped or countered its
models. Aesthetic and industrial comparisons with Hollywood form one
linking thread between the chapters, yet these cinemas have also developed
in relation to each other, making Hollywood only one node (albeit a formidable one) in a global network of cross-cultural influences.
The rest of thisSntroduction looks at some of the broader frameworks
of world cinema, making a case for the usefulness of this term for Film
Studies. Film now belongs to an enormous multinational system consisting of TV networks, new technologies of production and distribution, and
international co-productions. It is no longer a separate art but part of the
digital convergence with other media. Through these transnational processes of film production, financing and distribution, it increasingly makes
sense to think in terms of 'world cinema'.
Film Production and Distribution
According to Benedict Anderson, a nation is an imagined community:
although members of a nation do not know most of their fellow members,
3
they carry an image of their communion' in their minds. Other writers
have since emphasised that a nation is a created artefact, an imaginary
ideal, underneath which there are disparate, conflicting interests and
groups, and that this is becoming more obvious in the era of globalisation
4
and the transnational. Most of today's national populations are more
heterogeneous than previously - although not all, as the age of globalisation has also witnessed the rise of sub-nationalisms and the break-up of
multi-ethnic states (as in Yugoslavia; see Chapter 1).
Recent national cinema studies emphasise that national identity is not a
fixed and unchanging 'essence' but is actively constructed in films, which

INTRODUCTION

project national imaginaries, creating imaginary bonds holding the nation

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

The music video has been called 'the postmodern turn' in television, and
the twenty-four-hour all-music cable channel MTV is a prime example of
35
postmodern TV. Now in common usage, the term 'MTV aesthetic' refers
to the stylistic conventions of music video, where editing follows the tempo
of popular music. 'Synaesthesia' or 'cross-sensual communication' is its
36
perceptual basis: MTV presents 'the look of sound'. In a music video,
segments of visuals from other contexts are rearticulated and recombined,
condensed in the video in the form of pastiche and palimpsest - part of
what makes it postmodern. Disruption and speed are basic to MTV's
sensual impact; its quick-cut style broke with the norms of classical
Hollywood narrative and television realism, but is now integral to postclassical Hollywood, TV and advertising. Targeted at the youth market,
MTV is all about embodying attitude, tying an appeal to young people's
identification with rock musicians and subcultures with the capitalist
37
ideology of conspicuous consumption. The MTV aesthetic is an influen
tial postmodern aesthetic for many cinemas considered in this book.
Post-colonial theory helps to locate these issues in a global perspective
which is not confined to Western perspectives, as discourses of postmod
ernism so often are. In parts of the world where societal modernisation has
been late and ultra-rapid, modernity and postmodernity have unfolded
more or less simultaneously. Modernity, broadly speaking, implies a break
with tradition (namely feudalism). In Europe, the epoch of modernity
stretches from the advent of capitalism in the sixteenth century to the nine
teenth and twentieth centuries when modernising trends were intensified
by industrialisation, urbanisation, mass communications, political mass
movements and the rise of nation-states. Arising in the West under specific
socio-historical circumstances, modernity has spread slowly to different
parts of the world, 'awakened by contact; transported through commerce;
administered by empires, bearing colonial inscriptions; propelled by
nationalism; and now increasingly steered by global media, migration, and
38
capital'. Now modernity no longer solely emanates from the West, but it
does not unfurl in the same way in all places, producing multiple, hybrid,
39
alternative modernities.
Post-colonial theory looks at the after-effects of the age of empires as
well as the ways in which those power relations have not been fully tran
scended. Its inaugural text is Edward Said's Orientalism^ which analyses
colonial discourse, revealing how the West projects its own fantasies onto
the Orient, construing it as a dangerous, backward place, full of unbridled
40
sensuality, exoticism and inscrutable mystery. By 'othering' colonial sub
jects as ignorant, sinister or savage, the West legitimates its own claim
to superiority. Colonialism defamed indigenous culture and exalted

INTRODUCTION

European culture. Eurocentrism - the belief that Europe is the centre of

the world and that European culture is superior to other cultures - is therefore a key element of Orientalism. Language can betray Eurocentric positioning - for example, in terms such as the 'Middle East', which is only
'east' in relation to Europe. In India, the government and media refer to
this region as 'West Asia', and geographers elsewhere have tried to intro
duce the term 'South-West Asia* (both of these, however, exclude North
Africa). 'World cinema' looks at cinema from a non-Eurocentric perspec
tive, although the term 'Middle East' has been retained in this book in the
absence of satisfactory alternatives (this issue is discussed further in
Chapter 3).
Some post-colonial critics have questioned the validity of applying
Western discourses such as Marxism, psychoanalysis and feminism to
non-Western contexts, stating that these discourses are Eurocentric.
However, the influence of these discourses extends beyond the West, so
there are good reasons for adapting them to transcultural perspectives.
They have been contrasted with Third Cinema theory, 'the only major
branch of film theory that did not originate within a specifically Euro41
American context'. The concept of Third Cinema arose amid a revolu
tionary call to arms against social inequalities and neocolonial exploitation
in Latin America, North Africa and South Asia. In their manifesto
'Towards a Third Cinema', Argentinian film directors Fernando Solanas
and Octavio Getino differentiate between First Cinema (commercial,
studio-based cinema on the Hollywood model), Second Cinema (Euro
pean art cinema and the cinema of auteurs) and Third Cinema (cinema of
42
militant collectives). Here, Third Cinema refers to Third Worldfilmpro
duction, but not all Third Worldfilms;for example, Bollywood and India's
other popular cinemas fall into the category of First Cinema. Third
Gnema is ideologically opposed to thefilmmakingpractices of both First
and Second Cinema. Political issues as well as issues relating to the cine
matic medium itself are paramount. Films about revolutionary anti-colo
nial struggle such as The Battle of Algiers (1965) exemplify the early
definition of Third Cinema.
Recent Third Cinema theorists have grappled with the problematic dis
43
tinctions of the original three-cinema model. The concept of Third
Cinema now generally includes non-Third World films and today's diasporic cinemas such as Black British Cinema (see Chapter 1). Despite the
demise of the politicised cinemas of the 1960s and 1970s, the concept of
Third Cinema remains valid as an inspiration for contemporary filmmak
ing. As a transnationalfilmpractice, it undoubtedly lays the critical frame
work for 'world cinema'. In the contemporary era, however, the concept of

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

'world cinema' better encapsulates the dispersed and decentred model of

film production and distribution that increasingly prevails, especially if it
is used to emphasise the interplays between national, regional and global
levels of cinema.

Notes
1. By October 1998, Titanic's non-US sales had reached $1,214 million, about
twice as much as it had earned in the USA at that time. When adjustments are
made for inflation, however, the all-time US box-office record would go to
Gone with the Wind (1939).
2. Guneratne, 'Introduction', p. 24.
3. Anderson, Imagined Communities, p. 6.
4. Rosen, 'Nation and Anti-Nation', p. 399.
5. Higson, 'Idea of National Cinema', p. 7.
6. Shohat and Stam, Unthinking Eurocentrism, p. 285.
7. Crofts, 'Concepts of National Cinema', p. 5.
8. Hoskins et al., Global Television and Film, p. 23.
9. Miller et al., Global Hollywood, p. 84.
10. Anon., 'Global Film Production and Distribution', p. 203.
11. Shafik, Arab Cinema, p. 42.
.
12. GATT was a global trade organisation which aimed fcj implement multilat
eral trade agreements. The World Trade Organisation replaced it in 1995.
13. Miller et al., Global Hollywood, p. 36.
^/
14. Acland, Screen Traffic, pp. 18,162.
15. Ibid., p. 138.
16. Ibid., p. 244.
17. Jackel, European Film Industries, p. 142.
18. Hoskins et al., Global Television and Film, p. 29.
19. Ang, Living Room Wars, p. 147.
20. Stringer,'Regarding Film Festivals', p. 141.
21. Ibid., p. 134.
22. Ibid., p. 174.
23. Shohat and Stam, 'Media Spectatorship', p. 148.
24. Miller et al., Global Hollywood, p. 95.
25. Stringer, 'Regarding Film Festivals', p. 125.
26. Stringer, Movie Blockbusters, p. 10.
27. Shohat and Stam, Unthinking Eurocentrism, p. 295.
28. Neale, 'Art Cinema as Institution', p. 13.
29. Bordwell, 'Art-Cinema Narration', p. 213.
30. Neale, 'Art Cinema as Institution', p. 34.
31. Forbes and Street, European Cinema, p. 40.
32. Neale, 'Art Cinema as Institution', p. 14.
33. Hayward, Cinema Studies, pp. 277-8,283.

INTRODUCTION

34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.

Hill, 'Film and Postmodernism', p. 100.

Williams, Why I [Still] Want My MTV, p. 3.
Ibid., pp. 11,19.
Ibid., p. 23.
Gaonkar, Alternative Modernities, p. 1.
Ibid., p. 17.
Said, Orientalism, pp. 206-7.
Guneratne,'Introduction', p. 7.
Solanas and Getino, Towards a Third Cinema', pp. 51-2.
See Guneratne,'Introduction', pp. 12-18.

CHAPTER 1

European Cinema

For most of its history, European cinema has evolved in 'fraught* but crea
1
tive tension with its main rival, Hollywood. During the globalisation of the
1990s, Hollywood held Europe - its most valuable export market - in its grip
and expanded its influence into former communist territories in Eastern
Europe, where the lifting of trade restrictions created unprecedented levels
of competition from USfilms.France, Britain, Germany, Spain and Italy are
Europe's biggestfilm-producers,yet even their domestic markets are largely
captive to Hollywood. Despite that, increasing competition from Hollywood
has acted as a powerful catalyst for innovative strategies in some of the
region's cinemas. An outstanding example is the Danish film movement
Dogme 95, explored separately in Chapter 2, alongside other Scandinavian
trends. This chapter also looks at developments elsewhere in Europe, firstly
in Britain, France, Germany and Spain, then in the ejx-communist territo
ries of Poland, the Czech Republic and former Yugoslavia.
These territories' recent histories are linked by^tne rise of nationalism in
the nineteenth century, the decline of empires (including the AustroHungarian, Ottoman, French and British empires) in the twentieth century,
the experience of two World Wars, the Cold War and the formation of the
'new' Europe. During the Cold War, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland
and (briefly) Yugoslavia were members of the Soviet Bloc - satellites of the
Soviet Union inhabiting a separate cultural sphere largely isolated from
the West but not without cultural exchange with each other. However, since
the momentous events resulting from the policies of glasnost (openness) and
perestroika (restructuring) launched by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in
the mid-1980s - namely, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse
of the Soviet Union in 1991 - the 'iron curtain' which divided Europe has
gone. As a result of this shared post-Cold War and post-colonial back
ground, there are a number of similar themes across the region's cinemas.
These include nationalism and national identity, borders and frontiers,
migration, issues of history, politics and morality.
European cinema's defining aesthetic is realism. It is possible to trace
this tendency to the British documentary movement or to French poetic
realism (both from the 1930s) or even further back to some of the earliest

EUROPEAN CINEMA

moving pictures shown by the Lumiere Brothers. European realism also

has pre-cinematic origins in the nineteenth-century European realist novel
and in pre-twentieth-century Western visual arts which can be seen - at
least since the Renaissance - as progressive attempts to represent a con
crete 'reality'. The ideology of 'realism* is one of the means by which
European cinema has traditionally sought to differentiate itself from
Hollywood. Hollywood realism is guided by character motivation and
causal relationships ('realism' seen in terms of 'plausibility'). In European
cinema, realism is often conceived as an appeal to national or cultural
'authenticity', offering an alternative to Hollywood by addressing cultural
specificities unavailable in Hollywood.
The Italian neorealist movement of the 1940s had an enormous impact
on the French and British New Waves of the 1950s and 1960s and has a con
tinuing influence on conceptions of realism today. So too has the 1960s
French documentary movement cinema-verite\ which has come to epitom
ise cinematic attempts to capture reality. Cinema-verite techniques were
incorporated into the French New Wave's narrative cinema. While heavily
stylised, French New Wavefilmscultivated a 'slice of life' approach to film
making and became a determining influence on 1960s New Wave cinemas
throughout Europe. In contemporary European cinema, realism has re
formed into further varieties; as John Orr notes, one type strives to get
under 'the skin of the real' through techniques like hyperactive camera
work and decentred close-ups that disrupt normal perception - Blue
(1993), Morvern Callar (2002), The Last Resort (2000) - while another,
'hyperrealism', absorbs the real into the spectacular, transforming normal
ity into a stylised surface, for example Trainspotting (1996) and the French
cinema du look? However, as we shall see, realism is not always the favoured
vehicle for the expression of European national or cultural identities. The
cinemas of former Soviet-bloc countries often disregard realism, partly as
a reaction to the communist doctrine of Socialist Realism; which prescribed
clear-cut, idealised depictions - life as it 'should be' according to Party
ideology. Surrealism, which emerged as a 1920s avant-garde movement in
France, is still a defining force in many parts of Europe, especially Spain and
the Czech Republic. Surrealism aims to represent the forces of the uncon
scious, including dreams. The fantastical countertendency in European
cinema further emerges through magic realism, which has Latin American
novelistic roots and combines historical realism with myth and fantasy.
Although the heritagefilm,Second World Warfilmand comedy may be
considered pan-European genres, contemporary European films borrow
extensively from international neo-noir, Hollywood thrillers and Vietnam
warfilms.These, together with stylistic influences like MTV, modify the

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

realist impulse. Many of the examples discussed in this chapter attest to

the emergence of a hybrid aesthetic in the European cinema of the 1990s
which is, to varying degrees, anti-realistic.
The major current funding sources for European cinema are: private
and state-run TV channels, state subsidies (including lottery funding and
earnings from taxes on box-office receipts) and intra-European funding
3
bodies. Most European countries offer some form of state protection for
their cinemas, showing that even in today's capitalist heyday they deem
cinema to be too culturally important to be left entirely to the mercy of
4
market forces. However, it was the communist governments which best
understood the importance of film because of its usefulness for propa
ganda, and were most dedicated to developing an infrastructure for film
production, exhibition and distribution. The issue of state censorship
looms large in discussions of communist film industries - periods of rel
ative freedom alternated with periods of extreme repression and state
intervention - yet full state control also had advantages, including high
5
production levels and less reliance on commercialism. Now these film
industries are grappling with the new problems of market economics.
There is no longer any state interference; the state-controlled studio
system has been replaced by producer-led enterprises. The decrease in
state subsidies means that film producers often) have to compete for
these funds or raise money from national TV networks or international
co-producers, as in other European countries. The constraints of
working under state censorship have given way to comparably tough
commercial constraints.
Pan-European co-productions and the exchange of film personnel
between various Europeanfilmindustries have origins in the 1920s, their
aims being to counter Hollywood, promote good relations between
European countries, share the burden of costs and resources forfilmpro
duction, and guarantee international distribution and box-office success.
In 1989, the Council of Europe, a pan-European body spanning West and
East Europe, created the Eurimages fund for co-productions between its
members. Eurimages also aids exhibition and marketing. In the 1990s, the
European Union launched further initiatives, including MEDIA pro
grammes to tacklefilmproduction and distribution. The EU has evolved
into an economically powerful supranational bloc with a single market and
common currency, and by 2004 it had grown to twenty-five states. Its most
recent new members include former Eastern-bloc countries, which have
made reorientation to the West their top priority. Thus, we find filmmak
ers from these countries increasingly seeking alliances with the West rather
6
than, as was previously the case, with each other.

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

neo-noir genres and marks the evolution of cinema du look internationally

- and Besson has taken it further in his science-fiction blockbuster The
Fifth Element (1997).
The fantasy film branch of cinema du look is exemplified by the work of
Jean-Pier re Jeunet and Marc Caro, who collaborated on Delicatessen (1991)
and City of Lost Children (1995); Jeunet also directed the Hollywood film
Alien: Resurrection (1997) and the Oscar-nominated Amelie (2001). These
films utilise bizarre camera angles, distorting anamorphic lenses and elab
orate set design to present defamiliarised worlds. They are full of virtuoso
choreographed set pieces, such as sex scenes synchronised with other
rhythmic actions and sounds in Delicatessan and Amelie, and lyrical sur
realist moments, as when characters play a duet with a saw and cello in
DelicatessarCsfinalrooftop scene. Jeunet's favourite actor, Dominique
Pinon, stars in each film. While Delicatessan, City of Lost Children and
Alien: Resurrection can all be seen as variations on the theme of dystopia,
Amelie represents a Utopia no less artificial in its style and setting than the
other films. Created with extensive computer graphics and interiors shot
on stages in Germany, it depicts an unreal Paris, evoking the 1950s, with
all the 'bad* bits (such as racism) graduallyfilteredout. \ <v
Another important film relating to cinema du look is La Maine (1995),
which won Matthieu Kassovitz the Best Director's Awapa at Cannes in
1995 and became a massive hit internationally. Kassovitz is an actor; he
appears in Amelie\ A Self Made Hero (1996) (afilmsatirising the myth of
French wartime resistance heroes), and in a minor role as a skinhead in La
Haine, his directorial debut. La Haine is set in the Parisian banlieue
(suburbs) populated by working-class and immigrant families, and
explores race, class and gender relations in a society where both govern
ment and police face pressures from France's popular National Front
Party. Thematically, La Haine connects with a tendency called cinema beur
- films directed by, or dealing with the experiences of, second-generation
immigrants from France's former North African Arab colonies; beur is
French backslang for Arabe. However, in contrast to beurfilms'under
stated social realism, La Haine is stylistically hyperbolic. Despite the
cinema-verite connotations of its 'gritty' black-and-white street-riot
footage, it uses wide-angle lenses to foreshorten perspective (making char
acters look iarger than life'), fluid tracking, and image sequences edited to
music (as when DJ Cut Killer plays Extreme-NTM's song Tuck the
police'). These MTV influences give thefilmits sensory appeal. La Haine
also fills the screen with homages to Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee.
Ginette Vincendeau has argued that this combination of locally specific
concerns with the iconography of spectacular male violence - familiar to

EUROPEAN CINEMA

audiences from the neo-noir territory of Scorsese, John Woo and Quentin
16
Tarantino - was what propelled its global success.
Post-Wall German Cinema
Any account of contemporary German cinema has to refer to the New
German Cinema movement, which started in the Federal Republic in the
1960s. Its directors included Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog
and Wim Wenders, whosefilmsshowed empathy with society's outsiders
and an ambivalent relationship with America and Hollywood genres. They
were not generally liked by domestic audiences but were highly esteemed
abroad, especially for interrogating the country's Nazi past. The movement began to decline after Fassbinder's death in 1982, partly because the
new Helmut Kohl-led Christian Democrat government withdrew subsidies. Some New German cinema directors have gone to work abroad including Wenders, who madefilmsin Germany (Wings of Desire [1987]),
Hollywood (Paris, Texas [1984] and End of Violence [1997]) and Australia
(Until the End of the World [1991]).
A year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, East Germany reunified with the
West. Around the same time, a new generation offilmmakersemerged, who
distance themselves from New German Cinema's overt socio-political critique. They aim to make films that are liked by, and accessible to, the
German public. These films are generally unconcerned with Germany's
Nazi past and reflect the 'normalisation' and Americanisation of Germany
17
since reunification. Although popular at home, they do not travel well,
being perceived as too parochial; a notable exception is the Oscar-nominated
Nasty Girl (1990), which dramatises the true story of a schoolgirl who was
ostracised for uncovering her town's Nazi secrets. However, two directors
who have departed from 'parochial' concerns differently, achieving popular
success at home and abroad, are Tom Tykwer and Wolfgang Becker.
Produced by Tykwer's company X Filme, together with West German
Radio, ARTE, various German regional funds and Germany's Ministry
of the Interior, on a small budget of $1.8 million, Run Lola Run (1998) Tykwer's thirdfilm- was Germany's most successful 1990s movie. With
a fast-paced, techno soundtrack-driven thriller narrative and a goaldirected flame-haired heroine, Run Lola Run combines Hollywood-like
entertainment values with European art house, referencing an eclectic
range of films from Blind Chance (1981) to Pulp Fiction. Lola has only
twenty minutes tofindDM100,000 to save her boyfriend Manni from his
drug-dealer boss. Thefilmgives her three chances to complete her quest,
with characters and events configured slightly differently on each round.

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

It renders the multiple outcomes through influences from computer

games, hypertext, animation, MTV and chaos theory. Lola has the power
to change her fate, yet her actions spring partly from contingency. This
stresses the unpredictability of cause and effect, especially in snapshot
flash-forwards of passers-by whose brief contact with Lola generates
random repercussions.
For German audiences, Run Lola Run is distinctively a Berlin film. It
opens with a prologue showing Berlin's East and West halves being sol
dered together. The reason why Lola must run, rather than take a taxi, is
offered in the first few minutes: a previous taxi journey took her to the
wrong destination, a street in the East with the same name. When Lola
runs, she passes well-known Berlin locations, but not Nazi landmarks. The
film plays with space in these sequences, juxtaposing parts of Berlin which
are geographically disparate in order to show a city in the process of being
remade and reconstructed: a new Berlin unfettered by the past in which
Lola is a dynamic agent of change, sprinting into the future despite the
odds stacked against her and despite her initial failures. Released in the
same year as the elections that ended Kohl's sixteen years as Chancellor,
18
the film was interpreted as a call for political rejuvenation.
Becker's Goodbye, Lenin! (2003), also produced by X Eilme, starts in the
German Democratic Republic (East Germany) before me fall of the Berlin
Wall. It is narrated from the perspective of Alex Kern, whose mother - a
Communist Party faithful - has a heart-attack when she sees him in an
anti-government demonstration. She falls into an eight-month coma,
waking up after the Wall has fallen and the GDR no longer exists. Alex
protects her from shock by pretending that these events have not occurred.
He and his friend Denis record fake TV reports to explain the chinks
appearing in the illusion, as when his mother witnesses Lenin's statue
being freighted away and an enormous Coca-Cola advert unfurling next
door; Alex has East German astronaut Sigmund Jahn pose as the new
GDR president, declaring that the Wall has been pulled down to welcome
Western refugees disillusioned by capitalism - a hilarious inversion of
actual events. Signs of globalisation and multinational capital flood the
landscape everywhere except in his mother'sflat;Alex himself becomes a
satellite-dish salesman, and his sister works at Burger King. The super
markets stock foreign produce, so Alex rummages in bins for old GDR jars
in which to repackage his mother's food, including the 'Spreewald
gherkins' she craves.
In earlier films, including Wings of Desire > the Wall created complica
19
tions, whereas here its non-existence does. Goodbye, Lenin! comes in the
wake of films such as Sun Alley\ the best-selling German film of 1999,

EUROPEAN CINEMA

25
i

feeding a growing nostalgia for the GDR- a fad known as Ostalgie\ which
includes the reissue of GDR brands, GDR theme parks, and the wearing
of communist-style uniforms as fashion statements. There is a similar
romanticisation of the communist era in cinemas of other former communist territories, as we will see. The keenness of former GDR citizens to
assert a distinct 'East German' identity is often attributed to the hardships
of adapting to Western market economies. Goodbye, Lenin! makes it clear
that the GDR lost out economically. Alex finds his mother's hidden savings
when it is too late to convert them into West German marks. The football
scores tell it all: 'the exchange rate was two to one, and Germany won onenil\ However, Goodbye, Lenin! maintains a critical edge on the Ostalgie
phenomenon by having Alex realise that the fake picture of the GDR that
he paints for his mother is the GDR he dreamed of - a country that
acknowledges its faults and welcomes outsiders.
Post-Franco Spanish Cinema
Spanish cinema hosts a wide range of traditions from the surrealists Luis
Bunuel and Salvador Dali (Un Chien Andalou [1929]) to the contemplative
visionary Victor Erice whose Spirit of the Beehive (1973) uses the image of
Frankenstein's monster to refract the horrors of life under General
Franco's dictatorship. Franco died in 1975 after ruling for forty years.
Censorship was lifted in 1977, ushering in an era of liberalism, consumerism and democratic transition, resulting in an explosion of explicitness and
experimentation in the nation's cinema. Rob Stone writes: 'Filmmakers
found themselves in an unsupervised candy store of previously forbidden
treats, and either stood there gawping at all the bare flesh and blasphemy
20
or gorged themselves sick on the new permissiveness'. The legacy of
Franco's patriarchal, Catholic autocracy did not disappear overnight; the
new consumer society was still male-dominated, although movements
favouring women's rights, feminism, divorce, homosexuality, abortion and
21
contraception emerged. Somefilmmakerstried to retrieve cultural histories and identities buried or distorted under Franco's censorship; this
increasingly took the form of sexual identity politics. Masculinity is one
such contested area; under Franco, popular genres glorified Spanish masculinity, hence some contemporary films pit the 'New Spanish Man'
against the 'Iberian macho'. However, in a similar way to former communist countries, commercial demands proved more constricting than censorship for some directors like Erice, who has made fewfilmsover the last
thirty years; the post-Franco era favours entertainment cinema capable of
22
competing with Hollywood. Film policies increasingly aimed to make

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

film-producers independent of the state. During the rule of the right-ofcentre People's Party (1996-2004), state subsidies ended.
The People's Party were elected because of growing disillusionment
with the governing Socialist Workers Party, amid a climate of general
strikes, rising abortion rates and escalating violence from the Basque separatist group ETA. Many Spaniards became doubtful whether their economic marginalisation under capitalism was any better than living under
23
Franco. This disillusionment manifests in 1990s Spanish films reflecting
themes of nostalgia, abstinence and family values; or, in the work of internationally celebrated auteurs like Julio Medem and Alejandro Amenabar, a
general apathy towards socio-political concerns, driving an attention to
24
'personal issues' or playfulness with cinematic genres.
The work of Pedro Almodovar encapsulates the dominant trends - a
steady turnover of commercial hits paving the way for his Oscar triumph
with All About My Mother (1999). Almodovar draws on Hollywood influences and Spain's theatrical and literary traditions, as well as the moviday
an underground cultural movement known for its drug^use and sexual liberalism, to create genre pastiches which portray gendenand sexuality as
25
stylised performances. His films affirm post-Franco liberties with only a
cursory backward glance at the past, as seen in Live Fle$f/(1997). They are
playful and camp, with a bright, glossy look appealing to 'how post-Franco
26
Spain liked to see itself and how it liked to be seen'. While the homoerotic
thriller Bad Education (2004) explores male relationships, most of
Almodovar's other films since the 1990s have focused on heterosexual
couples, although films like Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1990) and Talk to
Her (2002) emphasise sexual deviance within heterosexuality, showing that
all gendered positions are complex, fluid and playful, not just those of
homosexuals, drag queens and transsexuals.
Beyond the Polish Cinema of Moral Concern
Polish cinema held a strong international presence from the 1950s to the
early 1980s through figures such as Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Zanussi,
Agnieszka Holland and Krzysztof Kieslowski. In 1980, Solidarity - the
first free trade union to exist in the communist bloc - shook the foundations of state socialism, leading to the imposition of martial law from 1981
to 1985. In this period, these Polish directors madefilmsdealing with the
conflicts of personal interest and socio-political demands which high27
lighted the cracks in the state socialist system. Avoiding direct political
critique, they expressed dissent through images of stagnation and dull routines. None has been more influential than Kieslowski, who died in 1996.

feature by Bosnian Muslim Danis Tanovic, praised for its clear and
thought-provoking treatment of the conflict. It won the 2002 Best Foreign
Film Oscar, beating Amelie and the Bollywood film Lagaan (2001) (see
Chapter 8). It is set in the Bosnian War, when UN peacekeepers were sent
in but ordered not to intervene, and centres on two soldiers - a Bosnian
Muslim, Ciki, and a Serb, Nino - trapped together in a disused trench
between enemy lines, with a third soldier, Ciki's friend Cera, lying on the
trench floor booby-trapped to a mine that will explode if he moves. A
French UN sergeant tries to help the soldiers, but is initially stopped by
UN Headquarters. The UN was much criticised for its policy of non
intervention during the Bosnian War, especially when the 1995 Srebrenica
massacre occurred after French UN commander General Morillon had
declared the town a 'safe haven' - like Sergeant Marchand in the film,
40
Morillon wanted to help but was badly compromised. In thefilm,British
journalist Jane Livingstone (played by Mike Leigh actress Katrin
Cartlidge) rushes to the trench along with other report^, baying for a hot
story. Tanovic ambivalently portrays the combative power of the global
media training their lenses on the conflict; they pressure the UN to take
action, yet their presence has a distorting effect. When Cera's mine proves
impossible to defuse, the UN pretend they have rescued him for the
media's benefit. The film ends with the camera floating over the trench
where Cera still lies, fading into darkness as night descends, his plight of
no more concern now that the media circus has departed - without verify
ing their reports.
The film crystallises wider issues relevant to other contemporary con
flicts through its tight focus on the trench - a 'microcosm' of the Bosnian
War. Its dark humour expresses the war's tragic and painful absurdity. Ciki
and Nino are like 'brothers' or neighbours who now mistrust each other,
quarrelling over who started the war and shooting each other as soon as
they are evacuated. Yet ironically they have more in common than any of
the other characters - they once dated the same girl in the same town, and
they understand each other without translators.

Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Forbes and Street, European Cinema^ p. xiv.

Orr, 'New Directions in European Cinema', p. 301.
Ezra, European Cinema, p. 15.
Jackel, European Film Industries, p. 1.
Iordanova, Other Europe, p. 22.

EUROPEAN CINEMA

6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.

Ibid., p. 145.
Malik, 'Beyond "The Cinema of Duty"?', p. 204.
Ibid., p. 205.
Ibid., p. 210.
Forde, 'Winning Team', p. 9.
Roberts, '"Welcome to Dreamland"', p. 87.
Petrie, Screening Scotland, p. 8.
Kristeva, Powers of Horror, p. 4.
Orr, 'New Directions in European Cinema', p. 306.
Harris, 'The Cinema du Look\ p. 222.
Vincendeau, 'Designs on the banlieue*, p. 323.
See Rentschler, 'The Post-Wall Cinema', pp. 260-77.
Sinka, 'Tom Tykwer's Lola Rennf.
Iordanova, 'East of Eden', p. 27.
Stone, Spanish Cinema, p. 110.
Ibid., p. 120.
Ibid., p. 10.
Ibid., p. 129.
Ibid., p. 130.
Ibid., pp. 125-6.
Arroyo, 'Pedro Almodovar', p. 108.
Iordanova, Other Europe, p. 109.
Ibid., pp. 111-12.
Hames, Dark Alchemy, p. 2.
Ibid., p. 102.
Iordanova, Other Europe, p. 150.
Ibid., p. 160.
Jackel, European Film Industries, p. 82.
Iordanova, Cinema of Flames, p. 123.
Ibid., p. 118.
Cited in Zizek, Plague of Phantasies, p. 62.
Ibid., p. 62.
Krstic, '"Showtime Brothers!'" p. 58.
Iordanova, Cinema of Flames, p. 147.
Horton, 'No Man's Land', p. 39.

CHAPTER 2

Scandinavian Cinema

During the silent era, Sweden and Denmark were among the world's
leadingfilm-producers.Scandinavian directors such as Victor Sjostrom
and Mauritz Stiller and stars like Greta Garbo and Asta Nielson became
internationally famous. With the advent of sound, Scandinavian cinema's
international prominence declined, although it continued to boom domes
tically throughout the studio era (1930s-1950s). Abroad, it became known
mostly for its art cinema, especially Carl Dreyer's and Ingmar Bergman's
dark films about religion, faith and doubt. In the 1990s. Scandinavian
cinema leapt back into the international limelight with Dogine 95, the
Danishfilmcollective launched by Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg.
At the start of the twenty-first century, Scandinavianfilmsprospered again
at home and abroad. This chapter will look at factors underpinning this
revival and will focus on representativefigures,including the Danish pro
vocateur von Trier, Sweden's popular auteur Lukas Moodysson and
cult Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki. It will argue that these small filmproducing nations acutely exemplify the struggles of European cinema
against Hollywood domination.
Situated in Europe's far north, the Scandinavian nations - also known
as Nordic nations - are Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland.
The sparsely populated northernmost parts of Sweden, Norway and
Finland are inside the Arctic Circle, where winters are long, dark and
extremely cold while in high summer the sun never sets. Apart from geo
graphic and climatic features - integral to many Scandinavianfilms- the
countries have commonalities based on shared histories of occupations and
empires. Sweden ruled over Finland from 1155 to 1809; Norway was
owned by Denmark, then governed by Sweden in the nineteenth century,
and became independent again in 1905; Iceland was a Danish colony from
l
the late thirteenth century until its independence in 1944. Finland,
annexed by Russia after being ruled by Sweden, became independent in
1917 and has cultural affinities with Eastern Europe as well as with the rest
of Scandinavia. There are differences alongside the similarities; in film
contexts, this is evidenced by differing receptions of the same films in
different countries. Moreover, all Scandinavian languages share Germanic

SCANDINAVIAN CINEMA

roots except Finnish, which belongs to a rare language group known as

Finno-Ugric. These linguistic and historic factors affect the export of films
within countries - for example, many Swedish movies are exported to
Finland, where Swedish is a common second language, while Finnish films
are rarely exported to Sweden.
The roots of many films discussed in this chapter lie in the region's
theatre traditions - particularly the Kammerspiel (German for 'chamber
drama'), a naturalistic Northern European theatrical tradition originating
in the late nineteenth century and associated with playwrights August
Strindberg and Henrik Ibsen. Kammerspiele are family dramas which use
a small number of characters and sparse sets, working by means of realism
and understatement to emphasise 'revelatory nuances of gesture and
2
expression'. Dreyer was one of the KammerspielfilnCs early practitioners.
His Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) is famous for its many close-ups inti
mately scrutinising faces for unspoken intensities. Bergman revived this
expressive use of the close-up in his own chamber dramas of the 1960s and
early 1970s, especially in Persona (1966). The KammerspieTs legacy espe
cially impacts on Danish Dogmefilmsabout families or tight-knit groups.
In Nordic National Cinemas, Tytti Soila, Astrid Soderbergh Widding and
Gunnar Iversen hold that 'typical* cinematic themes are complicit with out
siders' stereotypical images of Scandinavia - filmmakers often draw on
3
these to market their work abroad. This Scandinavian 'imaginary*
includes: nature and its mythical or exotic meanings, landscape and changing seasons shaping characters' affairs; Scandinavian depression; Lutheran
austerity and self-denial, together with the release of buttoned-up emo
tions, including the breaking of sexual taboos. Such themes are represented
differently, and in varying degrees, in each national cinema. Films of
rapidly urbanised nations like Finland, Norway and Iceland often contrast
'an unspoilt wilderness environment' with 'the ugly, inhuman face of the
city\ while in Danishfilmsthe country offers less respite from urban cor
4
ruption and decadence. Themes of social conformity and group mental
ity, the flipsides of the social conscience and egalitarianism of Scandinavia's
welfare-state societies, are most emphasised in Danish cinema.
As in the rest of Europe, comedy is Scandinavia's most popular locally
produced genre, particularly light comedies. Contemporary filmmakers
have enlivened the genre of romantic comedy in films such as Mifune
(1999), Italian for Beginners (2000) mdjfalla/jfalla! (2000). Darkly humor
ous movies, blending depression with farce, are often more popular abroad.
These include Songs from the Second Floor (2000), NoiAlbinoi (2003) and
Aki Kaurismaki's works. Scandinavian cinema frequently adapts estab
lished Hollywood genres to its own landscapes. For example, the dazzling

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

snow-capped Midnight Sun landscape and inescapable light form the

perfect backdrop for the detective's paranoia in the Norwegian film
Insomnia (1997), transforming the American film noir genre into a film
blanc. In terms of ideology and narrative style, however, Scandinavian films
differ vastly from their Hollywood counterparts, as many of them (but not
Insomnia) focus on collective action rather than on the individual.
Scandinavia's film industries operate on capitalistic models but also
benefit from generous state subsidies similar to those of former Eastern
European states; this combination of capitalism and socialism reflects the
region's Social Democratic governments. State influence includes censor
ship, varying in nature across the region; for example, in Finland, due to
its Cold War relationship with Russia, there was political censorship pro
hibiting criticism of Russia as well as censorship concerning sex, alcohol
and violence, while in Sweden - renowned, like Denmark, for sexual lib
5
eralism - violence is censored more than sex.
Without state support, today's Scandinavian film industries would not
survive Hollywood domination. Low population densities mean mat films
rarely recover their costs at home, while linguistic factors limit their reach
abroad. Official state support began in 1963 with the establishment of the
Swedish Film Institute, which allocates grants for the production, distri
bution and exhibition of Swedishfilmsin Sweden, and promotes Swedish
cinema abroad. Other countries followed Sweden's model: the Finnish
Film Foundation was founded in 1969, and the Danish Film Institute and
Icelandic Film Fund (now the Icelandic Film Centre) in 1972.
There is a 'high degree of integration and exchange' between
6
Scandinavianfilmindustries. Long before the EU implemented its vision
of a borderless Europe, the Nordic Council (established in 1952) initiated
various pan-Nordic ventures enabling Scandinavian citizens to move
freely around the region without passports and to work in other
Scandinavian countries. Scandinavian nations have successfully under
taken co-productions for decades, and Scandinavian film personnel regu
larly lend their talents to neighbouring industries. In 1990, the Nordic
Council created the Film and Television Fund, which receives money
7
from Scandinavian governments, national TV stations andfilminstitutes.
Initially intended to back Nordic co-productions, the fund now invests in
any project likely to be distributed in at least two Nordic countries. In
order to recover its loans, the Nordic Fund (like MEDIA and Eurimages)
increasingly finances projects that demonstrate commercial potential.
Some films discussed in this chapter have received money from this fund
and from nationalfilminstitutions. They have drawn on other sources, too,
as will be detailed below.

SCANDINAVIAN CINEMA

Lars von Trier and Dogme 95

Dogme 95 started out as a collective involving four Danish directors: Lars
von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg, Seren Kragh-Jacobsen and Kristian
Levring. It was launched with a manifesto in 1995, although the films financed by Danish TV station Danmarks Radio in return for broadcasting
rights after von Trier's arrangement with the Danish Film Institute fell
through - did not appear until a few years later. The manifesto sets out ten
filmmaking rules, known as the 'Vow of Chastity', which stipulate: location
shooting using only props and sets found on site; diegetic sound; handheld
cameras, with the camera following the actors rather than actors moving to
where the camera is; colour film stock and natural lighting; Academy 35mm
8
format; and contemporary stories set in the 'here and now\ They prohibit
optical work and filters, 'superficial' action involving guns and murders, and
genre movies. Most provocatively, they insist that 'the director must not be
9
credited'; according to von Trier, this is 'a punch in the face of all directors'.
So far, there have been two waves of Danish Dogme films. Thefirstconsisted offilmsmade by the founding directors: Vinterberg's Festen (1998),
von Trier's The Idiots (1998), Kragh-Jacobsen's Mifune and Levring's The
King Is Alive (2000). The second wave, currently ongoing, includes Lone
Scherfig's Italian for Beginners^ Susanne Bier's Open Hearts (2002), Ole
Christian Madsen's Kira's Reason (2001) and Ake Sandgren's Truly
Human (2001). The Dogme concept has, moreover, spilled across national
borders and inspired filmmaking outside Denmark. Non-Danish Dogme
films include jfulien Donkey-Boy (USA, 1999), Lovers (France, 1999) and
Fuckland (Argentina, 2000). However, with the exception of Jfulien
Donkey-Boy, these have not equalled the Danishfilms'success, either critically or commercially. This inevitably leads to speculation that Danish
Dogmefilmsare 'grounded in a specific location and sensibility' which the
10
foreign films lack. John Orr, for example, sees Dogmfe's emphasis on
11
restrictions as recalling Lutheran denial and suffering.
Dogme 95 claims to be a 'rescue action' designed to counteract 'certain
12
tendencies' in cinema today. According to some reports, von Trier and
Vinterberg drew up the manifesto in *a mere twenty-five minutes, amid
13
gales of laughter'. Both solemn and playful, the rules are designed to
provoke the film establishment and to givefilmmakersfresh inspiration
through the creative use of limitations. The idea that creativity can flourish when one has constraints rather than complete freedom has a long
history and is shared by other filmmakers working under completely
different circumstances, including Abbas Kiarostami, whose films must
comply with strict Iranian state censorship (see Chapter 4). Removing the

Cowboys, who appear in Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989) flaunting

elongated quiffs and winkle-picker shoes. Kaurismaki combines social
realism with stylised comedy filled with pastiches of popular genres: road
movie, gangster film and film noir. Understatement is his key technique,
supporting minimal dialogue and deadpan acting. With a face that
Kaurismaki affectionately compared to 'a sad rat', Matti Pellonpaa
(1951-95) is the actor who best personifies Kaurismakian gloom, especially
32
in Ariel (1988) and Take Care of Your Scarf Tatjana (1994). Pellonpaa
won the European Felix prize for Best European Actor in 1991. Kati
Outinen, another Kaurismaki favourite, specialises in the female version of
Kaurismakian despondency. She won the Best Actress Award at Cannes for
her role in Man Without a Past (2002).
Kaurismaki's recentfilmsbelong to his new 'Finland trilogy*. The first
instalment, Drifting Clouds (1996), shows ordinary Helsinki workers per
sisting with quiet determination while their routine lives are shattered by
wider economic trends - high unemployment and multinational takeovers
of local businesses. Man Without a Pasty the second instalment, articulates
the social problem of homelessness - another overlooked aspect of contem
porary Finland. Here, a nameless protagonist travels to Helsinki in search
of work, is robbed and beaten up, loses his memory and begins a new life
among the city's homeless who live in Helsinki dock containers - a virtual
compendium of Kaurismaki's earlier films, where the city is invariably a
hostile place, full of hoodlums and crooks.
Extensively used as a film location throughout the twentieth century,
Iceland only began to produce its own films in 1979 and has a large film
33
industry given the country's small population size - about 280,000.
Iceland also boasts one of the world's highest per-capita rates of cinemagoing. Itsfilmshave a distinctive look and tone - especially with their bleak
but stunningly photographed landscapes. The sagas from Iceland's ancient
literary heritage are a key influence, imparting otherworldly, dreamlike,
mystical qualities to the landscape; so too are contemporary novels.
Iceland's best-known director is Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, whose Children
of Nature (1991) was Oscar-nominated. His films use deadpan black
comedy, doleful characters and pastiches of American genres (film noir and
the road movie). In Cold Fever (1995), a Japanese man, Hirata (Masatoshi
Nagase), travels to Iceland to perform rites for his parents. A horizontal
enlargement of the film frame marks his arrival, spectacularly displaying
the Icelandic landscape. The film was popular in the USA and also in
Japan, where Masatoshi Nagase is a big star.
Iceland is even more secluded than Finland, the rare winter daylight
hours apparently offering little recreation except as portrayed in

within the hallucination - Linda's 'call' to Christian from the spirit world and as the reality that wakes him, an actual telephone call from Helene.
Dogme does not allow superimposed titles, hence opening and closing
credits must be conveyed by other means. Festen uses pieces of paper float
ing in water, another allusion to Linda's presence outside the film.
Together (Lukas Moodysson, 2000)
Together is set in the idealistic heyday of 1970s Sweden, where battered
housewife Elisabeth leaves her alcoholic husband Rolf and takes refuge
with her children Eva and Stefan in her brother Goran's hippie commune,
named 'Together'. In Sweden, admissions for the film narrowly beat those
for Show Me Love - and it also did well abroad. Searching for alternatives
to nuclear parenting and capitalist society's growing consumption, the
communal living movementflourishedduring the 1970s and was particu
larly popular in Denmark and Sweden. Some critics have accused
Moodysson of travestying communal living and affirming conservative
values - this is how Tom Paulin and Germaine Greer reacted on BBC TV's
Late Review on 13 July 2001. However, Together is not a straightforward
satire and looks back at the 1970s with both nostalgia and distance.
Its style is similar to Dogme 95 but works against Dogme in significant
ways. Like Festeny it is shot with available light on location in houses rather
than in studios. Its music is mostly diegetic: characters put on their favour
ite records and illustrate their eclectic tastes. An exception is the overdubbed Abba song SOS. First heard as Elisabeth leaves Rolf, the song (like
many Abba songs) appropriately deals with relationship breakdowns.
Abba's presence on the soundtrack is ironic as well as nostalgic. The band,
associated for people of Moodysson's generation with their childhood, was
very popular among working-class people, yet 1970s commune ideologues
- who were so eager to win over the working class - hated the band.
As a period drama, the film is, of course, unDogme-like. The use of
fades to red, which close and open segments of the film, emphasises that
this is a bygone era. The colour red itself stands for warmth, and is asso
ciated with the commune, its warm colours contrasting with the dull
browns in the strait-laced neighbours' house.
Handheld camera is only used in scenes entailing fast action through
several rooms. Dogme dissolved the barriers between cast and crew with
its stripped-down technical approach and physical intimacy with actors.
Moodysson, on the other hand, gives actors space for free expression,
allowing them to decide what to do and making the camera follow in
Cassavetes-like fashion; but mostly he places the camera on a tripod, away

SCANDINAVIAN CINEMA

51
46

from the actors, crash zooming into medium close-ups. Any moviecamera manual will tell you not to over-use zooms, as they can be intrusive.
Here, the zoom acknowledges the presence of the audience as distant
observers, but without breaking the naturalistic illusion.
Wefirstencounter the communards joyfully hugging each other upon
hearing news of the Spanish dictator Franco's death. They are Goran,
Lena, Lasse, Lasse's ex-wife Anna and their son Tet, a gay man Klas, Signe
and Sigvard and their child Moon, and militant communist Erik. The
character who most champions the commune's value of togetherness is
Goran, who cheers even when the opposing football team scores. In his
homely homily, we start life alone like little oatflakes, but when we're
cooked we all join together like porridge, no longer as isolated individuals.
Together nostalgically reaffirms communal values felt to have been lost in
the transition from welfare states to market individualism; it brings
together nearly all the characters for a joyful footballfinale.The film also
endorses the ideal of solidarity in its narrative construction. There is no
'central' character whose individual viewpoint is definitive. Instead, the
film opts for a collective portrait where everyone is given their due: ensem
ble acting rather than individual 'star' turns.
However, the children have a slightly privileged perspective, enabling us
to view the commune through their eyes. An argument over washing-up
takes a bizarre turn when Lasse notices Anna standing there exposing her
genitals, and proceeds to undo his own trousers. Eva and Stefan arrive just
at this moment, setting the tone for their response to their new home. Eva
complains to her friend Fredrik that people in the commune always take
the opposite view from everyone else. They wear ugly clothes and listen to
bad music. They don't have a TV and they don't celebrate Christmas. But
when thefilmcontrasts the commune with the conservative nuclear family
in Fredrik's house, there is really no contest. Fredrik's parents pruriently
disapprove of the commune's free values; yet they both spy on it, and
Fredrik's dad Ragnar regularly retires to the basement in order to mastur
bate under the pretext of 'woodworking'.
The characters' roles are not 'fixed' at the outset, but unfold and change
in the course of thefilm.For example, Rolf starts out as a drunken, abusive
and negligent father but then reforms and stops drinking. What steels his
resolve is his encounter with the lonely Birger, who shows Rolf what he
might become and persuades him to try to win back Elisabeth. Birger
appears in Moodysson's short film Talk (1997), where, left with nobody to
talk to, he ends up killing a Hare Krishna devotee who visits his flat. In
Togethery Birger deliberately unscrews a pipe that Rolf, a plumber by trade,
has fixed just so that he can have Rolf's company again.

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

People in the commune change, too. Lasse, relentlessly pursued by Klas,

finally lets down his heterosexual barriers and accepts that a man can turn
him on. In fact, those who won't change leave, including Signe and
Sigvard, who object to Pippi Longstocking on the grounds that she is a
capitalist-materialist involved in 'the eternal search for things'; it is the last
straw for them when Goran buys the children a second-hand TV. Elisabeth
changes through her friendship with feminist Anna. Some of this is played
for comedy, as when she and Anna raise their arms in mock-revolutionary
salute in the mirror, vowing never again to shave their armpits. But when
Elisabeth passes this news on to Rolf, she adds that she will no longer be a
housewife who waits on a man. Therefore when she accepts him back it is
on a totally different footing. Far from a return to the traditional nuclear
family, it implies a new beginning shaped by the values of communal living.
The film moves towards an ideologically progressive ending in which the
collective and the family redefine each other. Sick of vegetarianism, the
children successfully picket for meat. One might balk at the film's levity in
turning political protest to these ends. However, anti-capitalist principles
are kept alive. The commune accepts hot dogs and pork cutlets but not
Coca-Cola - as Lasse puts it, they draw the line at 'multinational pigs'.

Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.

Cowie, Scandinavian Cinema, p. 7.

Schrader, Transcendental Sty'le, p. 116.
Soila et al., Nordic National Cinemas, p. 239.
Cowie, Scandinavian Cinema, p. 7; Soila et al., Nordic National Cinemas, p.
241.
5. Soila et al., Nordic National Cinemas, p. 234.
6. Ibid., p. 2.
7. Jackel, European Film Industries, p. 85.
8. Hjort and MacKenzie, Purity and Provocation, pp. 199-200.
9. Hjort and Bondebjerg, Danish Directors, p. 221.
10. Stevenson, von Trier, p. 180.
11. Orr, 'Out of Dreyer's Shadow?', p. 70.
12. Hjort and MacKenzie, Purity and Provocation, p. 199.
13. Stevenson, Uncut, p. 43.
14. Hjort and MacKenzie, Purity and Provocation, p. 200.
15. Stevenson, Uncut, p. 18.
16. Hjort and MacKenzie, Purity and Provocation, p. 40.
17. Kelly, Name of this Book, p. 146.
18. Danish Film Institute, 'Success for Danish Cinema'.
19. Jackel, European Film Industries, p. 120.

SCANDINAVIAN CINEMA

20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.

Stevenson, von Trier, p. 68.

Ibid., p. 78.
Hjort, 'Themes of Nation', p. 116.
De Castella, 'Way out West', p. 9.
Soila et al., Nordic National Cinemas, p. 231.
De Castella, 'Way out West', p. 8.
Moodysson, Together, DVD Notes, Metrodome 2001.
Soila et al., Nordic National Cinemas, p. 231.
Ibid., p. 231.
Finnish Film Foundation, 'Cinema Statistics / Finland 1990-1999'.
Siegel, Baby It's Cold Outside, p. 10.
Ibid., p. 10.
Von Bagh, Drifting Shadows, p. 106.
Soila et al., Nordic National Cinemas, p. 96.
Petrie, Screening Scotland, p. 207.
2izek, 'Death and the Maiden', p. 215.
Ibid., p. 216.
Bjorkman, 'Naked Miracles', p. 12.
Heath, 'God, Faith and Film', p. 98.
Ibid., p. 104.
Bjorkman, 'Naked Miracles', p. 12.
Collins,'Against the Tide', p. 47.
Kelly, Name of this Film.
Stevenson, Uncut, p. 86.
Kelly, Name of this Book, p. 118.
Ibid., p. 114.
Macnab, 'House Rules', p. 34.

CHAPTER 3

Middle Eastern Cinema

As discussed in the Introduction, the 'Middle East' is a Western term,

denoting a region stretching from North Africa to the rest of the Arab world
in South-West Asia, but also including largely non-Arab nations such as
Israel, Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan. In 1978, Edward Said pointed out that
the Middle East is more susceptible to being grasped under 'the imagina
tive demonology of the "mysterious Orient'" than any other region in the
1
world. This tendency has, if anything, increased in today's Western media
images of Arabs and Muslims as terrorists. European and Hollywood
films, moreover, have long drawn on 'exotic' Middle Eastern settings to
2
portray 'Oriental' sensuality. The urgency of regional or national selfrepresentation is therefore heavily inscribed in Middle Eastern cinematic
production, which has often evolved in order to challenge European or
Hollywood images. Egypt, Israel, Turkey and Iran all have long filmmaking
traditions. The Egyptian film industry started in the 1930s and, until
recently, dominated regionalfilmmaking,exportingfilmsacross Africa and
South-West and Central Asia. Now, under completely different circum
stances, Iran has become the region's most internationally renowned filmproducing centre and has refocused world attention on the cinema of the
Middle East. This chapter selects trends from Egypt, Lebanon, Israel/
Palestine, Tunisia and Turkey, saving a detailed discussion of Iranian
cinema for Chapter 4. It will argue that Middle Easternfilmmakershave
usedfilmto mediate international attitudes to their societies and cultures,
offering a counterpoint to Western mass-media representations.
Historically the birthplace of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the
Middle East is significantly diverse, but its territories have historical and
cultural commonalities that validate cross-cultural comparisons. Israel, a
Jewish homeland established in 1948 with a large European immigrant
community, appears to be a foreign 'Western' presence; yet over half the
Jews living in Israel originate from the region. This territory is also the
homeland of Palestinians, many of whom the Israelis drove off their lands,
forcing them to live in refugee camps or in exile, stateless and homeless.
This unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict has had repercussions
throughout the region, with the Arab nations generally hostile to Israel,

MIDDLE EASTERN CINEMA

leading to a series of wars since 1948. The other major nationality in the
region without their own state is the Kurds, who reside on the borders of
Iran, Iraq and Turkey.
Most of the Arab Middle East was under the Turkish Ottoman empire
until the end of the First World War, then passed into the hands of
European colonisers. The British controlled Palestine, Jordan, Iraq and
Kuwait (to add to their existing imperial possessions Egypt and
Afghanistan) while France gained Lebanon and Syria, having previously
annexed Algeria and taken possession of Tunisia and Morocco. As the
European colonial powers departed in the two decades after the Second
World War, their influence was replaced by the two superpowers who com
peted in the region as part of their Cold War strategy. The USA is now the
only remaining superpower, its presence in the region representing both
'an alluring model and a new imperialism', although that allure is fast dis
3
appearing since the USA occupied Afghanistan and Iraq.
A number of factors - including war, colonialism, neocolonial depen
dency, Islamic moral restrictions, Hollywood domination and censorship
- have hampered film production in the region. The colonial powers
restricted and devalued local culture in the territories they ruled; this was
particularly true of the French, who upheld their language and educa
tion system as superior. These colonies had to wait until independence
in the 1950s and 1960s before they could use the cinematic medium to
narrate their own stories. Even after independence, technical training,
funding and facilities for film production were difficult to obtain, creat
ing a long-standing dependency on the West and the former Soviet
Union. The scarcity of exhibition venues is another persistent problem
in Muslim states. As it emerged from a break with pagan idolatry, Islam
traditionally forbids images of any beings with souls (human or animal),
yet this has not prevented representational arts - not only decorative arts
- from flourishing in the Islamic world. However? traditionalists view
cinema as a corrupting influence. In several countries, including Iran and
Saudi Arabia, state policies geared towards Islamicisation have drastically
impacted on, and restricted, film production; in Taliban-era Afghani
stan,filmmakingwas banned altogether. Throughout the region, there is
strict censorship prohibiting any film from showing its country and its
people in what is deemed to be a poor light. In Arab and Muslim states,
censorship revolves around the depiction of sex, religion and politics.
Most are one-party states in which direct criticism of political rulers or
official policy is forbidden, as is criticism of Islam. Usually, projects have
to be approved by a censorship committee before filming starts; and,
once thefilmis completed,filmmakersmust obtain an official licence for

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

commercial exhibition. Many films, including foreign co-productions,

encounter censorship at this stage.
Traditional cultural motifs in Middle Easternfilmsinclude oral story
telling, calligraphy, textile arts and musical theatre (which arrived in the
twentieth century). Films also incorporate influences from the region's
contemporary performing and visual arts such as dance, music and TV.
These influences are locally determined, often mixing centuries-old tradi
tions with diverse international influences. For example, contemporary
music often draws on traditional religious music, such as the call to prayer,
and Arabic, Persian, Berber and Hellenic influences, using instruments
such as the lute and the zither together with imported or adapted Western
5
instruments. Middle Eastern dance, a key element in film, is inseparable
from music and has its own rhythmic vocabulary involving isolations' of
6
the hips, abdomen and other body parts. Dance existed in the region
before the Islamic conquest, and some aspects of female dancing may have
originated in fertility cults of pre-Islamic deities; women had important
roles in pagan Arab societies, which were matrilinear and endorsed poly
7
andry - pagan practices that Islam reversed, along with idolatry. In the
Islamic world, dancing - especially solo dancing performed for money - is
seen as sinful, as it involves publicly revealing the body, raising questions
of 'honour' for female performers, whether performing live or onfilm.For
these reasons, performers in Middle Eastern societies are regarded as
having a low social status - except those who attain transcendent stardom
like the famous Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum, who died in 1975; many
contemporaryfilmspay homages to her.
The importance of dance, music and oral storytelling often means that
sound is generally not as subordinated to image and diegesis as it is in
Western cinema. Although Hollywood dominates the box office now, Indian,
Egyptian and Turkishfilmshave traditionally enjoyed popularity across the
region; and there are many similarities between their popular forms (see also
Chapter 7). The most popular local genres are melodrama and comedy farce,
linking the popular cinemas of Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Iran and even
Israel - where the Bourekas genre, 'a product of conflicts between European
and Mizrahi (Oriental) Jews featured within the framework of melodrama
8
or comedy', is a syncretic meld of Arab-Jewish influences.
In the wake of Egypt's 1952 revolution which overthrew the British and
brought Gamal Abdel Nasser to power, revolutionary Arab films were
made in Egypt, Algeria and Syria celebrating anti-colonial struggle and
expressing support for Palestinians. Inspired by new movements in Europe
such as Italian neorealism and cinema-verite> these films departed from
both Hollywood and the region's own commercial traditions. This was a

MIDDLE EASTERN CINEMA

politicised cinema energised by anti-imperial pan-Arab nationalism and

socialism. The neorealist model which it adopted mixed documentary and
fiction; the best-known example is the Italian-Algerian collaboration The
Battle of Algiers (1965), which utilises a naturalistic street-level shooting
style to recreate the Algerian war for independence from France
(1954-62). Thesefilmscome under the category of what Fernando Solanas
and Octavio Getino call 'Third Cinema\ However, more recent manifes
tations of Third Cinema' from the region display a shift in perspective
from the public realm of nationalist revolution to the more private realms
of gender relationships and social institutions like the family, using these
to interrogate the fulfilment of nationalist goals. The realist impulse in
these films is modified by 'a more subjective, self-critical, and pluralist'
9
approach. In style, they often turn to satire or comedy, seen to be more
flexible for critiques of the nation.
Shohat and Stam remark that 'the allegorical tendency available to all art
10
becomes exaggerated in the case of repressive regimes'. Due to censor
ship, this certainly seems to be the case in Middle Eastern 'Third Cinema'
- allegory serves as 'a form of protective camouflage' enabling filmmakers
11
to 'speak for and about the nation as a whole'. In these films, gender is
often linked to issues of nation, with images of women creating 'metaphors
12
for the loss of individualism, nationalrightsand political suppression'.
Since the 1990s, there has been a rush offilmsdealing with the oppression
of women in Islamic societies, often as a covert critique of political regimes
that oppress men as well as women. Other prevalent themes include: poli
tics; imagining the nation; religious extremism; war and occupation; exile
and loss of 'belonging'.
As in Europe, co-productions are becoming a common strategy. Coproductions are primarily French-backed, creating another site of tensions
between France and its ex-colonies. Audiences and critics often question
the 'authenticity' of thesefilms,alleging that they are tailored for the West,
as if there were any 'pure' indigenous elements not already modified by
'Western' influences. Filmmakers themselves are understandably hurt by
such charges, yet the style and ideological content of their films have,
unavoidably, been influenced by their close contact with France and French
culture. Also, many contemporary Middle Easternfilmmakersare diasporic or exilicfilmmakerswho live abroad in Europe and America. This,
too, has shaped the style and thematic content of their work, just as emi
gration within the region - especially to Cairo - had a decisive impact on
cross-cultural flows in Middle Easternfilmmakingin the past.

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

Egyptian and Lebanese C i n e m a

By the time Egypt began making its own films, the country was relatively
autonomous and more politically stable than other Arab states, although it
remained a British colony until 1952. Itsfilmindustry was aided by a flourishing cosmopolitan culture and native capital from other local industries.
In 1959, the Ministry of Culture set up the Higher Film Institute for training film professionals, a breeding ground for subsequent generations of
Egyptian directors. At this time, Egypt was the most influential power in
the region, politically as well as culturally - the centre of pan-Arab nationalism under Nasser's leadership.
The Egyptian film industry became known as the 'Hollywood on the
Nile' and established the standards for commercial film production in the
region. It exploited the commercial potential of popular Egyptian songs
which were broadcast on the radio throughout the region, familiarising
Arabic-speaking audiences with the Egyptian dialect. This gave Egyptian
cinema an advantage over other Arab cinemas. Song, music and dance 13
especially belly-dance - became staples in Egyptian films. Hollywood
musicals were another key influence. Early films containing Arabian
Nights-style tales, verbal comedy and sentimental love stories crystallised
into a popular star-driven multi-genre formula which combined farce and
14
melodrama and had an 'obligatory happy ending'. This popular formula
did not change when President Nasser nationalised the film industry,
although production faltered. Nasser's successor Anwar Sadat partially
reprivatised thefilmindustry in 1971, launching in the same year an Open
Door policy which increased Egypt's relations with Western capitalism.
With the arrival of TV in the 1970s, Egyptian films became more popular
in the Gulf States, where cinema-going is more rare. This affected the
Egyptianfilmindustry substantially, as it made it dependent on Gulf State
distribution companies, who set the selling price and hence the budget of
a givenfilmon the basis of the stars' popularity. Actors' salaries rocketed,
comprising the lion's share of the total budget, while the content of
Egyptian films had to comply with Saudi Arabia's strict censorship. With
the balance of political power in the region shifting to Israel and the Arab
Gulf States, both in close alliance with the USA, the Egyptianfilmindus15
try also waned, suffering from a 'chronic lack of investment'.
Youssef Chahine, whose career as a film director stretches from the
1950s to the present, is the international figurehead of Egyptian cinema.
His films are central to the mainstream Egyptian film industry but also
ambivalently positioned towards it, inaugurating a new kind of cinema
16
which is 'entertaining but not frivolous'. Genre-mixing and the dramatic

MIDDLE EASTERN CINEMA

use of song-and-dance inserts are key traits, but his films add eclectic influ
ences, including neorealism, Hollywood musicals, Douglas Sirk's melodra
mas, historical epic and surrealism. Initially, Chahine relied on small
independent producers; then he established his own production company
Misr International Films and inclined towards co-productions with other
Arab countries such as Lebanon and Algeria. But since the mid-1980s his
co-production deals have been with French cultural associations and TV
stations, especially the French TV channel TFI. During the 1990s,
Chahine's international stature rose, but his films The Emigrant (1994),
Destiny (1997) and The Other (1999) provoked controversy at home for
their portrayal of Islamic extremism (he himself is a Christian). His French
co-production deals increased suspicion that Chahine was collaborating 'at
17
Egypt's expense'.
In The Emigranty Chahine depicted the prophet Joseph, a 'blasphemy*
for which he was taken to court. Around the same time, the Nobel Prizewinning writer Naguib Mahfouz was stabbed by Islamic militants. In
Destinyy Chahine transposes these two incidents to twelfth-century Arab
Spain, focusing on the historical philosopher and judge Ibn Rushd (known
in the West as Averroes), a contributor to the Renaissance who was
denounced as a heretic, and a gypsy singer, Morwan, whose poetry, song
and merriment are anathema to a radical Islamic sect, who plot to stab him.
Morwan's wife, Manueia, uses music and dance to try to bring the Caliph's
son Abdullah, who has become a sectarian, back to his senses. When he tells
her that she will dance in hell, Manueia pointedly replies: 'Maybe, but you
have made hell on earth.'
Chahine won a lifetime achievement prize at Cannes in 1997 for Destiny\
which also became his first film to be picked up for US distribution. This
accolade attracted criticism from the Arab press, where Chahine's attack
on Islamic fundamentalism appeared to be simplistic, designed to 'please'
18
French co-producers and serve the West. Actually, Chahine reverses
received ideas about Western influences in Destiny through his use of the
figure of Ibn Rushd, whose free-thinking ideas did not come from the West
but went to the West, enabling it to emerge from its Dark Ages - a time that
was a Golden Age for Arab civilisations. Chahine thus warns that the rise
of Islamic fundamentalism has brought the Middle East to a sorry state,
19
threatening to mire it in its own Dark Ages.
Of all the region's film industries, the Lebanese film industry has the
closest ties to the Hollywood on the Nile. It exported its stars to Egypt and
produced many Egyptian-dialect films during its brief boom before the
Lebanese civil war (1975-90), when Beirut was divided into two by
warring Christians and Muslims, adding to existing frays on Lebanese soil

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

involving Palestinians, Israelis and Syrians. Lebanon had the region's best
technical facilities and sold the most cinema tickets per inhabitant before
the outbreak of the war, which destroyed the film infrastructure, forcing
20
Lebanese filmmakers to move elsewhere. Numerous Lebanese filmmak
ers have madefilmsabout returning to war-torn Beirut, making the ruined
city a persistent feature of Lebanese cinema. They include Jocelyn Saab
(Once Upon a Time, Beirut [1995]), who lives in France and is the bestknown of Lebanon's many female directors, and the Los Angeles-based
Ziad Doueiri, former cameraman to Quentin Tarantino. Doueiri leads a
younger generation of Lebanese directors whose work is marked by the
trauma of the long civil war.
Doueiri's debut feature, West Beirut (1998), revisits the start of the civil
war from the perspective of teenagers Tarek and Omar. Accompanied by a
Christian girl, May, they roam around the bombed-out city, treating it like
a playground, after the war forces their school to close. Tarek stumbles
across a brothel belonging to Madame Oum Walid which is situated in
No Man's Land between the Christian-controlled East and the Muslimcontrolled West. Frequented by both Muslims and Christians, the brothel
acknowledges neither West nor East, while in No Man's Land bras are used
for white flags enabling one to avoid snipers and go anywhere one likes.
The brothel is a political and sexual Utopia for the adolescent Tarek, but
ultimately signifies a failed Utopia - although ostensibly a 'free' zone, it
cannot but represent exploitation. The film keeps up its light humour Tarek and OmarfindOum Walid unreceptive to their plans for organising
Middle East peace here in her house - but after this the tone becomes
increasingly bleak.
Despite the war, Doueiri strives to represent the Middle East as
a 'normal' place - part of a strategy of self-representation to counter
Western media images. His story of youths on the streets moreover belongs
to neo-noir territory already pinpointed in relation to La Haine (see
Chapter 1 and, for more examples, Chapter 5). It also has affinities with the
naturalistic, handheld, street-level shooting style of Italian neorealism and
the region's Third Cinema traditions. West Beirut was banned in several
Arab countries for its frank discussion of sex and religion, but became a
smash hit when released in Lebanon, beating top Americanfilmsat the box
21
office for several months. Funded by the French production company La
Sept-Arte after a number of Middle Eastern financiers rejected his script,
Doueiri claims: 'Without the French, my film would not have been
22
made.' This post-colonial irony is reinforced in several scenes in the film
showing how the French imposed their language and schooling system on
the Lebanese, including the opening where Tarek interrupts the French

MIDDLE EASTERN CINEMA

national anthem at school assembly by singing the Lebanese national song

over a loud-hailer.
Palestinian/Israeli Chronicles
In the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the British pledged support to the
Zionist movement seeking to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The
British, however, also tried to appease the Palestinians by promising to
limit Jewish immigration, leading to a Zionist terrorist campaign against
the British. In the 1948 War of Israeli Independence, many Palestinians
were killed and over half of them were displaced from their homes to
refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank. The Israeli state requisitioned
their property and has never allowed them back.
Israeli filmmaking began as early as 1918, with films made for the Zionist
project, promoting and justifying Jewish immigration to Palestine. They
continued to be made until 1970, when Israeli state television became the
main organ of propaganda. Throughout the twentieth century, Israeli film
making has closely followed the mood of the nation. From the 1980s
onwards, the optimism of early Zionism and the heroic nationalism of the
1950s and 1960s subsided to interrogations of national ideals and apoca
lyptic despair at the prospect of perpetual war. One of the defining events
was the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel destroyed Egypt's entire military
fleet and seized control of the Sin'ai desert and Gaza from Egypt, East
Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from
Syria - a euphoric victory for Israel just as it was a humiliating defeat for
the Arabs. In the longer term, however, the war resulted in deadlock, with
Israel refusing to relinquish its occupied territories.
The Palestinians who remained within Israeli state borders, including in
Gaza and the West Bank, found themselves being exploited in low-paid
jobs, occupied and curfewed, their homes and livelihoods constantly over
turned by Israeli bombardment and bulldozed for the building of new
Jewish settlements. In 1987, a Palestinian intifada (uprising) began, ending
with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestinian Liberation
Organisation (PLO) signing the Oslo Accords in 1993, marking the start
of the peace process. Trust, however, quickly broke down: Rabin was assas
sinated in 1995 by an Israeli hardliner. When the right-wing Likud Party
returned to power, it reversed his policy and encouraged settlements in
occupied territories. By 2000, the intifada had restarted, responding with
suicide bombings to Israeli attacks on Gaza and the West Bank. Western
(especially US) interests have further jeopardised the peace.
The Holocaust and other Judeocides were naturally the main reason for

43
a site of the uncanny (in German, unheimlichy 'unhomely'). The uncanny
is a psychoanalytical category, shown by Sigmund Freud to be etymologically linked its opposite - what is homely (heimlich) is also uncanny
(unheimlich) and vice versa.
Ceylan's films have been compared to those of Abbas Kiarostami (see
Chapter 4). He utilises a minimalist, documentary-like style, depicting
everyday situations that 'seem to be both all too real and at the same time
44
somewhat skewed and bizarre'. Ceylan often casts his own family and
friends in his films, which are all autobiographical, referring to his profes
sion as photographer and director, if not directly referring to his life. At
Cannes in 2003, Uzak received the Grand Jury Prize and the Best Actor
Award for its two leads, Mehmet Emin Toprak (1974-2002) and Muzaffer
Ozdemir. In the film, Mahmut, a divorce and a photographer living in
Istanbul (a figure of intellectual urban alienation reflecting aspects of
Ceylan's own life), is visited by his country cousin Yusef, searching for a
job at a time of recession. Uzak means 'distant': the film explores themes
of estrangement within the home where the two men uneasily cohabit. In
shot compositions, the characters are divided by bars, doors and windowpanes, or placed into different spatial planes, as when Mahmut is shown in
focus in the foreground while his part-time lover undresses out of focus in
the background. The home becomes further estranged - an uncanny place
- through the use of magnified sounds that do not match images but act as
an overbearing discordant element, particularly in the night-time scene
where the mouse in Mahmut's kitchen is caught in his glue trap; its pitiful
squeaks reverberate throughout the house, intermingling with YusuPs hal
lucinatory dreams.

Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

Said, Orientalism^ p. 26.

contains point-of-view shots through a burka, emphasising its physical

restriction on its wearers.
In 1996, Makhmalbaf temporarily stopped filmmaking to teach. The
MCIG rejected his initial proposal to enrol 100 students in a four-year
course, so he set up the Makhmalbaf Film School in his own house with
eight family members and friends as pupils, including his daughters
23
Samira and Hana, his son Maysam and his wife Marzieh Meshkini. The
Film House of Makhmalbaf also formed a production arm, Makhmalbaf
Productions. All films made during the four years of schooling were collaboratively produced by the students together with Makhmalbaf.
Although some of their films involve foreign co-producers such as MK2,
the Film House of Makhmalbaf is largely an artisanal, family mode of pro
duction - the like of which has rarely been witnessed.
This collaborative form offilmmakinghas produced a stylistic consis
tency in their films - a Makhmalbaf 'house style'. Mohsen Makhmalbaf
has contributed to his students'filmsin the form of storylines, scripts and
editing, and his influence on them as 'teacher, mentor and aesthetic model'
24
is undeniable. However, they (especially Marzieh, Samira and Hana) have
also influenced him - and this is evident in the more urgent attention to
gendered injustices in Mohsen's post-1996 films, including Kandahar.
The use of symbolic props with multiple associations is a defining aspect
of the Makhmalbaf house style. Also striking is the use of space. Not only
do doorways function as barriers to vision - an allegory of censorship
restrictions found in many Iranianfilms- but the House of Makhmalbaf
films often emphasise disconnected portions of space, another way of indi
cating the selectiveness of what we see, as in shots of disembodied women's
hands handing out food or wateringflowersin A Moment of Innocence and
The AppleP
Samira Makhmalbaf made her debut feature, The Appley when she was
seventeen years old. Her work since then includes Blackboards, which won
the Jury Prize at Cannes 2000, and At Five in the Afternoon. Initially, there
was much speculation as to whether this work was really Samira's or her
father's, despite their significantly different outlooks. Ironically, a uniting
theme in thesefilmsis a constraining father-daughter relationship: in The
Apple, a father imprisons his daughters; in Blackboards, Halaleh's father
marries her off, barely asking her consent; and Noqreh struggles with a
father whose mindset still belongs to the Taliban in At Five in the
Afternoon. Samira uses the motif of parental tyranny to comment on wider
gender oppressions in Iran and elsewhere. According to critics, what dis
tinguishes herfilmmakingstyle is her 'strategic naivety' and the 'anthro
26
pological eye' that she casts over her subjects. In Blackboards, she focuses

IRANIAN CINEMA

on the situation of the Kurds, particularly boys earning their livelihood by

smuggling contraband across the Iran-Iraq border. Itinerant teachers
come searching for pupils, carrying their blackboards on their backs,
looking like ungainly blackbirds, out of place in the barren mountainous
landscape. The blackboards are symbolic props with multiple functions in
the film, serving as a refuge from possible chemical attack (a reference to
the Iraqi mustard-gas attack against Kurds in Halabcheh during the
Iran-Iraq war), a private wall for a man and his wife, and a splint for a
wound. Thefilmuses off-screen sound to suggest menacing helicopter sur
veillance and border patrols.
Borders also form a key motif in A Time for Drunken Horsesy directed by
Bahman Ghobadi, himself a Kurd, who plays one of the teachers in
Blackboards, So too in thisfilmis smuggling the means by which child pro
tagonists survive, taking inebriated mules across mine-infested snowcovered mountains into Iraq. Both films emphasise how the Kurds are
always crossing borders imposed on them by others, showing them dis
placed and lost in nightmarish liminal zones where 'inexplicable military
27
atrocity* hangs over them.
Samira's first 'Afghanistan' film is a short, God, Construction and
Destruction^ which she contributed to 11' 09" 01 (2002), a collection of
short films by eleven filmmakers including Youssef Chahine (Egypt),
Danis Tanovic (Bosnia-Hercegovina), Ken Loach (UK), Amos Gitai
(Israel) and Mira Nair (India). Herfilmmanages to be both irreverent and
serious, underlining the incomprehensibility and distance of the World
Trade Center attacks to those who are in a very real sense affected by their
repercussions -* Afghan refugees in a camp on the Iran-Afghanistan
border, who only know that American bombs are about to fall. A teacher
asks a group of schoolchildren to name the world-shattering incident that
has just occurred. The children haphazardly guess - 'A man fell into a well
and died', claims one, but the teacher insists the event is bigger than that.
'Two people fell down a well and one broke his leg', another offers. One girl
mentions a woman being stoned to death in Afghanistan, but that is not big
enough either. Finally, the teacher tries to make her pupils grasp the enor
mity of the event by making them stand in silence under a tall chimney, the
closest thing the children know to a skyscraper.
In At Five in the Afternoon^ again recruiting non-professional actors on
location, Samira allows Afghan people to articulate their own tragic expe
riences under the Taliban within her story'sfictionalparameters. The film
begins with much optimism. Women and girls attend school for the first
time in years and are told that they can do anything they want - become
doctors, lawyers, teachers, even presidents. But twenty-year-old Noqreh,

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

who aspires to become Afghanistan's first female president, faces several

obstacles - starting at home with her father. On the streets, men turn their
faces to the wall whenever they see unveiled women, signalling that the
Taliban's legacy is far from over. When her father is out of sight, Noqreh
slips on some white shoes (the film's main symbol) to practise her steps to
freedom. In one scene, she asks a French soldier about democracy in his
country. Through his answer - l a m a soldier. I don't interfere in politics'
- Samira underlines the irony of soldiers who don't participate in their
own democracy 'providing' democracy for other countries.
In jfoy of Madness (2003), a behind-the-scenes documentary of At Five
in the Afternoon made by Hana Makhmalbaf at the age of fourteen, we
witness the obstacles Samira faced in making herfilm.So many fear to take
part; the same fear keeps women wearing their burkas despite the Taliban's
departure. However, neither Hana's nor Samira's film particularises the
predicament of women in Afghanistan; instead, they invite self-recognition
and comparison. Despite differences between Iran and Afghanistan (fun
damentalist Iran opposed the Taliban), the similarities are sufficient for the
Iranian government to be nervous about films critical of Afghanistan
and/or endorsing moves towards 'democracy' in neighbouring countries
(this applies to Iraq as well as Afghanistan). This is why, Hana believes, her
28
film is banned in Iran. In Iran, women are also treated as third-class citi
zens, forced to cover themselves (although, unlike burka-cfod Afghan
women, they are permitted to show their faces and hands), and there is no
right of public assembly. However, the relevance of the Makhmalbafs' cri
tiques of gender oppression in Afghanistan goes even wider. Asked what
she personally thought of the burka, Hana replied that in Afghanistan there
is the burkay and in Iran the chador version of it, but elsewhere there is 'a
subjective veil' - for how many female directors, let alone female presi
dents, are there?
Close Analysis
Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami, 1994)
Through the Olive Trees is the lastfilmin Kiarostami's Rostamabad trilogy,
co-produced with CiBy (France), the Farabi Film Foundation (Iran) and
Miramax Films (USA). It crystallises many aspects of his approach, espe
cially his notion of the 'half-finished' film. In it, a film-director (a
Kiarostami stand-in) casts non-professional actors to play a couple who
marry after the earthquake. The first actor to play the husband stammers
whenever he speaks to the female lead, Tahereh, so a runner at the film

IRANIAN CINEMA

unit, Hossein, replaces him in the role. Hossein is in love with Tahereh in
real life and wishes to marry her, although her family have rejected him
because he is illiterate and has no house. The film director, acting like a
matchmaker, gives Hossein a second chance, potentially enabling life to
imitate art.
The film begins with the actor playing the director, Mohammed Ali
Keshavaz, directly addressing the camera in front of a crowd of young,
chador-chd village women auditioning for thefilm.One woman asks if the
film will be shown in her village and whether there is any point in making
thefilmif it is not shown: Tour lastfilmwent out on Channel 2, which we
can't get here.' At the outset, the film activates self-reflexive anxiety, not
only about the construction of thefilmartefact but also about who its main
audiences are - not rural inhabitants whose earthquake tragedy the crew
has come to film, but 'cultural consumers back in Tehran and in cities
29
around the world'.
Thefilmcontinually refers back to previous Trilogyfilms,as when Mrs
Shiva gives a lift to the teacher from Where Is the Friend's Home?, although
we hardly see him because Kiarostami keeps the camera on the road (one
of his car point-of-view shots) throughout the journey. In And Life Goes
On> the directorfigure,Farhad, stands at the porch of a newlywed's house
and questions him about his motives for marrying so soon after the earth
quake. This marginal episode from the previousfilmbecomes the dramatic
centrepiece of Through the Olive Trees, both itsfilm-within-the-filmand
the film as a whole. Farhad appears in Through the Olive Trees to recreate
his role, asking the newlywed how many relatives he lost in the earthquake.
Playing theriewlywed,Hossein claims that he lost twenty-five relatives
because the scripted response, sixty-five, contradicts his real experience. In
numerous retakes, Hossein repeatedly fluffs his line, displaying the com
plexities involved when art tries to imitate life. The repetition breaks the
naturalistic illusion, together with clapperboards announcing the start of
each take and bleeps calling for retakes.
The tension between the film and the film-within-the-film creates a
subtly non-linear narrative, with events being referred to before they
happen. This begins in the prologue, where thefictionaldirector, talking
direct to camera, relates that 'actors were hired on location'. Past tense
shifts into present tense as we see the actors being hired before our eyes. In
another instance, Hossein reports his visit to the cemetery where he sees
Tahereh at her parents' grave (they perished in the earthquake), then the
scene is dramatised (and filmed).
For Hossein, Tahereh's losses are a 'heaven-sent opportunity', levelling
30
their class differences. Neither of them now has a house. Hossein identifies

frame (mastery of space) and admiring a girl's watch (mastery of time).
The apple configures the girls' curiosity about the world. As in the story
of Adam and Eve, common to Judaeo-Islamic-Christian cultural inheri
tance, the apple signifies desire, knowledge and temptation - hence the boy
dangling an apple on a stick. The twins endlessly try to grab the apple from
him. The boy leads the twins to the market, and takes them back to their
father to get money to buy goods, ushering a fall from innocence into the
perils of consumerism; the twins demand apples, ice-creams, watches. But,
on the other hand, this brings new freedoms and opportunities. Previously,
only their father went to the market and determined what goods the girls
should have; now the girls can go and choose their own goods.
When the social worker imprisons Ghorban in the house, leaving him
with a saw to hack his own way out, it is ostensibly to give him a taste of his
own medicine. But then she gives the key to the twins, saying that he will
be released if they can open the door. Massoumeh eventually does work out
how to use the key, and her knowledge is his release. The Apple can be read
as a feminist allegory about women seizing opportunities, disguising its
wider socio-political implications through the figure of childhood for the
censors' benefit.
In the concluding scene, the twins' blind mother wanders out of the
house. Throughout the film, she has been as housebound as the twins, and
moreover covered from head to toe by her chador. She is perhaps the film's
most imprisoned figure, having internalised her society's patriarchal
beliefs and meted out her own oppression on her daughters. On her way
out into the street, she passes a mirror, affixed to the door. She cannot see
her reflection; but, once in the street outside, she reaches for the dangling
apple, holding it firmly in her grasp in thefilm'sfinal freeze-frame.
Images such as these arerichwith allegorical associations yet also resist
fixed meanings. Dabashi writes, J The Apple... becomes a devastating con
demnation of the mind-numbing oppression of women, not just in Iran,
42
but anywhere.' It is, herightlyputs it, 'an allegory of global relevance'.

Notes
1. See Dabashi, Close Upy p. 277; also Farahmand, 'Perspectives on Recent
(International Acclaim for) Iranian Cinema', pp. 86-108.
2. Ehteshami, After Khomeiniy p. 215.
3. Ibid., p. 203.
4. Ibid., p. 209.
9
5. Payami, 'Necessary Illusions , p. 29.

6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

Naficy, 'Under the Islamic Republic', p. 230.

Ibid., p. 231.
Naficy, 'Iranian Cinema', p. 155.
Naficy, 'Under the Islamic Republic', p. 231.
Naficy, 'Veiled Vision', pp. 132-3.
Naficy, 'Under the Islamic Republic', p. 234.
Sciolini, Persian Mirrors, p. 269.
See Laura Mulvey, 'Kiarostami's Uncertainty Principle', pp. 24-7.
Bransford, 'Days in the Country'.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Louvish, 'Letters', p. 64. For the original review, see Louvish, 'The White
Balloon'.
Chaudhuri and Finn, 'Open Image', p. 56.
Rapfogel, 'Don't Look at the Camera'.
Ridgeon, Makhmalbaf*s Broken Mirror, p. 9.
Ibid., p. 12.
Macnab, 'A Woman's Place', p. 10.
Fatemah Meshkini, Mohsen Makhmalbaf's first wife and mother of Samira,
Maysam and Hana, died in 1992. Marzieh Meshkini is her sister.
Danks, 'The House that Mohsen Built'.
Chaudhuri and Finn, 'Open Image', p. 48.
Hebron, 'At Five in the Afternoon', p. 19; Danks, 'The House that Mohsen
Built'.
Chaudhuri and Finn, 'Open Image', p. 48.
Hana Makhmalbaf, Q&A following her film's screening at the London Film
Festival, 27 October 2003.
Bransford, 'Days in the Country'.
Raghavendra, 'An Unmarried Woman', p. 80.
Ibid., p. 81.
Bransford, 'Days in the Country'.
Hamid, 'Near and Far', p. 23.
Dabashi, 'Mohsen Makhmalbaf's A Moment ofInnocence\ p. 123.
Ridgeon, Makhmalbaf*s Broken Mirror; p. 16.
Ibid., p. 12.
Ibid., p. 17.
Pusan, Salaam Cinema, p. 44.
Dabashi, Close Up, p. 269.
Chaudhuri and Finn, 'Open Image', p. 53.
Lacan, Ecrits, pp. 1-2.
Dabashi, Close Up, p. 271.

CHAPTER 5

East Asian Cinema

This chapter will explore recent trends in Chinese Mainland, Taiwanese,

Japanese, South Korean and Thai cinema, leaving a fuller discussion of
Hong Kong cinema for Chapter 6. It will focus on the genres of family
saga/melodrama, urban youth film, supernatural horror, apocalyptic
fantasy/sciencefictionand evolving blockbuster forms, arguing that these
constitute exemplary responses to the region's historical particularities and
the conditions of cinema under globalisation.
These East Asian territories were mostly late to modernise, resulting in
converging patterns of rapid and drastic societal change. Their overlap
ping histories, which films negotiate from various 'national' viewpoints,
also encompass the impact of Japanese colonisation before and during the
Second World War, the Communist Party's victory in China in 1949, and
American economic and military presence in the region.
The territories are highly distinctive and different from each other in
numerous respects. However, they share many centuries-old cultural tra
ditions: Confucian ethics, based on filial obligations and loyalty between
rulers and their subjects, and between family members and friends;
Buddhism; supernatural beliefs; classical theatre, including Peking Opera
in China and Japanese Kabuki theatre, both involving male actors playing
female roles; and Chinese classical painting, characterised by the subordi
nation of figures to landscape and the absence of the illusion of depth.
These do not apply uniformly across the region; for example, Buddhism is
more central to Thailand than to other territories.
In East Asia, the influence of American consumerism and Western mod
ernisation has been mediated by Japanese variations on the American
model. Japan modernised well before other Asian territories: an agrarian,
feudal nation until the mid-nineteenth century, it rose to become an indus
trial market economy and, despite sustaining large-scale destruction during
the Second World War, it almost overtook the West in its massive post-war
economic expansion - an attractive model for the East Asian 'Tiger* econ
omies, including Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong. Ironically, not long
after it became known as the second richest country in the world, Japan
entered economic decline, following a devastating stock-market collapse in

103

fronts - from anime and Hollywood. Anime are a mass-media phenomenon

in Japan, produced on a huge commercial scale within the studio system with essential jobs like colouring assigned to low-paid workers in South
Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Thailand - and consumed in vast quan
tities by domestic and regional audiences. Astro Boy (1963) was the first
influential anime export to the West, but it was the breakthrough Akira
(1988) which announced anime as a huge cult phenomenon internationally.
Anime are sophisticated and complex, comprising an astonishing range
of styles, genres and themes. Even anime intended for children contain
mature themes rarely found in Western animation. Anime are produced not
only as theatrical features but also as TV serials, straight-to-video (Original
Video Animations, OVAs, or Original Animated Videos, OAVs) and multi
media spin-offs. These have all affected its narrative structures; the OVA
medium in particular has enabled creators to experiment with fluid, openended episodic structures, benefiting theatrical features with their innova
tions. Thus, anime can have narrative strands that are only loosely
connected, lacking the causality of Western storytelling. Narrative struc
tures may be more circular than linear, with the same situations being
negotiated, and characters playing similar roles, over and over again.
Characters* goals are complex: 'villains* are not wholly evil; facile roman
tic conclusions are forestalled; closure is open-ended. Many anime films
use mobile framings, sudden focal changes, varied and unusual 'camera'
angles and distances, whereas Western animation usually deploys a
uniform, middle distance.
This does not mean that anime has not borrowed Western influences,
although these are never assimilated 'straight' - the process of assimilation
transforms them. Stylistic influences include glam rock, with characters
sporting hair of many colours for graphic variety and characterisation, and
characters with 'Western' features - round, large eyes (often glistening
with tears) indicating sensitive or sympathetic characters. The latter also
derive from Japanese theatre traditions - the all-male Kabuki theatre (with
female impersonators), and the all-female Takarazuka Revue (with male
impersonators), where actors dress in Western clothes and perform
Western stories.
Anime emerged as a distinctly post-war popular culture, expressing the
concerns of post-war youth generations. Its imagery is often apocalyptic.
The atom bomb is a recurring reference - sometimes explicitly, as in the
Hibakusha nuclear-war survivor genre encompassing live action as well as
anime. The live-action Godzilla (1954), where a prehistoric beast is awak
ened by radiation from nuclear tests and devastates Tokyo, could be consid
ered the prototypical Hibakusha film. Apart from being the only nation to

104

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

have suffered atomic attack, the Japanese are said to live under a number of
other collective stresses, including the continual threat of earthquake,
27
typhoon and Are on a volcanic island ridden with climatic extremes.
During the economic downturn of the 1990s, sporadic acts of violence, such
as the cult Aum Shinrikyo's gas attack on a Tokyo subway, and the grisly
murder by a teenager called Sakakibara (after whom the Japanese youth of
the 1990s are named 'the Sakakibara generation'), reinforced a growing millenarian angst. Since anime generally do not offer respite from such unpal
atable social realities, Japanese scholar Susan Napier has suggested that
anime is a cinema of 'de-assurance', contrasting it with Robin Wood's char
28
acterisation of Reagan-era Hollywood as a cinema of 'reassurance'.
The pessimistic tone of present-day mechay a sub-genre dealing with
futuristic machines - like the Patlabor series - partly derives from Western
cyberpunk influences. Cyberpunk depicts dystopian worlds populated by
virtual entities - Artificial Intelligences and other human-machine inter
faces. Like a lot of science fiction, it portrays an intensification of presentday tendencies, namely the tendencies of post-industrial capitalist society.
Japanese animation since Aktra has imported Western cyberpunk ele
ments, includingfilmslike Videodrome (1983), Terminator (1984) and Blade
Runner (1982), and combined them with its own 'imagination of disaster'
derived from centuries-old apocalyptic, elegiac forms and animist beliefs;
Shinto, Japan's oldest religion, holds that inanimate entities such as rocks,
trees and rivers are sacred and that gods (kami) dwell in them. Films such
as Ghost in the Shell (1995) use these influences to comment on and reflect
the unique circumstances of Japan's post-industrial society. Here, and in
other recent anime showing bodies disintegrating, mutating or vaporising
and then being reconstructed differently (Akira, Rojin Z [1991] and many
29
more), there is unexpected promise in 'this mutant technological life'.
Japan's most popularfilmmakeris Hayao Miyazake, whose anime cross
boundaries of age and gender in their mass appeal. Princess Mononoke
(1997), an eco-fable about the destruction of the forests set in fourteenthcentury Japan, was the best-selling film of all time in Japan until Titanic;
but Miyazake's next film Spirited Away (2001), which traces ten-year-old
Chihiro's adventures in a spirit realm where sorceress Yubaba transforms
her parents into pigs, did better still Spirited Away also won an Oscar for
Best Animated Feature and the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.
Miyazake's earlier animations My Neighbour Totoro (1988) and Kiki's
Delivery Service (1989) are also extremely popular across East Asia.
Typical Miyazake traits include richly realised fantasy worlds, preindustrial or futuristic settings, plucky girls and formidable matriarchs.
30
The motifs of flight and empowering labour also unite his work.

EAST ASIAN CINEMA

105

Miyazake's films are not alone among anime in portraying images of strong
women. These have a long tradition in Japanese stories and legends,
including Queen Himiko, legendary ruler of Japan, who has formed the
31
basis of speculation that early Japan may have been a matriarchy.
This complex attitude towards women is demonstrated in Princess
Mononokey where the eponymous heroine lives among wolves and is first
seen with her visage smeared with red war-paint and blood, spitting out
bullets from her 'mother' Moro's side and licking the wound. A hairy pelt
hangs around her neck, connoting unbridled animality and, together with
suggestions of menstrual blood, pointing to dangerous female sexuality
beyond society's accepted norms. Yet Mononoke is not subjected to mech
anisms of abjection or containment meted out to her type in patriarchal
narratives; that is, she is neither destroyed nor domesticated by offer of
marriage. There is an equally ambiguous villain: Lady Eboshi rules over a
gun-manufacturing ironworks, heralding the arrival of iron-age technol
ogy and the destruction of the forests, but she also gives refuge to society's
marginals, ex-prostitutes and lepers, providing them with a better life than
they might have otherwise. The film charts the disappearance of the
former ecological order and the shift away from pre-modern communion
with the natural world and its spirits, as expressed in animistic beliefs and
depicted in Mbnonoke's ability to interact with the host of nature's spirits.
Lady Eboshi's actions epitomise the desire to make nature subservient to
human will - the essence of modern technology - eradicating and repress
ing traditional animistic beliefs about nature's autonomous agency.
t

The 'New' New Wave

The leader of Japan's 'new' New Wave filmmakers is Takeshi Kitano.
Otherwise known as 'Beat' Takeshi, Kitano was originally an actor and TV
comedian. His breakthrough international success was Hana-Bi (1997), his
seventh directorial effort, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film
Festival. Kitano's films focus on yakuza (Japanese mafia), mixing violence
with pathos and visual comedy. They are often compared to Tarantino's
films, sharing swordplay and Hong Kong triad (gangster film) influences,
although Kitano evolved his style first. Where Kitano particularly differs
from Tarantino is his emphasis on pause over action: exaggerated bursts of
movement punctuate long scenes of silence, waiting or stasis.
According to Chuck Stephens, what distinguishes the 'new' New Wave
from the 'old' New Wave directors such as Oshima and Imamura is that the
younger generation acknowledges Japan's multi-ethnic culture and is even
32
keener to gain the West's attention. Significantly, however, the new and

106

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

old Japanese New Waves share a preoccupation with youth. The commo
nality between generations is shown in Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Bright Future
(2003), which sympathetically portrays a relationship between twentyyear-old Yuji and his friend Mamoru's father, who belongs to the 1968 gen
eration. Both are powerless against authority. Kiyoshi Kurosawa - no
relation to Akira - broke through internationally with hisfilmCure (1997),
and 'by popular and critical consensus' is 'the first major Japanese film
33
maker to emerge since Takeshi Kitano'. Kurosawa belongs to what has
been called the 'new' New Wave's 'intellectual' stream, which also includes
Hirokazu Koreeda and Shinji Aoyama. This distinguishes them from both
the maverick director Takashi Miike and the explosive industrial punk aes
thetic offilmmakerssuch as Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo [1988]) and Sogo
Ishii {Electric Dragon 80,000 Volts [2001]).
Kurosawa trained in experimental Super-8filmmakingwhile working as
assistant director to Shinji Somai. Although Bright Future is an indepen
dent film, shot on digital video, Kurosawa has also madefilmswithin the
studio system and is known for weaving philosophical and environmental
themes into genres such as police thrillers, ghost stories, family melodra
mas, dystopic sciencefictionand yakuzafilms.As well as recalling Japan's
own cinematic allegories of nuclear radioactivity, especially Godzilla, his
films are influenced by Hollywood directors such as Sam Peckinpah,
Robert Aldrich and Don Siegel. Characteristic features in hisfilmsinclude
the apocalyptic imagery of toxic pastures and streams, themes of industrial
entropy, and 'celestial' high overhead shots reducing cityscapes to minimalistic geometric compositions. A concern with botany pervades throughout.
At once tame and voracious, plants can sometimes survive for centuries by
decimating life around them; they fascinate Kurosawa because they are 'so
34
differently alive' from humans.
In Bright Future, jellyfish rather than plants occupy this role. Released
into Tokyo's canals after being acclimatised to fresh water, they glow lumi
nous orange, poisonous yet mesmerising. Incandescence is a recurring
motif - witness the youths wearing Che Guevara T-shirts and glowing
headbands whom Yuji befriends in a video arcade. Despite sudden erup
tions of violence, the bleak depiction of family relationships, Yuji's dead
end jobs and general purposelessness, allusions to Japan's worsening
economic downturn and intimations of ecological disaster, thefilm'stitle
is not ironic. The apocalyptic imagery in Kurosawa's films, as in many
other Japanesefilms,implies not solely negation but also the hopeful pos
35
sibility of 'starting again with nothing'.
Japanese cinema got its biggest international breakthrough in the 1990s
with a slew of visceral horror films. These are exemplary products ofJapan's

EAST ASIAN CINEMA

107

economic-downturn era, and their archetypalfigureis the teenage girl, pre

36
eminent icon ofJapan's bubble economy. Thefilmsalso cast teen pop idols
to appeal to female teen audiences. The genre typically combines technol
ogy with the supernatural. Hideo Nakata's The Ring (1998), which stands at
the forefront of the genre, revolves around a superstition regarding a certain
videotape: if you watch it, you receive a telephone call; seven days later, you
die. A single mother seeking to protect her son traces the videotape to the
cabin where recorded events took place, uncovering the story of Sadako,
buried alive in a well by her father, and whose psychic powers cause the
violent deaths. The film makes implicit connections between Sadako's
powers of telepathy and telekinesis and the malign influences of the tele
phone and television - all are technologies of influencing or 'touching' from
afar. The film's terrifying climax brings together influences from Videodrome and Japanese legends, with Sadako clambering out of the well in the
video image, then out of the television set itself. Since The Ring's release,
Sadako's name in Japan has become synonymous with technophobia.
In The Ringy the remedy for the curse is also the poison: to save oneself,
one must play the tape to another, thereby ensuring the curse's perpetua
tion. Ring 2 (1999) continues thefirstfilm'spreoccupations with 'contam
inating', possessed and possessive technology - with a new focus on
survivors who have witnessed Sadako's terrible glance, and, as video
images morph and mutate, so the curse evolves through yet different man
ifestations. In addition to sequels, The Ring spawned many spin-offs and
remakes, including Kurosawa's ghost film Pulse (2001). The wave spread
to Hong Kong,; Korea, Thailand and Hollywood. In East Asia, it estab
lished a commercially viable trend for high-tension, low-budget horror
37
films which worked with regional stars. The company responsible for The
Ringy Omega Project, marketed the film through the Internet,. mobile
phone dial-up entertainment and video-game licensing, 'creating market
38
ing hype to rival Hollywood'. In order to withstand the threat of
Hollywood, the sequels and spin-offs have themselves morphed as they
proliferate through interlocking media. In the Thai film 999-9999 (2002),
for example, the mobile phone is the threatening technology, linking The
Ring's viral narrative motifs to stories circulating in the mid-1990s among
Thai school teenagers about certain occult phone numbers.
The Ring qualifies as visceral horror - horror that proves itself on our
pulses - for its techniques of high suspense. Audition (2000), another noto
rious Japanese horror film, adds the dimension of the body being opened
up to its visceral horror characteristics. Audition is key to its director
Takashi Miike's high international profile. Audition has solidified his mave
rick reputation - its slow-moving horror is quite unlike the string of yakuza

108

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

films such as Dead or Alive (1999) for which he is otherwise known. In

Audition, * middle-aged widower, Aoyama, seeks a spouse and interviews
young women under the pretext of auditioning for afilm.He instantly falls
under the spell of demure, childlike Asami who, unknown to him, has a
dreadfully abused past and plans to wreak revenge by sawing off his feet
with piano wire. The film visualises Asami wearing a nurse's outfit with
black leather apron and gloves, leaning over Aoyama's prone body with her
sedative-oozing phallic syringe. The macabre sequence, initiated when
Aoyama falls unconscious drugged with Asami's potion, is itself cut up
into a series offlashbacks.Events which took place before are repeated, but
subtly and disturbingly altered to accommodate Asami's different perspec
tive, which Aoyama had previously elided, in his attempt to sustain his
fantasy of her as 'the Woman', both beautiful and deferential, the two qual
ities he prizes most, and on whom he had decided, even before her 'audi
tion'. At one point, thefilmflashesback to the couple'sfirsttime in bed,
allowing us to think the foot-sawing may have been a dream, only then to
jolt back to the narrative present.
Audition plays with the iconography of S&M porn to reveal pathologies
of social relationships in Japan: the audition as courtship ritual results from
loneliness and lack of interpersonal contact but culminates in personal
torture, reflecting a society where 'male visions of women are increasingly
39
blurred with violent images of domination and control'. The image of the
powerful, scary woman and castration anxiety is present in The Ring, too,
where victims are found with identically frozen, terrified facial expres
sions; Sadako's terrible gaze recalls that of the Greek mythological gorgon,
Medusa, who had the power to turn men to stone. The fascination with
female castrators is not new to Japanese cinema. It is evident in attitudes
to the 1936 legal case of a woman called Sada who strangled her lover to
death and cut off his penis as a memento. Sada gained public sympathy in
her trial and was acquitted of murder. Her story is told in Oshima's In the
Realm of the Senses (1976) and retold in Nobuhiko Obayashi's Sada (1998).
Australian feminist critic Barbara Creed has proposed that the trope of the
monstrous-feminine is a misrepresentation of powerful female deities
through centuries of patriarchal culture, but in Japanese cinema the 'mon
40
strous-feminine' is rarely unequivocally monstrous.
Thai Cinema
The Thaifilmindustry has witnessed a revival since the late 1990s, with a
series of films that smashed domestic box-office records, including 2499
Antaparn Krong Muang (1997), Nang Nak (1999) and Suriyothai (2001).

EAST ASIAN CINEMA

109

Annual film production, which peaked at almost 200 films in the 1970s
then slumped due to the onslaught of TV, video, cable and satellite, and
rivalry from Hollywood, has been slowly recovering too, although still only
a handful of films are released annually. Thai films are mostly funded
through private companies and, increasingly, international co-production.
The revival coincides with Thailand's rapid economic growth since the
mid-1980s.
The growth of shopping-mall multiplexes since 1995 has also contrib
uted, but during the early 1990s it was mainly teen audiences who watched
Thai films, while Hollywood films drew young adults. Director Nonzee
41
Nimibutr is credited with returning adult Thai audiences to the cinemas.
He belongs to a new generation of directors and producers who entered the
film industry from former careers in TV commercials and music videos.
His Nang Nak grossed $3.9 million in Thailand, selling more than Titanic.
It was also acknowledged at international film festivals. It adapts a fre
quentlyfilmednineteenth-century rural legend - about a woman who dies
in childbirth and returns as a ghost to haunt her husband - using striking
lighting effects and polished camerawork. Nostalgic periodfilmslike these,
which hark back to simpler and better times, sustained the Thaifilmindus
try through (the Asianfinancialcrisis, which actually started in Thailand
and rippled crat to the rest of the region. In fact, the Thai film industry
flourished while other sectors of the economy floundered.
Directed byfilmveteran Prince Chatrichalerm Yukol and partly funded
by Queen Sirikit of Thailand, the lavish historical epic Suriyothai sur
passed Nang Nok's box-office success, grossing $18 million. The most
expensive Thaifilmever made, employing a cast of superstars, thousands
of extras and 160 elephants, it relates the story of a sixteenth-century
queen who martyred herself in battle for her king and country during the
Burmese invasion. Suriyothai caused a stir at Cannes and set a trend for
big-budget Thai pictures, most of them aimed at international markets,
with filmmakers seeking to capitalise on Thai cinema's rising profile.
However, international acclaim for Thai cinema mostly rests on titles such
as Wisit Sasanatieng's Tears of the Black Tiger (2000) and NYongyooth
Thongkonthun's Iron Ladies (2000). Directors Pen-Ek Ratanaruang and
Apichatpong Weerasethakul are also recognised abroad.
Wisit had been screenwriter for Nang Nak but was unable to repeat his
popular success with Tears of the Black Tiger - a domestic flop, yet one oi
the most high-profile Thai films internationally. The story of cross-class
love between a politician's daughter and a bandit, it too draws inspiration
from the past - it is set in the 1950s and pays homage tofilmsfrom that era.
particularly the films of Thai director Rattana Pestonji. Its whirlwind

110

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

romance andfloridcolours draw on classic Hollywood melodramas such as

Gone with the Wind and appropriate the look of hand-painted Thai film
posters. The other obvious influence is the Western, particularly Sergio
Leone's Spaghetti Westerns: Wisit's bandits are outfitted as cowboys.
Tears of the Black Tiger has been called a 'pad Thai Western'; a 'hybrid of
42
a hybrid', it boldly displays its status as postmodern pastiche. Iron Ladies,
on the other hand, pleased crowds at home and at international film festivals, becoming the most popular Thai film that year. It recreates the reallife triumphs of an all-gay, transvestite and transsexual volleyball team who
won the national championship in 1996. The film's focus on a small provincial community was a clear factor in its popularity during the financialcrisis recovery period.
South Korean Art Films and Blockbusters
Divided into the communist North and capitalist South after the Second
World War, Korea was once known as the 'Hermit Kingdom', its cinema
rarely seen beyond its national borders. Although the North is still isolated
and its cinema still waiting to be 'discovered', that situation changed for
South Korea after the mid-1980s with the success of widespread protests
against its military regime, which had sped the country to full modernisation while suppressing basic political, civil and labour rights. Democratic
reforms were initiated, leading to the deregulation of thefilmindustry enabling private companies tofinancefilms,the relaxing of foreignfilmimports,
the partial lifting of censorship restrictions and the rebirth offilmculture.
The Korean New Wave directors emerged as part of the underground
movement against the military dictatorship. Although its heyday was
1983-94, the New Wave is still going today - often referred to in its present
incarnation as 'New Korean Cinema'. Its directors include Im Kwok-Taek,
Jang Sun-Woo, Hong Sang-Soo and Lee Myung-Se. Jang Sun-Woo was
held as a political prisoner and tortured for distributing leaflets about the
Kwangju Massacre in May 1980, when the military was accused of killing
hundreds of protestors. The Kwangju Massacre provides the impetus for
the political radicalism of early New Wavefilms.Jang's 1990sfilmstend to
emphasise sexual politics but are no less political. His Timeless, Bottomless
Bad Movie (1998) follows Seoul's street kids delving into sex, crime and
drugs. It inspired a spate of Korean films dealing with delinquent youth
and calling attention to violent undercurrents in Korean society, including
Im Sang-Soo's digital film Tears (2000), which was also influenced by a
Hong Kongfilmabout teenagers on the street, Made in Hong Kong (1997)
(see Chapter 6).

EAST ASIAN CINEMA

111

As elsewhere in the region, modernisation in Korea has destabilised tra

43
ditional gender roles for both men and women. This includes values
stemming from Confucian beliefs which emphasise woman's subservience
to her husband and family In the new liberal climate of the 1980s, sexual
ity, particularly women's sexuality - hitherto a taboo topic - appeared on
the cultural agenda. Jang's Lies (1999) belongs to a widespread trend
emphasising the need for frankness in dealing with sex in contemporary
Korean cinema. Here, a sadomasochistic affair develops between a sculp
tor named J and a schoolgirl named Y, both played by non-professional
actors. Y enjoys being whipped, but halfway through thefilmshe reverses
the roles, taking control of the stick and,finally,leaving the relationship to
start an independent life: she exits from the imprisoning dialectic of sub
mission and domination. This has a clear political edge, referring to the
residues of authoritarian power in Korean society, underlined by a scene
where Y refuses to sign a political petition because of the country's lack of
respect for its subjects. Based on a book Tell Me a Lie that was banned and
burned in Korea for its 'pornographic' content, Lies deliberately sets out
to provoke the censors. Released with cuts, the film caused a stir among
Korean audiences. Despite, or perhaps because of, certain moral groups'
attempts to close down screenings of thefilm,it became one of that year's
top ten box-office hits. A self-reflexive sex film, Lies epitomises Jang's
ability to appeal simultaneously to a modernistfilmaesthetic and to the box
office. The struggle for power is enacted at the level of narrative in the form
of a play with cinematic 'truth' and lies, utilising Brechtian alienation
effects such as pseudo-documentary video footage where actors discuss
their parts, voiceover narration hinting at thefilm'spossible unfaithfulness
to its source novel, and interruptions from the camera crew at moments of
narrative intensity, breaking the naturalistic illusion.
Another New Wave director who has scored with the Korean public is
Lee Myung-Se. Nowhere to Hide (1999), his sixth feature film, was a criti
cal and commercial success, earning five times its $2 million production
44
budget at the box office. A detective noir/gangster/Western/martialarts/action-comedy hybrid, Nowhere to Hide is peppered with eclectic ref
erences to film history, from Battleship Potemkin (1925) to Dimensions of
Dialogue (1982). Critics have emphasised its formal innovativeness. Anne
Rutherford, for example, refers to its marrying of a popular, fast-paced
music-video and comic-strip aesthetic ('a cartoon with live actors') with 'an
arthouse sensibility' and claims that it mixes its borrowed styles and genres
in unpredictable ways: 'Any moment, any stylistic element, any generic clue
or hook can become a point of departure for the film to take off into exuber
ant flights of fantasy and play, leapfrogging more conventional narrative

112

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

>45

transitions. Lee has stated that movement and kinetic energy are his main
focus rather than story and characters. Certainly, the building of dynamic
movement from pauses and stillness makes watching this film a sensual
delight. But, for all its formal innovation, Nowhere to Hide offers familiar
genre pleasures too. As in the films of John Woo and Jackie Chan (see
Chapter 6), male violence is funny, slapstick, spectacular, sometimes elegiac
and frequently brutal.
With the aid of a screen quota system which stipulates a minimum
number of days for the screening of Korean films in Korean theatres,
Korean films have been able to capture over 40 per cent of the national
market share - one of the highest national market shares in the world. The
screen quota has been an effective mechanism for regulating the US
monopoly in the Korean film market and is widely supported by the
Korean public. Although instituted in 1966, it was not strictly enforced
46
until after the 1993 GATT negotiations. The male buddy/gangster film
Friend (2001) and the military thrillers Shiri (1999) and Joint Security Area
(2000) are all Koreanfilmsthat have smashed the Korean box-office record
set by Titanicy each subsequent film outdoing the success of its predeces
sors. Blockbusters such as these have also transformed Korean cinema into
a heavyweight contender in other East Asian markets, especially Hong
Kong and Thailand.
Both Shiri and Joint Security Area deal with the burning topical issue of
Korean reunification. International critics have generally preferred
Nowhere to Hide to Shiri on the grounds of the former's formal innovation,
but Shiri also has a daring style and cartoon violence. Shiri combines
violent blockbuster spectacle with a love story and has superstar Han Sukr
Kyu as the male lead. There is a long tradition of love stories between
North and South Koreans in Korean cinema, but Shiri puts the formula in
a gripping narrative with an urgent twist, given recent events. North Korea
no longer disguises its possession of nuclear weapons and has earned the
reputation of being the world's most unpredictable country, included in
George W. Bush's so-called 'axis of evil'. Shiri touches South Korean audi
ences' fear of North Korea's military power which has made South Korea
vulnerable in the event of nuclear attack. During the Cold War, especially
after the 1950-3 Korean War between the Soviet-backed North and the
US-assisted South, South Koreans were taught to view North Korea as the
enemy. However, since the 1990s, North Koreans have been considered
'friends' whom South Koreans must help in order all to live together in the
future, despite continuing ideological differences. The allure of the
nation's enemy/friend or stranger/lover is at the emotional core of Shiriy
evoking comparisons with the IndianfilmDilSe (1998) (see Chapter 8). In

EAST ASIAN CINEMA

113

Shirt, Hee, a North Korean sniper fighting for a unified Korea, hides from
the pursuit of South Korean special agent Ryu. She undergoes plastic
surgery, takes on a new identity, Hyun, and gets engaged to Ryu's colleague
Lee. Hee/Hyun's fractured identity becomes a metaphor for the division
of North and South Korea. Described as a 'six-headed hydra', Hee/Hyun
is at once sympathetic and monstrous. As the monstrous-feminine, she
figures the general mistrust of women and the crisis of gender dynamics in
contemporary society (as in Audition) as well as the monstrosity of the
North Korean militia. Yet the film suggests that Hee/Hyun is a victim of
history - really, she is just one entity, and it is because of partition that she
has been forced to become many. Nostalgia for an imagined lost unity also
drives the film's other main conceit, derived from the title: shiri are fresh
water fish unique to Korea, apparently separated and longing to unite. In
film reviews, they became the rallying cry for Korean cinema - little fishes
that sank Titanic,

Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.

Desser, 'Pan-Asian Youth', p. 3.

Ibid., p. 1^
Ibid., p. 2.
Ibid., p. 11.
Dissanayake, Melodrama and Asian Cinema, p. 3.
Berry, Chinese Fiftns in Focus, p. 183.
Lau, 'Globalization and Youthful Subculture', p. 15.
Chow, Primitive Passions, p. 13.
Rayns, 'Story of Qiu Ju', p. 55.
Berry, 'Hero', p. 24.
Xiaoping, 'New Chinese Cinema', p. 263.
Lau, 'Globalization and Youthful Subculture', p. 20.
Donald, 'Beijing Bicycle*, p. 192.
Xiaoping, 'New Chinese Cinema', p. 272.
Berry, 'Dazzling', p. 24.
Ibid., p. 25.
Jameson, Geopolitical Aesthetic\ p. 145.
Yeh, 'Politics and Poetics of Hou Hsiao-Hsien's Films', p. 68.
Li,' Yi YP, p. 204.
Ibid., p. 200.
Martin, 'Vive l'amour', p. 175.
Stephens,'Intersection', p. 21.
Martin, 'Vive l'amour', p. 177.
Chapman, Cinemas of the World, p. 361.
Ibid., p. 365.

114

26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

Moller, 'Shameless', p. 45.

Freidberg, 'Akira and the Postnuclear Sublime', p. 97.
Napier, Animefrom Akira to Princess Mononokey p. 193.
Rutsky, High Techney p. 138.
Osmond, 'Gods and Monsters', p. 34.
Lev, Samurai from Outer Space, p. 40.
Stephens, 'High and Low', p. 36.
Stephens, 'Another Green World', p. 68.
Ibid., p. 72.
Stephens, 'High and Low', p. 36.
Lu, 'Horror Japanese-style', p. 38.
Ibid., p. 38.
Ibid., p. 38.
Ward, 'Audition', p. 40.
Creed, Monstrous-Feminine, p. 21.
Kong, 'Cinematic Revival in Thailand', p. 12.
Stephens, 'Tears of the Black Tiger', p. 17.
For an argument about how this has affected men and masculinity in New
Korean Cinema, see Kim, The Remasculinization of Korean Cinema.
44. Stephens, 'Kingdom Come', p. 38.
45. Rutherford, 'Arrested Motion'.
46. CDMI, 'Overview of the Screen Quota System in Korea'.

CHAPTER 6

Hong Kong Cinema

Hong Kong has had a commercially buoyantfilmindustry for decades. In

the 1970s, Hong Kong cinema commanded international attention
throughfilmssuch as A Touch of Zen (1969), but it was really during the
1990s that its international profile soared, partly through tastemakers such
as Quentin Tarantino, who acknowledged influences from City on Fire
(1987) in Reservoir Dogs (1992), presented an MTV Lifetime Achievement
Award to Jackie Chan and secured US distribution for Chungking Express
(1994). Ironically, just as Hong Kong cinema became internationally
visible, its own commercial vitality started to drain due to the combined
impact of uncertainty about Hong Kong's return to Mainland China in
June 1997, the 1997-8 Asianfinancialcrisis, increased video piracy and the
success of Hollywood, South Korean and Thai blockbusters in regional
markets. Hong Kong films used to be persistently more popular than
Hollywood films in their home territory, with a domestic box-office share
ranging between 50 and 70 per cent since the 1970s, but since the mid
1
1990s that share has decreased - to 38 per cent in 2002.
Traditionally a port city at the intersection of various trading routes,
Hong Kong was a British colony from the nineteenth century until it was
handed back to China. Now it is officially a Special Administration Region
(SAR) of China. Throughout its history, Hong Kong has been profoundly
affected by the tumultuous events in the region - it was occupied by the
Japanese during the Second World War and later inundated by refugees
fleeing communist China. Mainland refugees helped generate Hong
Kong's first economic boom in the 1950s and 1960s with their technical
and manufacturing skills. As the city became a thriving capitalist outpost,
multinational companies took their businesses there, encouraged by the
colonial government's 'laissez faire' policies. Hong Kong has acquired an
identity as a global city where goods, capital and people transit. The refu
gees who fled there saw it as a temporary home. Events such as the 1967
anti-colonial riots, fanned by the Cultural Revolution on the Mainland,
and the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre prompted Hong Kong residents
fearing for the city's own fate to emigrate again - this time to places like
the USA, Canada, Australia and Britain.

116

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

According to the terms of the bilateral handover treaty signed by Britain

and China in 1984, China promises to leave Hong Kong's socio-economic
structure unchanged for fifty years. Since the handover, however, there
have been public demonstrations against the incoming government's
encroachments on civil liberties. During British colonial rule, Hong
Kong's cinema was subject to British censorship regulations, which
forbadefilmsthat criticised the colonial government or harmed diplomatic
relations with other countries, including China. Since the handover, Hong
Kongfilmshave been subject to censorship from the Chinese authorities,
and this has affected the production of somefilmsdiscussed in this chapter.
Ambivalence towards China is a leitmotif in many contemporary films,
which mingle nostalgia for the Chinese 'Motherland' with fears about
China's territorial claims. In response to censorship constraints, some
Hong Kong films have adopted allegorical positions, displacing fears for
the city's current and future situation into past settings - the pre-modern
Ching Dynasty era (the Once Upon a Time in China series), the 1920s
{Rouge [1987]) or the 1960s {In the Moodfor Love [2000]). During the late
1980s and 1990s, stories about ghosts, including A Chinese Ghost Story
(1987) and Rougey proliferated, registering anxieties about Hong Kong's
'disappearance'. Ackbar Abbas has given an influential account of these
anxieties in his book Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance,
l
Abbas refers to a sense of dejd disparu* in Hong Kong culture - 'the feeling
2
that what is new and unique about the situation is already gone'. Given
the traumatic impact of the Tiananmen Square massacre and the momen
tous nature of the handover, such readings have much validity; but other
political perspectives, such as the global dynamics of Hong Kong's rela
tionship with Hollywood as well as with other East Asianfilmindustries,
also need to be taken into account.
In Hong Kong, there is an unusually close relationship between 'com
mercial' productions and the 'art cinema' or New Wave, with the latter
developing within, rather than outside, the commercial system. The indus
try's most sought-after actors during the 1990s - including Andy Lau,
Tony Leung, Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Cheung, Brigitte Lin
and Leslie Cheung - regularly performed in both 'art-house' and commer
cial sectors. There is also a strong convergence between the film, TV and
music industries. Cantonese TV fostered Canto-Pop, a hybrid of Western
3
and Hong Kong popular music. Canto-Pop singers perform infilms;and
manyfilmstars are recording artists. For the sake of clarity in pinpointing
how styles evolved, and to provide a context for the close analysis of HardBoiled (1992), In the Mood for Lovcy and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
(2000) at the end of this chapter, the following sections treat commercial

HONG KONG CINEMA

117

and art cinemas separately. For commercial cinema, I have focused on

124

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

Notes
1. Li, 'Popular Gnema in Hong Kong', p. 708; Anon., 'Global Cinema
Exhibition Markets', p. 303.
2. Abbas, Hong Kong, p. 25.
3. Bordwell, Planet Hong Kong, p. 32.
4. Rose, 'Hong Kong Phooey', p. 3.
5. Fore, 'Golden Harvest Films', p. 45.
6. Hunt, Kung Fu Cult Masters, p. 10.
7. Chan, I Am Jackie Chan, p. 174.
8. Li, 'Popular Gnema in Hong Kong', p. 710.
9. Ibid., p. 710.
10. Hall, John Woo, p. 4.
11. Ibid., 34,37.
12. Ibid., p. 55.
13. Ibid., pp. 6,23.
14. Stringer, 'Tsui Hark', p. 348.
l
15. Chu, * Swordsman II and The East Is Red*, p. 34.
16. Reynaud, 'Centre Stage\ p. 36.
17. Reynaud, 'I Can't Sell My Acting Like That', p. 24.
<
18. Louie, Floating Life\ p. 98.
19. See Bordwell, Planet Hong Kong, p. 282.
20. Abbas, 'The Erotics of Disappointment', p. 53.
21. Siegel, 'The Intimate Spaces of Wong Kar-Wai', p. 291.
22. See Yeh, 'Musical Discourses in Wong Kar-Wai's Films', p. 121.
23. Desser, 'Pan-Asian Youth', pp. 7,14-15.
24. See Stringer, 'Scrambling Hollywood', pp. 229-42.
25. Hunt, Kung Fu Cult Masters, pp. 158,181-2.
26. Ibid., p. 158.
27. Ibid., p. 180.
28. Stokes and Hoover, 'Hong Kong to Hollywood', p. 36.
29. Chu, Hong Kong Cinema, p. 126.
30. Ibid., p. 126.

136

31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.

46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

Ibid., p. 124.
Rayns, 'Deep Cover', p. 26.
Bordwell, Planet Hong Kong, p. 100.
Desser, 'Pan-Asian Youth', pp. 7-8.
Ibid., p. 7.
Bordwell, Planet Hong Kong, p. 228.
Hz\l, John Woo, p. 2S.
Ibid., p. 28.
Ibid., p. 44.
Ibid., p. 69.
Williams, 'Space, Place, and Spectacle', p. 79.
Teo,'Inthe Moodfor Love\
See In the Moodfor Love, Tartan Special Edition DVD, 2001.
Teo,'Inthe Moodfor Love\
This 'forking path' narrative structure is associated with Argentinian writer
Jorge Luis Borges, used infilmsby French New Wave director Alain Resnais,
and recently popularised in hypertext internet fiction.
Orr, 'Wong Kar-Wai', p. 54.
1
Chen, 'Crouching Tiger , p. 71.
Wu, 'CTHD is Not a Chinese Film', p. 69.
Lee et al., Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, p. 83.
Christopher, 'Fight Fantastic', p. 14.
Rayns,'Crouching Tiger', p. 46.
Hunt, Kung Fu Cult Masters, p. 180.
Ibid., p. 117.
Rayns, 'Crouching Tiger', p. 46.
Lee et al., Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, p. 42.
Hunt, Kung Fu Cult Masters, p. 118.
Leung, 'Crouching Sensibility', p. 51.
1
Chen, 'Crouching Tiger , p. 71.
Cited in Wu, 'CTHD is Not a Chinese Film', p. 73.
Hunt, Kung Fu Cult Masters, p. 138.
Ibid., pp. 138-9.

CHAPTER 7

South Asian Cinema

Among South Asia'sfilmindustries, India's is by far the most prolific, gen

erating over 900filmsannually. About a quarter of these are produced by
the industry known as Bollywood or 'Hindi cinema', which is based in
Mumbai (the city formerly named Bombay). Its films dominate the
national market; and, of all the world'sfilmindustries, it faces the tiniest
competition from Hollywood. It has been exporting its films successfully
around the world (especially to parts of Africa, the Middle East, and
Asiatic regions of the former Soviet Union) for more than half a century.
Its current foreign sales moreover extend beyond these traditional export
markets to emigrant communities in the UK, the USA, Canada and
Australia. Bollywood is tipped to become the West's next Asian crossover
phenomenon after Hong Kong cinema, although it has yet to convert
mainstream Western audiences, who are allegedly put off by the melodra
matic acting, song-and-dance sequences and non-linear plots. Within
India ana abroad, the traditional division between India's popular cinema
and its 'art' or 'parallel' cinema, modelled after India's most prestigious
film-director Satyajit Ray, often produced the uncritical assumption that
Indianfilmsare either 'Ray or rubbish'. Recent Indian film criticism has
started to pay serious attention to India's popular cinema, assessing it on
its own discursive terms. The spotlight on Bollywood, however, has often
been at the expense of other South Asian cinemas, including India's many
otherfilmindustries, makingfilmsin over fourteen regional languages, and
the cinemas of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, which this chapter
briefly covers alongside a consideration of Bollywood's popular idiom.
Despite their linguistic and religious diversity, South Asian territories
have often been linked by a shared history and culture, including an
ancient Hindu and Buddhist cultural heritage. After the arrival of Islam
(starting in the seventh century), Muslim rulers held sway over most of the
region until it passed into the hands of the British, who maintained their
grip over their subjects with the connivance of native (Hindu, Muslim and
Sikh) rulers. The 200-year British Raj ended in 1947 with the partition of
India into two independent states - India, where Hindus constituted the
majority, and Pakistan, which was formed from the Muslim-dominant

138

144

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

sequences circulate as self-contained items on music television makes

visible aesthetic affinities between the films and music video, which has
stimulated new ways of filming dance sequences, including the use of
MTV-like cutting and camera angles. For pop video also involves performers lip-synching to pre-recorded music. In the films, song-and-dance
sequences are often set against exotic backdrops completely unrelated to
the narrative, regularly flouting spatial and temporal continuities so that
'heroines may change saris between shots and the scenery . . . skip conti23
nents between verses'. This is not dissimilar in practice to pop video,
where the relation between visual images and musical lyrics is often shifting and arbitrary. Also, if MTV embodies 'the look of sound', that, too,
makes it an ideal import for a cinema based on oral storytelling tradition.
The song-and-dance sequences are a key site for the outpouring of emotions, including emotions which otherwise cannot be publicly professed,
such as fantasy, eroticism and other forms of 'subversive' behaviour
(including gender subversion). Lovers' fantasies in the form of dream
sequences and stage shows are among the many means devised by filmmakers to express eroticism within restrictions imposed by censorship and
24
public (or family) viewing contexts. Also popular is the 'wet sari' routine,
where the heroine rhapsodises about an absent lover while dancing in a
downpour of rain or wading into a lake, her soaked clothes clinging to her
body and revealing its sensuous contours. Elsewhere in the narrative, we
often witness the 'withdrawal-of-the-camera technique', which Lalita
Gopalan terms 'coitus interruptus' - that is, when 'steamy' love scenes are
replaced by 'extra-diegetic shots of waterfalls, flowers, thunder, lightning
25
and tropical storms'.
India's Parallel Cinema
Parallel cinema, also called 'New Indian Cinema', defined itself against the
norms of Indian popular cinema - initially, at least, it was songless, starless
26
and low-budget. The name 'parallel cinema' arose because it diverged so
radically from the mainstream and seemed 'unlikely to intersect with it at
27
any point'. However, the two streams do have links and common roots
which can be traced back to the Indian People's Theatre Movement
(IPTA), a left-wing avant-garde collective of writers, dramatists, musicians
and filmmakers founded in 1943 and based in Bombay. The IPTA influenced the political and aesthetic principles of some classic Bollywood
actors, writers and directors including Bimal Roy and Raj Kapoor, as well
as parallel cinema's ethos as a whole. In 1952, the First International Film
Festival took place in India, exposing filmmakers to European film aesthet-

SOUTH ASIAN CINEMA

145

ics, especially Italian neorealism, which impacted on 1950s Bollywood and

parallel cinema alike.
Bengali director Satyajit Ray is variously regarded as either the forerun
ner or the founder of parallel cinema. His 'Apu Trilogy' - Pather Panchali
(1955), Aparajito (1956) and Apur Sansar (1959) - has greatly inspired sub
sequent directors. Ray himself was influenced by Italian neorealism and
French poetic realism, especially that of Jean Renoir, as well as by Bengali
literature, particularly Rabindranath Tagore (literary influences are a char
acteristic feature of Bengali cinema, where there are fewer films derived
from the epics than in other Indian cinemas). The Apu Trilogy charts the
growth of Apu, a poor Brahmin boy, who experiences the hardships of rural
poverty, urban migration and the deaths of all his family members through
illness. The most famous is Pather Panchaliy which won the Best Human
Document award at Cannes in 1956. Ray's subsequentfilmshave covered a
wide range of genres and issues, including The Chess Players (1977) (a satire
of British colonialism, the Mughal aristocracy and upper classes), musical
comedies, children's detective stories, documentaries, andfilmsthat probe
gender relations in Indian society, with films focusing on lonely married
women (Charulata [1964]) and young middle-class men (Days and Nights in
the Forest [1970]). Although Ray's cinema transcends regional cinema
defined in the narrowest sense - his undisputed international reputation is
testimony to this - most of hisfilmsare regional in accomplishing a tren
chant dissection of Bengali middle-class sensibilities. Kanchenjunga (1962)
and hisfinalfilmThe Stranger (1991) exemplify this vein.
Thefinancingof parallel cinema is shared between regional and central
state governments and various co-operatives. The Indian government
established the Film Finance Corporation in 1960 (which became the
National Film Development Corporation [NFDC] in 1980) and a National
Film Institute in 1961 expressly to support parallel rather than popular
cinema. Another Bengali filmmaker and precursor of parallel cinema,
Ritwik Ghatak, whose Cloud-Capped Star (1960) depicted the aftermath
of partition, was appointed director of the National Film Institute. Many
parallel-cinema directors emerged under his guidance at the Institute,
which also nurtured technical, acting and directorial talent flowing into
mainstream cinema. In 1973, the government also set up the Directorate
of Film Festivals (DFF) to organise international and national film festi
vals in the country, and to hold the annual National Awards ceremony.
The NFDC spread its funds thinly, resulting in low production values.
It was also notoriously bad at distributingfilms,which often end up staying
28
on shelves for months or years before going to festivals. Bollywood's
control over distribution networks poses a further disadvantage for parallel

146

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

filmmakers. The privately produced soap operas which began to appear on

state-owned network TV in the mid-1980s and the arrival of multi-channel
TV in the 1990s were, initially, another setback, luring away parallel
cinema's largely urban middle-class audiences. However, some parallel
films are now funded by multinational companies involved in satellite and
29
cable TV, creating new distribution outlets. International co-productions
form another new source of funding.
The parallel cinema of the 1970s and 1980s belongs to the Third Cinema
model of radical collectivefilmmakingand includes the work of Bengali
director Mrinal Sen, whose Bhuvan Shome (1969) is a landmark of the
movement. Parallel cinema has since fractured into what is known as
'Middle Cinema' - which combines parallel cinema themes and popular
cinema devices in order to appeal to a broader audience - and a cinema of
30
auteurs. The objective of presenting an 'authentic' version of Indian
reality often takes parallelfilmmakersto rural locations, telling regional
stories using regional dialects. Some films employ regional songs and
dances in place of popular cinema's fantasy song-and-dance routines; for
example, Shaji Karun's Vanaprastham (1999) makes striking use of
Kerala's classical dance-drama Kathakali, while Buddhadeb Dasgupta's
Uttara (2000) features Bengali natuas, who sing and dance wearing masks.
Inspired by Marxist sympathies for India's exploited populations
(including its Fourth World tribes) and the 1970s Women's Movement,
parallel filmmakers have tended to focus on feudal, caste and gender
oppressions, including Hindu customs which encourage widows to sacri
fice their life and which forbid them to remarry. These themes can be
traced from Ray's films to today's parallelfilmmakerssuch as Gautum
Ghosh, whose In the Forest. . . Again (2003), a sequel to Ray's Days and
Nights in the Forest, shows the forest baring its 'teeth' - the anger of tribals
whose forest habitat the rich use as a tourist destination. An interest in
women and minority populations has been reawakened by thefiftiethanni
versary of India's independence, which prompted somefilmmakersto
explore the attempts of marginals to enter the mainstream or to contest
India's independence settlement on behalf of its minorities. Films in this
category include Shyam Benegal's Muslim women trilogy (discussed
below) and Rituparno Ghosh's Chokher Bali (2003).
The popularly acclaimed films of Shyam Benegal, who hails from
Andhra Pradesh but works from Mumbai, have been seen as examples of
Middle Cinema. Benegal made his debut feature Ankur in 1974. His films
typically critique the stereotypes of the 'honourable' wife, mother and
daughter in Indian cinema and are concerned with gender, caste and class
issues, exploring periods of national or social transition from the perspeo

SOUTH ASIAN CINEMA

147

tive of minority or underprivileged classes. He has launched many actors

Gazdar, Pakistan Cinema^ p. 40.

Iqbal, 'Pakistani Cinema'.
Gazdar, Pakistan Cinema^ p. 4.
Iqbal, 'Pakistani Cinema'.
Mokammel, 'Alternative Cinema', p. 29; Mokammel, 'Last Two and a Half
Decades of Bangladesh Gnema', p. 30.
Mokammel, 'Alternative Qnema', p. 28.
Ibid., p. 30.
Amin, 'The Road to Homelessness', p. 18.
Ali, Fundamentalisms, p. 7.
Mohaiemen, 'Petition'.
Ramachandran, 'Clay Bird', p. 44.

CHAPTER 8

Indian Cinema

Bollywood films now have simultaneous international releases. Higher

ticket prices in the UK, the USA, Canada and Australia ensure lucrative
1
returns, generating up to 65 per cent of afilm'stotal income. In the UK,
Bollywood releases routinely enter the weekly box-office top ten and score
high screen averages. For example, in a UK box-office chart for a week in
August 2003, the Bollywood hit Koi Mil Gayay playing on just thirty-six
screens, was listed as having the second best screen average after
Terminator 3> which was in its second running week and showing in 477
2
theatres. Reception contexts are also rapidly changing within India, where
middle classes who attend air-conditioned city multiplexes are prepared to
pay ticket prices several times higher than poor rural audiences. Today's
Bollywood films are therefore constructed to appeal not only to the poor
who traditionally formed their core audiences but also increasingly to the
South Asian diaspora and India's middle classes. However, this is only one
of the ways in which Indian cinema has reinvented itself for global audi
ences since the 1990s. In addition to dominant Bollywood genres, this
chapter looks at the work of popular Tamil director Mani Ratnam and arthousefilmsby Indian expatriates.
In India's formerly closed, Soviet-style economy (introduced by India's
first post-independence Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru), foreign prod
ucts came on the market years after they became available in the West.
Government reforms introduced in 1991 dismantled strict quotas, dereg
ulated local industries and permitted multinationals to enter India. The
nation underwent accelerated globalisation, flooded by foreign brands and
satellite-TV channels, bringing the West, with its glittering promises of
3
glamorous, modern lifestyles, straight into middle-class homes. (In India,
satellite-TV owners are mainly middle-class.) These rapid changes caused
confusion and anxiety that traditional Indian values of belonging and
support would be swept away - especially the institution of the joint (or
extended) family whose interests had, for generations, been privileged over
those of individuals. They gave rise to debates about who or what is
'Indian' and what is a foreign import.
Bollywood films have responded by reconciling global consumer life-

INDIAN CINEMA

157

styles with traditional 'Indian' values - their mantra is similar to the song
from Bollywood classic Shri 420 (\955\ where Raj Kapoor sings, 'My shoes
are Japanese / These pants are British / The cap on my head is Russian /
But my heart is Indian'. Indeed, one recent Bollywood film is actually called
Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani/The Heart Is Still Indian (2000). Such films
provide reassurance in a rapidly globalising world that 'Indian values are
4
portable and malleable'. In a pivotal move,filmsshift the diasporic Indian
- known as 'non-resident Indian' (NRI) - to the centre of their narratives.
NRI audiences living in the West can now see their pursuit of wealth and
consumerism given a blessing in Bollywood narratives, and their nostalgic
yearning for India acknowledged in the scripts. This is in stark contrast to
earlierfilms,where NRIs neverfiguredand the 'West was as dangerous as
5
any Orientalist's East - seductive but spiritually fatal'.
The Hindu nationalist (Hindutva) groups, such as the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena who rose to power in the 1990s, promote narrow
conceptions of Indianness comparable to other tribal nationalisms dis
cussed elsewhere in this book (for example, Sinhala and Tamil nationalism
in Sri Lanka in Chapter 7 and rivalry between Croats, Serbs and Muslims
in Yugoslavia in Chapter 1). The BJP believe that the Hindu nation is the
one true Indian nation. They see the caste system as the 'natural' order, and
they deny that Islam has made a significant impact on Indian culture. The
Hjndutva has many supporters in the South Asian diaspora as well as
among India's middle classes. When in power, their neoliberal economic
policies were popular with wealthy NRIs in the UK and North America, for
6
whom.they introduced generous tax-breaks to invest in 'the Motherland'.
Women and women's desires are a particular focus of Hindutva debates
on what constitutes Indianness. This is because, as we have seen elsewhere,
women are traditional symbols of the nation - hence, thefigureof 'Mother
India'. In the Indian epic Ramayana, the virtuous wife Sita undergoes trial
by fire in order to prove her sexual purity, stepping through a bonfire
unscathed. The Hindu woman's purity has symbolised 'Indian' identity
7
and resistance to the West. Not surprisingly, this is a site of ideological
anxiety in Bollywood films as well as in the hysteria surrounding the
lesbian love story Fire (1996), directed by Indo-CanadianfilmmakerDeepa
Mehta. As will be seen, contemporary Bollywood endorses a sanitised
version of the diaspora, counting thefigureof the NRI within definitions
of 'Indianness', while the values associated with the diasporic film Fire
were perceived as a foreign import.
One theme established at the outset of this book is that the nation is a
precarious and imaginary ideal, which works to conceal and contain differ
ences. In India, there has been a spate of nationalist films, such as Gadar

158

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

(2001), L.O.C. Kargil (2003) and Lakshya (2004), appealing to a country

racked by internal secessionist movements, with older tensions being reignited in Kashmir and the north-east together with a new flashpoint in the
Punjab since the 1980s. In films like Lagaan (2001), another patriotic film,
the contemporary era has witngs^ed a resurgence of All-India heroes, able
to heal the nation's rifts. Bollywood has traditionally played a culturally
unifying role, constructing a pan-Indian ethos and appeal seemingly able
to unite every element of life in a land otherwise divided by differences of
language, religion, class and caste. However, while targeting global audi
ences, Bollywood's dominant genres since the 1990s have retreated into
narrow regional and /or ethnic preoccupations. In tandem with this, films
from South India, especially Mani Ratnam's 'Terrorism Trilogy' - Roja
(1992), Bombay (1995) and Dil Se (1998) - have risen to the challenge of
tackling national themes, gaining nationwide distribution and, in the case
of Roja and Bombay, wild popularity. Like The Terrorist (1999) (discussed
in Chapter 7), which was directed by his cinematographer Santosh Sivan,
Ratnam's films use thefigureof terrorism to insert India into the global
imaginary as well as drawing on regionalist and nationalist discourses. The
rest of this chapter explores these topics more fully, engaging Lagaan, Dil
Se and Fire in close analysis.
Bollywood Romance
The dominant Bollywood genre of the 1990s was romance mixed with
comic subplots - a big departure from the action and revenge dramas
8
which dominated in the 1970s and 1980s. Its common features are: the
love triangle, with two men falling in love with the same woman, or two
women falling in love with the same man; the notion that love is based on
friendship (also found in earlierfilms);the 'arranged love marriage', that
is, love choices which gain parental approval; NRI characters; foreign loca
tions; and a style reminiscent of MTV and advertising, emphasising con
9
spicuous consumption and product placement.
The arranged love marriage/'love is friendship' formula was minted by
a young generation of directors known as the Bollywood Brat Pack. They
include Sooraj Barjatya, Aditya Chopra, Karan Johar, Dharmesh Dharshan and Farhan Akhtar. The Bollywoodfilmindustry is full of acting and
producing dynasties. Many Brat Pack directors are the sons of influential
industry professionals. Sooraj Barjatya belongs to the family who own
Rajshri Films, India's largest distribution network, which also produces
films. Karan Johar is the son of producer Yash Johar and childhood friend
of Aditya Chopra, the son of veteran director Yash Chopra. In fact, it is

INDIAN CINEMA

159

Yash Chopra who is credited with originating 'the chiffon and roses' brand
of romance and the focus on super-rich lifestyles in his earlyfilms,includ
10
ing Waqt (1965). However, these featured older characters whereas con
temporary romance focuses on youthful protagonists (usually young
professionals or college-goers). In Dil to Pagal Hai (1997), Yash Chopra
himself adopted the new formula, as has another veteran director Subhash
Ghai, who made Pardes (1997).
Sooraj Bar jatya's Hum Aapke Haiti Koun (1994) broke Indian box-office
records, returning audiences to the theatres in droves after the slump in
attendance during the 1980s, when the arrival of colour TV and VCRs kept
middle-class families at home, while cinemas catered for a lower-class male
clientele withfilmscontaining 'higher doses of sex and violence' (another
11
deterrent to family audiences). HAHK was promoted and received as
'clean', 'wholesome' family entertainment. It enshrined the Hindu joint
family myth in its narrative formula, where personal desires are subordi
nated for the good of the family, which unites around religious rituals and
wedding celebrations. The tag line of a later blockbuster, Karan Johar's
Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (a.k.a. K3G) (2001), sums up the ethos of these
B m Packfilms:'it's all about loving your parents'. In contrast to love mar
riages, which are about rebellion against elders, the lovers in these narra
tives 'court family elders [for their blessings] with more ardour than the
12
bplpved'. With each big hit outdoing the box-office performance of pre
viousfilms,this has proved to be a commercially astute formula, affirming
the tradition of the joint family and North Indian (particularly Punjabi)
weddings and rituals as 'a bastion of stability and security in a rapidly
13
changing world'.
These are post-feminist films which have absorbed the discourses of
feminism for their own purposes. In them, women inevitably set aside their
desires for self-fulfilment in favour of the family, often following a Taming
of the Shrew-type narrative model. For example, in the mega-hit Kuch
Kuch Hota Hai (1998), the star Kajol is basketball-playing tomboy Anjali,
who is unconcerned with acting or looking 'feminine' (a role which
embodies Kajol's off-screen persona; she is often criticised for her lack of
interest in maintaining her appearance by means of slimming, grooming,
jewellery or fashion). However, in the course of the film we witness her
spectacular metamorphosis, as her friend Rahul's recollection of her
during their college days is cross-cut with shots of Anjali bejewelled and
meticulously groomed for her engagement party. In Anne Gecko's reading
of thefilm,Anjali has tamed her rebellious youth and recognised her 'duty'
to 'Indian' family values, thus proving her worthiness as Rahul's prospec
tive wife. In the ending, herfianceAman hands her over to Rahul, sealing

160

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

her transformation into a commodity exchanged between men and 'a self14
sacrificing Sita-esque ideal of domestic goddess'.
This custom of patriarchal exchange is embodied in the title of Aditya
Chopra's Dilwale Dulhania Le jfayenge/ The Brave-hearted Will Take the
15
Bride (DDLjf) (1995), the longest-running movie in Indian film history
DDLjf's protagonists are second-generation British Asians Simran (Kajol)
and Raj (Shahrukh Khan). When he discovers that the pair fell in love
while on holiday in Europe, Simran's traditionalist father sends her back
to the Punjab for an arranged wedding. In a moving scene, Simran's
mother Lajjo, who sympathises with the lovers, speaks out against gender
injustices. She relates how she was told that there are no differences
between men and women, yet her own education was stopped so that her
brothers' could continue; since then, she has never ceased making sacrifices
as daughter, sister and wife. The film articulates feminist dissent, yet ulti
mately contains it through its resolution in which Simran is handed over
from father to husband. Even when Lajjo encourages Raj to elope with
Simran, Raj decides instead to win the respect of her parents, only accept
ing the father's authority to give away the bride. This is how Raj shows his
Indian moral values, striking an iconic pose in his Harley Davidson jacket
against afieldof yellow flowers in the Punjab; despite outward signs, we
find he is still Indian' at heart.
Male stars carry the box office in India, much as elsewhere. Top-ranking
Bollywood stars include Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Hrithik Roshan
and Amitabh Bachchan (who has made many comebacks since his Angry
Young Man days). Like the Bollywood Brat Pack directors, many of today's
young stars come from acting or producing dynasties. An exception to this
is Shahrukh Khan, whose background is comparably humble. Previously a
player of villains, Shahrukh retains a badmaash (wicked) or cocky element
in his romantic roles. It was his first romantic role in DDLjf which made
him a youth icon, both in India and abroad.
Through their use of stars, traditions and rituals, Bollywood films
feed NRIs' nostalgia for their 'motherland'. They construct an imaginary
or mythical India; for example, DDLjf presents an idyllic, virtually preindustrial rural Punjab, airbrushed and shorn of violent conflict. At the
same time, Bollywood makes prolific use of foreign locales, including
Scotland, for song sequences in KKHH and the Lake District in Mujhse
Dosti Karoge (2002). The craze for foreign locations is not new - Raj
Kapoor's Sangam (1964) was the first Bollywood film to use European
locations - but whereas foreign locations served largely as backdrops for
songs in earlierfilms,contemporary films integrate them into their NRItargeted narratives. Many have a dual-nation setting, set partly in India and

INDIAN CINEMA

161

partly abroad, including locations in London (DDLjf), New York (Pardes)

and Sydney (Dil Chahta Hat [2001]). Some take place entirely abroad, like
the New York-based Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003). These films solicit a global
tourist's gaze from an economically aspiring Indian middle class as well as
giving NRIs the pleasure of seeing their favourite stars touring their own
cities or holiday destinations. However, while showcasing tourist sights,
settings in contemporary Bollywoodfilmsare otherwise disconnected from
social reality. Characters live in opulent mansions and loft-style apartments
bearing little relationship to the living conditions of most Indians in India
or even abroad.
Whereas before, wealth and the West signified corruption, today's films
endorse global consumerism. Temples are among their recurrent settings,
but so are shopping malls - temples of consumerism - providing reassurance to monied NRI audiences that their pursuit of wealth and material
comforts is in keeping with 'Indian' traditions. After all, Hindus worship
a god of business success - Ganesh - and a goddess of wealth - Lakshmi.
The Films of Mani Ratnam
*

Ratnam is South India's foremost director, who has also gained huge popularity in the all-India market. Hisfilmsare renowned for their production
vajufs> stunning photography and well-choreographed song sequences.
He is the director most closely associated with bringing MTV into Indian
cinema (that is, by giving MTV a local inflection in song-and-dance
sequences). He comes from afilm-producingfamily - his father 'Venus'
Gopalratnam was a producer, and his brother G. Venkatesan is a distributor and producer - although Ratnam himself worked as a management
consultant before entering the film industry. Ratnam has made films in
several Indian languages: his debut Pallavi Anupallavi (1983) in Kannada,
Unaroo (1984) in Malayalam, Geetanjali (1989) in Telugu, DilSe in Hindi,
and the rest of his films in Tamil. The film that first brought him to
national recognition was Nayakan (1987),financedby his brother's production company Sujatha Films. A gangsterfilminspired by Francis Ford
Coppola's The Godfather (1972), Nayakan won National Awards for
Cinematography and Art Direction for P. C. Sriram and Thotta Tharani
respectively. Ratnam's national profile soared again when Roja and Bombay
were dubbed into Hindi and released with great success all over India.
Ratnam is often accused of expressing simplistic, nationalist and
Hindu-biased sentiments. He is by no means a 'radical' filmmaker, yet
his films are astonishing for what they achieve within Indian popularcinema conventions and censorship restrictions. Importantly, Ratnam

162

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

has chosen to influence the mainstream not by operating alongside it - as

India's parallel cinema (discussed in Chapter 7) traditionally has - but
inside it, although his films would not be possible without parallel
cinema's precedent.
The trilogy films all use real political conflicts as backgrounds to stories
16
of passion and desire. This is something of a breakthrough for Indian
popular cinema, especially when compared to the dominant contemporary
trend of Bollywood romance which, despite its globe-trotting, sometimes
depicts India as a timeless present filled with feudal family weddings and
rituals. Roja and Bamba^jriark a bold departure for South Indian cinema,
as they place their Tamil characters in North Indian situations and take on
the role of addressing national issues - namely the rise of separatist and
independence movements within India's borders in Roja (also in Dil Se)
r
and communalism in Bombay , where the terrorism in question is religious
fanaticism. The Trilogy films explore the linkages between nations and
17
their terrorists rather than depicting them in opposition. Their stories of
transgressive couples imagine empathy between the nation and its dis
affected fragments. They also show a mirroring relationship between the
state and terrorists, emphasising that state violence and oppression engen
ders terrorist violence.
Roja and Bombay have been massively influential, setting a trend for
engaging with topical issues in some Bollywood films (for example, Khalid
Mohammed's Fiza [2000]). In Roja, a code-breaker, Rishi Kumar, is kid
napped by Kashmiri terrorists in reprisal for their leader's capture by
Indian security forces, and his distraught newlywed wife, Roja (another
Sita-esque heroine), pleads with the state to secure his release. Rishi
believes terrorists are mistaken in their aims of fighting for an independent
Kashmir, as Kashmir is - according to him - part of India. Besides Rishi's
stirring patriotic actions, the film emphasises the bond that develops
between him and his captor Liaqat. The film is beautifully photographed
by Santosh Sivan, and also marks the debut of music composer A. R.
Rahman, whose soundtrack was a major ingredient in the film's success.
Marxist critic Madhava Prasad has argued that Ratnam's films are a sign
of ideological reform' in Indian cinema - not, however, for their content,
18
but for their form. Roja opens with the capture of the terrorist leader and
then cuts to Roja's first meeting and marriage with Rishi in a Tamil village.
Although Ratnam generally prefers linear narrative, here he deploys some
thing like a flashback, although it is not subjectively motivated as flashbacks
in Indian popular cinema usually are, and its significance remains an
enigma until later in the narrative. Prasad argues that the opening fragment
therefore actually menaces the subsequent pastoral idyll - a compressed

INDIAN CINEMA

163

feudal family romance - forcing this dominant cinema convention to break

19
out of its 'timeless frame' and stage the present. Ratnam's method lays
'siege' to the dominant form and harnesses its pleasures to 'another narra
tive project', thereby 'staging... an ideological rehabilitation of its narra
20
tive elements'.
Bombay, which was produced by the Amitabh Bachchan Corporation,
is the first Indian popular film to centre on a Hindu-Muslim marriage.
The couple face problems not only before but also after they marry, having
eloped to Bombay, where they are caught in communal riots which broke
out in December 1992 and January 1993 after the destruction of the Babri
Masjid (mosque) at Ayodhya by armed Hindus mobilised by the BJP. The
film underwent a wrangle with the Censor Board, which demanded cuts
from an inflammatory speech by Bal Thackeray, leader of the Shiv Sena,
then in power in the regional government of Maharashtra, whose capital is
Bombay (since 1996 called Mumbai). In the speech, Thackeray allegedly
talks about ethnically cleansing Bombay in order to preserve it for only
21
Hindus of Maharashtrian origin. Although Ratnam apparently took his
dialogue directly from Thackeray's speeches, the Censor Board felt that
thefilm's representation of Thackeray was too 'strong' and feared violent
22
reprisals from the Shiv Sena if thefilmwas shown in that form.
Despite this, thefilmprovoked protest from Hindus and Muslims, and
R^iam encountered death threats and an assassination attempt for making
it. It was criticised for misrepresenting events, as it implies that Muslims
started the riots, although this was not the case. The hero, Shekhar, tries to
knock sense into therioters,threatening to set himself alight unless they
stop their bloodshed. He emphatically calls himself Indian' rather than
Hindu or Muslim, highlighting a secular national identity that is being
endangered by both state and terrorists. Despite its visible biases and 'sim
plistic' messages, one of the film's strengths is that it does recognise the
responsibility of political parties for inciting violence and enmity in com
munities who 'have coexisted for decades' - carrying echoes of former
23
Yugoslavia (see Chapter l).
After Indian audiences' unfavourable response to Dil Se (see below),
Ratnam shifted away from national-political concerns for Alaipayuthey
(2000). While Bollywood romances typically end with marriage, many of
Mani Ratnam's films explore relationships and their complications after
marriage. This is true of Roja and Bombay but especially of Alaipayuthey
(which, however, was successfully remade as the BollywoodfilmSaathiya
[2002]). In Alaipayutheyy Ratnam adopts a flashback structure (which, as
noted above, he usually avoids). He uses non-linear storytelling here 'to
explore the fragility of a marriage whose murky hopes for the future rests

164

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

on a romantic past'. Ratnam returned to explicit political topics in

INDIAN CINEMA

171

because of their bad deal in their marriages. The film itself suggests
another reading.
Whereas the men pursue their desires outside - Jatin with Julie, and
Ashok with his swami (spiritual mentor) - the women make the interior
space of the house their own, bonding over the preparation of food in the
kitchen, meeting at first on the rooftop, then in the bedroom. As Gopinath
argues, Radha's and Sita's relationship emerges from 'those spaces of
female homosociality that are sanctioned by normative sexual and gender
48
arrangements*. Together they undertake karva chauth, a North Indian
Hindu ritual where married women observe a day-long fast so that their
husbands may enjoy a long life. We see them drying out orange-coloured
saris on the roof, the colour orange signifying their growing passion.
Everyday female homosocial activities, such as oiling hair and footmassage, become suffused with eroticism. This gains meaning in connec
tion with Radha's dream of herself as a child sitting with her parents in a
field of yellow flowers. This opens the film with a parable in which her
mother tells her: 'What you can't see, you just have to see without looking.'
Towards the end of thefilm,we cut back to this scene in which the young
Radhafinallysays she can 'see' the ocean; that is, Sapphic desire hidden
within the interstices of the known and the visible.
Gopinath suggests that the real reason why Fire incurred the Shiv
Sena's wrath was because it depicts lesbian desire in the joint family home.
Radha and Sita implicitly reject the Hindu nationalist project which aims
to harness women's sexuality, particularly their sexual conduct and repro
49
ductive capacity, to the propagation of the nation. Their names evoke
sanctified notions of Hindu womanhood, as the film underlines in its reenactments of Sita's trial byfirefrom The Ramayana, which Biji watches
on video. Radha is another Hindu mythological archetype (also seen in
Lagaan\ representing a steadfast ideal, for Radha remains devoted to
Krishna despite his womanising. Not only do both women defy their
namesakes, they leave the Hindu joint family home and reunite in an
Islamic shrine. Radha's sari catches fire as she attempts to escape her
husband, but she steps through thefireand joins Sita unscathed.
DilSe (Mani Ratnam, 1998)
In Dil Sey thefinalinstalment in Ratnam's 'Terrorism Trilogy', a reporter
for All-India Radio, Amar Verma (Shahrukh Khan), becomes obsessed
with an Assamese militant, Meghna (Manisha Koirala), who is plotting to
blow up India's president at Delhi's Republic Day parade. The film is
inspired by real events: Rajiv Gandhi's assassination by a female suicide

172

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

bomber, the activities of the militant group ULFA (United Liberation

Front of Assam) who have been fighting for an independent state since
1979, and thefiftiethanniversary of India's independence.
Indian audiences had great expectations for Dil Sey Ratnam'sfirstHindi
film, after the success of Roja and Bombay, Dil Sey however, flopped at the
Indian box office. Yet, in the UK, it broke box-office records, becoming the
first Indianfilmto enter the Top Ten, and proving the 'box-office muscle*
50
of UK South Asians. Audiences drawn to it mainly for the songs and their
favourite star Shahrukh Khan packed out the twenty cinemas showing Dil
SWeveral times a day. Dil Se also became a favourite with international
tntics. For example, Jacob Levich writes in Film Comment that Dil Se is
51
Ratnam's 'darkest,finest,and least conventionally satisfying work'.
All the Trilogy films, Sumita Chakravarty notes, 'stage fantasmatic
52
encounters with the other'. Desire leads the hero to 'the outside', revers
ing the more common scenario in Bollywood films where desire remains
inside the community. As Chakravarty argues, 'it is the seductiveness of the
stranger (not love of the national mainstream) that propels thesefilms'nar
53
rative energies and photographic powers'. This goes some way to explain
the troubled reception of Dil Sey visually and musically ravishing like the
other Trilogy films, but where the love of the stranger is the most obses
sive and ends in a bomb-embraced death.
In Dil Sey Ratnam dramatises the attraction between a character from
the heart of India and another from a peripheral state. Just after meeting
Meghna (but as yet unaware of her affiliation), Amar embarks on an assign
ment to interview people in the north-east about what freedom means to
them after fifty years of Indian independence, receiving answers such as
i
What freedom? We have no freedom'. They believe they are oppressed by
India's central government. Amar decides to pose the same questions to an
Assamese terrorist, who tells him, 'Delhi thinks it is India,' intimating that
India's central government does not care about 'small far-flung states'. In
interview, Ratnam emphasises that this scene is crucial to understanding
thefilm:'if you claim that this [the north-east] is as much India as say, UP
54
[Uttar Pradesh], it needs as much attention.'
As Chakravarty states, the Trilogy films use terrorism as 'a means of
interrogating national ideals gone awry, and of evoking the faces and voices
55
of the estranged who must be brought back to the mainstream'. However,
while Dil Se certainly shares this aim, it shows an awareness which the other
films lack - namely that the All-India hero's claim to represent the nation
is tenuous at best. Its apocalyptic ending spectacularly refuses to offer the
r
ideological reassurance of Roja and Bombay , where the rift between the
nation and its fragments is healed through love and affection. In Dil Sey

INDIAN CINEMA

173

romance is interrupted and fails; but, rather than making this a bleak film,
the emphasis on failed resolution highlights a problem that must be faced.
Interruption becomes the defining strategy throughout the film. Not
only is the romance between Meghna and Amar interrupted, but also the
marriage between Amar and Preeti (Preity Zinta), whom Amar agrees to
marry after Meghna has repelled his advances several times. The wedding
invitations, all printed and ready to go, pile up uselessly However, it is
through the song-and-dance sequences themselves that the interruptions
are most powerfully registered - making use of the song-and-dance
sequence form as an interruption. The first song, 'Chaiya Chaiya', occurs
just after Amar and Meghna have met, with Meghna boarding a train before
Amar has a chance to buy her a cup of tea. 'This has got to be the shortest
love story/ he murmurs, and the rain-soaked railway station segues into a
dance atop a moving train in Ooty (a hill-station in Tamil Nadu). This
exhilarating sequence showcases Ratnam's MTV style, with the female
dancer's sensual hip and belly thrusts accentuated by camera angles.
Although he used the Seychelles in Alaipayutheyy Ratnam generally
avoids foreign locations, setting his films 'within the geographical space
56
endorsed by the nation-state'. Dil Se uses locations all over India - from
the backwaters of Kerala, South India, where Amar and Preeti dance on
rice-boats, to the snow-capped landscapes of Ladakh in India's far north
west. The song-and-dance sequences configure the nation-state as a space
of fantasy and dreaming, evoking the utmost borders of its 'imagined car
tography', yet also - through their hybrid styles - open to the pleasures of
57
global cultural exchange and fluidity.

Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.

Willis, 'Locating Bollywood', p. 255.

Anon., 'Charts', p. 19.
Chopra, DDLjf, p. 55.
Ibid., p. 72.
Ibid., p. 11.
Ali, 'Enemies of the Hindutva', p. 6.
Virdi, The Cinematic Imagination, p. 207.
Willis, 'Locating Bollywood', pp. 263,265.
'Arranged love marriage' is a phrase coined by Patricia Uberoi, 'The Diaspora
Comes Home', pp. 305-36.
Rao, 'Globalisation and Bollywood'; Dwyer and Patel, Cinema India, p. 71.
Chopra, DDLJ> p. 13.
Rao, 'Globalisation and Bollywood'.
Virdi, The Cinematic Imagination, p. 193.

174

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

14. Ciecko, 'Superhit Hunk Heroes', p. 123.

15. Chopra, DDLJf, p. 8.
16. Chakravarty, 'Fragmenting the Nation', p. 232.
17. Ibid., p. 232.
18. Prasad, The Ideology of Hindi Film, p. 218.
19. Ibid., p. 230.
20. Ibid., p. 224.
21. Pendakur, 'India's National Film Policy', p. 159.
22. Ibid., p. 159.
23. Ibid., p. 158.
24. Gopalan, Cinema of Interruptions, p. 183.
25. Joshi, 'India's Art House Cinema'.
26. Levitin, 'An Introduction to Deepa Mehta', p. 274; Foster, 'Mira Nair', p. 264.
27yLevitin, 'An Introduction to Deepa Mehta', p. 281.
2$. Wayne, Political Film, p. 93.
29. Pendakur, 'India's National Film Policy', p. 162.
30. Gopalan, 'Indian Cinema', p. 380.
31. Redding and Brown worth, Film Fatales, p. 160.
32. Ibid., p. 162.
33. Levitin, 'An Introduction to Deepa Mehta', p. 280.
34. Ciecko, 'Superhit Hunk Heroes', p. 130. See also Bhatkal, Spirit of Lagaan,
p. 28.
35. Miller et al., Global Hollywood, p. 96.
36. Mishra, Bollywood Cinema, p. xix.
37. Raghavendra, 'Indian Cinema as Global Entertainment', p. 4.
38. Ibid., p. 3.
39. Ibid., p. 4.
40. Gopalan, 'Indian Cinema', p. 386.
41. Patel, 'On Fire\ p. 223.
42. Gopinath, 'Local Sites/Global Contexts', p. 150.
43. Ibid., p. 150.
44. Vanita, Queering India, p. 127.
45. Ibid., p. 3.
46. Ibid., p. 3.
47. McGowan, 'Excerpts from a Master Class', p. 288.
48. Gopinath, 'Local Sites/Global Contexts', p. 155.
49. Ibid., p. 158.
50. Goldberg and Dodd, 'The Indians Are Coming', p. 7.
51. Levich, 'Fearless Bollywood Picks', p. 52.
52. Chakravarty, 'Fragmenting the Nation', p. 231.
53. Ibid., p. 232.
54. Ratnam, 'Straight from the Heart', p. 23.
55. Chakravarty, 'Fragmenting the Nation', p. 232.
56. Gopalan, Cinema of Interruptions, p. 129.
57. Ibid., p. 129.

Bibliography

Abbas, Ackbar (1997a), Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance',
Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Abbas, Ackbar (1997b), 'The Erotics of Disappointment', in Jean-Marc Lalanne,
David Martinez, Ackbar Abbas and Jimmy Ngai, Wong Kar-Wai, Paris: Dis
Voir, pp. 39-81.
9
Abeyesekera, Sunil (1996), 'Fifty Years of Cinema in Sri Lanka , Cinemaya 35:
4-10.
Acland, Charles (2003), Screen Traffic: Movies, Multiplexes, and Global Culture,
Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
AH, Tariq (2003), The Clash ofFundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity\
London: Verso.
Ali, Tariq (2004), 'Enemies of the Hindutva', London Review of Books 26.13:6-8.
Amin, Sonia (1999), 'The Road to Homelessness: Thoughts on Chitra Nadir
Pare\ Celluloid 21.3:18-21.
^itderson, Benedict (1991), Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and
Spread of Nationalism, London: Verso.
Ang, Ien (1996), Living Room Wars: Rethinking Media Audiences for a Postmodern
World, London: Routledge.
Anon. (2003a), 'Global Film Production and Distribution', Screen Digest (July):
201-8.
Anon. (2003b), 'Charts', The Guardian, Section 2,15 August.
Anon. (2003c), 'Global Cinema Exhibition Markets', Screen Digest (October):
297-304.
Armes, Roy (2001), 'Cinema in the Maghreb', in Oliver Leaman (ed.), Companion
Encyclopedia of Middle Eastern and North African Cinema, London: Routledge,
pp. 420-517.
Arroyo, Jose (2000), 'Pedro Almodovar', in John Hill and Pamela Church Gibson
(eds), World Cinema: Critical Approaches, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.
107-10.
Asfour, Nana (2000), 'The Politics of Arab Cinema: Middle Eastern Filmmakers
Face Up to Their Reality', Cineaste 26.1:46-8.
Austin, Guy (1996), Contemporary French Cinema: An Introduction, Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
Berry, Chris (2003a), 'Hero', Cinemaya 58:22-4.
Berry, Chris (2003b), 'Dazzling', Cinemaya 58:24-5.
Berry, Chris (ed.) (2003c), Chinese Films in Focus: 25 New Takes, London: BFI.

176

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

Bhatkal, Satyajit (2002), The Spirit ofLagaan, Mumbai: Popular Prakashan.

Bjdrkman, Stig (1996), 'Naked Miracles', Sight and Sound 6.10:10-14.
Bordwell, David (1997), 'Art-Cinema Narration', in David Bordwell, Narration in
the Fiction Film, London: Routledge, pp. 205-33.
Bordwell, David (2000), Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of
Entertainment, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bransford, Stephen (2003), 'Days in the Country: Representations of Space and
Place in Abbas Kiarostami's Life and Nothing More, Through the Olive Trees and
The Wind Will Carry Us* <http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/03/
29/kiarostami_rural_space_and_place.html> (14 June 2004).
Bresheeth, Haim (2001), 'Telling the Stories of Heim and Heimat, Home and
Exile: Recent Palestinian Films and the Iconic Parable of the Invisible
Pajestine', New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film 1.1: 24-39.
CDMI [Coalition for Cultural Diversity in Moving Images] (December 2000),
*pWview of the Screen Quota System in Korea', <http://www.screenquota.org/menupage/newsPage_disp.asp?num=42&gotopage= 1 > (19 July
2004).
Chakravarty, Sumita (2000), 'Fragmenting the Nation: Images of Terrorism in
Indian Popular Cinema', in Mette Hjort and Scott MacKenzie (eds), Cinema
and Nation, London: Routledge, pp. 222-37.
Chan, Jackie (1999), I Am Jackie Chan, London: Pan.
Chapman, James (2003), Cinemas of the World, London: Reaktion.
Chaudhuri, Shohini and Howard Finn (2003), 'The Open Image: Poetic Realism
and the New Iranian Cinema', Screen 44.1: 38-57.
Chen, Pauline (2001), 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon*, Cineaste 26.4: 71-2.
Chopra, Anupama (2002), Dilwale Dulhania Lejayenge, London: BFI.
Chow, Rey (1995), Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and
Contemporary Chinese Cinema, New York: Columbia University Press.
Christopher, James (2003), 'Fight Fantastic', The Times, 21 July.
Chu, Rolanda (1994), 'Swordsman //and The East Is Red*, Bright Lights 13: 30-5,
46.
Chu, Yingchi (2003), Hong Kong Cinema: Coloniser, Motherland, and Self
London: Routledge.
Ciecko, Anne (2001), 'Superhit Hunk Heroes for Sale: Globalization and
Bollywood's Gender Polities', Asian Journal of Communication 11.2:121-43.
Collins, Noreen (1997), 'Against the Tide', Film West 11:47.
Cowie, Peter (1992), Scandinavian Cinema, London: Tantivy Press.
Creed, Barbara (1993), Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis,
London: Routledge.
Creekmur, Corey K. (2001), 'Picturizing American Cinema: Hindi Film Songs
and the Last Days of Genre', in Pamela Robertson Wojcik and Arthur Knight
(eds), Soundtrack Available: Essays on Film and Popular Music, Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, pp. 375-406.
Crofts, Stephen (2000), 'Concepts of National Cinema', in John Hill and Pamela

BIBLIOGRAPHY

177

Church Gibson (eds), World Cinema: Critical Approaches, Oxford: Oxford

University Press, pp. 1-10.
Dabashi, Hamid (1999), 'Mohsen Makhmalbaf's A Moment of Innocence*, in Rose
Issa and Sheila Whittaker (eds), Life and Art: The New Iranian Cinema,
London: BFI, pp. 114-28.
Dabashi, Hamid (2001), Close Up: Iranian Cinema: Past, Present, and Future,
London: Verso.
Danish Film Institute (19 December 2003), 'Success for Danish Cinema', <http:/
/www.dfi.dk/sitemod/moduler/generelle_moduler/presse_modul/
index.asp?pid=280&id=1151> (17 July 2004).
Danks, Adrian (2002), 'The House that Mohsen Built: The Films of Samira
Makhmalbaf and Marzieh Meshkini', <http://www.sensesofcinema.com/
contents/O/22/makhmalbaf html> (14 June 2004).
Datta, Sangeeta (2002), Shyam Senegal, London: BFI.
De Castella, Tom (2004), 'Way out West', Sight and Sound 14.1: 8-9.
Desser, David (2001), 'New Kids on the Street: The Pan-Asian Youth Film', text
of the 2001 Sir Stanley Tomlinson Memorial Lecture delivered at the
University of Nottingham, 21 February, <http://216.239.59.104/search?q=
cache:nTrplR7H5uoJ:www.nottingham.ac.uk / iaps / NewKids.pdf+desser+
pan+asian+youth&hl=en&ie=UTF-8> (19 July 2004).
Dissanayake, Wimal (ed.) (1993), Melodrama and Asian Cinema, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Dissanayake, Wimal (2003), 'Rethinking Indian Popular Cinema', in Anthony R.
<CQuneratne and Wimal Dissanayake, Rethinking Third Cinema, London:
Routledge, pp. 202-25.
Dissanayake, Wimal and Ashley Ratnavibhushnana (2000), Profiling Sri Lankan
Cinema, Sri Lanka: Asian Film Centre.
Donald, Stephanie Hemeiryk (2002),'Beijing Bicycle: The Awkwardness of Being
Seventeen', Metro 133:190-2.
Dwyer, Rachel and Divia Patel (2002), Cinema India: The Visual Culture of Hindi
Film, London: Reaktion.
Ehrlich, Linda and David Desser (eds) (1994), Cinematic Landscapes: Observations
on the Visual Arts and Cinema of China and Japan, Austin, TX: University of
Texas Press.
Ehteshami, Anoushiravan (1995), After Khomeini: The Second Iranian Republic,
London: Routledge.
Ezra, Elizabeth (ed.) (2004), European Cinema, Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Farahmand, Azadeh (2002), 'Perspectives on Recent (International Acclaim for)
Iranian Cinema', in Richard Tapper (ed.), The New Iranian Cinema: Politics,
Representation, and Identity, London and New York: LB. Tauris, pp. 86-108.
Fawal, Ibrahim (2001), Youssef Chahine, London: BFI.
Finnish Film Foundation (n.d.), 'Cinema Statistics / Finland 1990-1999',
<www.ses.fi/data/tilastot/gener98.htm> (24 October 2000).

178

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

Forbes, Jill and Sarah Street (2000), European Cinema: An Introduction,

Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Forde, Leon (2002), 'The Winning Team', Screen International, 26 July.
Fore, Steve (1994), 'Golden Harvest Films and the Hong Kong Movie Industry
in the Realm of Globalization', Velvet Light Trap 34: 40-58.
Foster, Gwendolyn Audrey (2002), 'Mira Nair', in Yvonne Tasker (ed.), Fifty
Contemporary Filmmakers, London: Routledge, pp. 263-72.
Freidberg, Freda (1996), 'Akira and the Postnuclear Sublime', in Mick Broderick
(ed.), Hibakusha Cinema: Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Nuclear Image in
Japanese Film, London: Kegan Paul, pp. 91-104.
Fu, Poshek and David Desser (eds) (2000), The Cinema of Hong Kong: History,
Arts, Identity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gaonkar, Dilip (ed.) (2001), Alternative Modernities, Durham, NC: Duke
University Press.
Gazdar, Mushtaq (1997), Pakistan Cinema 1947-1997, Karachi: Oxford
University Press.
Gokulsing, K. Moti and Wimal Dissanayake (1998), Indian Popular Cinema: A
Narrative of Cultural Change, Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books.
Goldberg, Suzanne and Vikram Dodd (1998), The Indians Are Coming', The
Guardian 2, 3 September.
Gopalan, Lalita (2003a), Ctnema of Interruptions: Action Genres in Contemporary
Indian Cinema, London: BFI.
Gopalan, Lalita (2003b), 'Indian Cinema', in Jill Nelmes (ed.), Introduction to Film
Studies, London: Routledge, pp. 359-88.
Gopinath, Gayatri (2003), 'Local Sites/Global Contexts: The Transnational
Trajectories of Deepa Mehta's Ftre\ in Arnaldo Cruz-Malave and Martin F.
Manalansan IV (eds), Queer Globalizations: Citizenship and the Afterlife of
Colonialism, New York: New York University Press, pp. 149-61.
Guneratne, Anthony R. (2003), 'Introduction: Rethinking Third Cinema', in
Anthony R. Guneratne and Wimal Dissanayake, Rethinking Third Cinema,
London: Routledge, pp. 1-28.
Hall, Kenneth E. (1999), John Woo: The Films, Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
Hames, Peter (ed.) (1995), Dark Alchemy: The Films ofJan Svankmajer, London:
Flicks Books.
Hamid, Nassia (1997), 'Near and Far', Sight and Sound 12: 22-5.
Hammond, Andrew (21 August 1997), 'The Incoherence of Destiny', <http://
www.cairotimes.com/content/issues/Islists/incoh 13.html> (10 June 2004).
Harris, Sue (2004), 'The Cinema du Look*, in Elizabeth Ezra (ed.), European
Cinema, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 219-32.
Hayward, Susan (2001), Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, London: Routledge.
Heath, Stephen (1998), 'God, Faith and Film: Breaking the Waves', Literature and
Theology 12.1: 93-107.
Hebron, Sandra (2003), 'At Five in the Afternoon', The London Film Festival
Catalogue, 22 October to 6 November 2003, p. 19.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

179

Higson, Andrew (1995), 'British Film Culture and the Idea of National Cinema',
in Andrew Higson, Waving the Flag: Constructing a National Cinema in Britain,
Oxford: Clarendon, pp. 4-25.
Hill, John (2000), 'Film and Postmodernism', in John Hill and Pamela Church
Gibson (eds), Film Studies: Critical Approaches, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, pp. 94-103.
Hjort, Mette (2000), Themes of Nation', in Mette Hjort and Scott MacKenzie
(eds), Cinema and Nation, London: Routledge, pp. 103-17.
Hjort, Mette and lb Bondebjerg (2001), Danish Directors: Dialogues on a
Contemporary National Cinema, Bristol: Intellect.
Hjort, Mette and Scott MacKenzie (eds) (2003), Purity and Provocation: Dogme
95, London: BFI.
Horton, Andrew (2002), 'No Man's Land', Cineaste 27.2:38-9.
Hoskins, Colin, Stuart McFadyen and Adam Finn (1997), Global Television and
Film, Oxford: Clarendon.
Hu, Sheldon Hsiao-peng (ed.) (1997), Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity,
Nationhood, Gender, Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.
Hunt, Leon (2003), Kung Fu Cult Masters: From Bruce Lee to Crouching Tiger,
x London: Wallflower Press.
lordanova, Dina (2001), Cinema of Flames: Balkan Film, Culture and Media,
London: BFI.
lordanova, Dina (2003a), Cinema of the Other Europe: The Industry and Artistry of
East Central European Film, London: Wallflower Press.
lordanova, Dina (2003b), 'East of Eden', Sight and Sound 13.8: 26-8.
Iqbal, Sajid (n.d.), 'Pakistani Cinema', <http://imagineasia.bfi.org.uk/guide/
surveys/pakistani/> (21 June 2004).
Jackel, Anne (2003), European Film Industries, London: BFI.
Jameson, Fredric (1992), The Geopolitical Aesthetic: Cinema and Space in the World
System, Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press.
Joshi, Lalit Mohan (n.d.), 'India's Art House Cinema', <http://imagineasia.bfi.org/guide/surveys/india-arthouse/index.html> (21 June 2004).
Kelly, Richard (2000a), Name of this Film is Dogme 95, Channel 4,12 August.
Kelly, Richard (2000b), Name of this Book is Dogme 95, London: Faber.
Kennedy-Day, Kiki (2001), 'Cinema in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Kuwait', in
Oliver Leaman (ed.), Companion Encyclopedia of Middle Eastern and North
African Cinema, London: Routledge, pp. 364-406.
Kim, Kyung Hyun (2004), The Remasculinization of Korean Cinema, Durham,
NC: Duke University Press.
Kong, Rithdee (2002), 'Cinematic Revival in Thailand', Film Comment 38.5:
12-13.
Kristeva, Julia (1982), Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, New York:
Columbia University Press.
Kronish, Amy (1996), World Cinema: Israel, Trowbridge: Flicks Books.
Krstic, Igor (1996), '"Showtime Brothers!" A Vision of the Bosnian War: Srdjan

180

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

Dragojevic's Lepa sela lepo gore\ in Andrew James Horton (ed.), The Celluloid
Tinderbox: Yugoslav Screen Reflections of a Turbulent Decade, Central Europe
Review: Telford, pp. 43-61.
Lacan, Jacques (1993), Ecrits, trans. Alan Sheridan, London: Routledge.
Lang, Robert (2001), 'Choosing to Be "Not a Man": Masculine Anxiety in Nouri
Bouzid's Man of Ashes\ in Peter Lehman (ed.), Masculinity, Bodies, Movies,
Culture, New York: Routledge, pp. 81-94.
Lang, Robert (2003), 'Le colonise et le colonisateur dans Les silences du palais\
IBLA: Revue de VInstitut des belles lettres arabes 192: 189-204.
Lau, Jenny Kwok Wah (2003), 'Globalization and Youthful Subculture', in Jenny
Kwok Wah Lau (ed.), Multiple Modernities: Cinemas and Popular Media in
Transcultural Asia, Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, pp. 13-27.
Lee, Ang, James Schamus, Richard Corliss and David Bordwell (2001), Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Portrait of the Ang Lee Film, London: Faber.
Leung, William (2001), 'Crouching Sensibility, Hidden (Sense', Film Criticism
26.1:42-55.
V
Lev, Antonia (1996), Samurai from Outer Space: Understanding Japanese
Animation, Chicago, IL: Open Court.
Levich, Jacob (2002), 'Fearless Bollywood Picks from Our Contributors', Film
Comment 38.3: 52.
Levitin, Jacqueline (2003), 'An Introduction to Deepa Mehta: Making Films in
9
Canada and India , in Jacqueline Levitin, Judith Plessis and Valerie Raoul (eds),
Women Filmmakers: Re focusing, London: Routledge, pp. 273-83.
Li, Cheuk-To (1996), 'Popular Cinema in Hong Kong', in Geoffrey Nowell-Smith
(ed.), Oxford History of World Cinema, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.
704-11.
Li, David Leiwei (2003),' Yi Yi: Reflections on Reflexive Modernity in Taiwan',
in Chris Berry (ed.), Chinese Films in Focus: 25 New Takes, London: BFI, pp.
198-205.
Loshitzky, Yosefa (2001), Identity Politics on the Israeli Screen, Austin, TX:
University of Texas Press.
Louie, Kam (2003),'Floating Life: Nostalgia for the Confucian Way in Suburban
Sydney', in Chris Berry (ed.), Chinese Films in Focus: 25 New Takes, London:
BFI, pp. 97-103.
Louvish, Simon (1996a), 'The White Balloon', Sight and Sound 6.1: 57.
Louvish, Simon (1996b), 'Letters', Sight and Sound 6.4: 64.
Lu, Alvin (2002), 'Horror Japanese-style', Film Comment 38.1: 38.
Macnab, Geoffrey (2001), 'House Rules', Sight and Sound 11.6: 32-4.
Macnab, Geoffrey (2003), 'A Woman's Place', The Guardian 2,19 May.
McGowan, Sharon (2003), 'Excerpts from a Master Class with Deepa Mehta', in
Jacqueline Levitin, Judith Plessis and Valerie Raoul (eds), Women Filmmakers:
Refocusing, London: Routledge, pp. 284-91.
Malik, Sarita (1996), 'Beyond "The Cinema of Duty"? The Pleasures of
Hybridity: Black British Film of the 1980s and 1990s', in Andrew Higson

BIBLIOGRAPHY

181

(ed.), Dissolving Views: Key Writings on British Cinema, London: Cassell, pp.
202-15.
Martin, Fran (2003), * Vive Vamour. Eloquent Emptiness', in Chris Berry (ed.),
Chinese Films in Focus: 25 New Takes, London: BFI, pp. 175-82.
Miller, Toby, Nitin Govil, John McMurria and Richard Maxwell (2001), Global
Hollywood^ London: BFI.
Mishra, Vijay (2002), Bollywood Cinema: Temples of Desire, London: Routledge.
Mohaiemen, Naseem (n.d.), 'Petition: Remove the Ban on MatirMoina\ <http:/
/www.petitiononline.com/moina/petition.htm> (2 July 2004).
Mokammel, Tanvir (1998), 'Last Two and a Half Decades of Bangladesh Cinema',
Celluloid 20.3: 30-4.
Mokammel, Tanvir (1999), 'Alternative Gnema in Bangladesh: Points to Ponder',
Celluloid2U: 28-32.
Moller, Olaf (2002), 'Shameless', Film Comment (January/February 2002): 45.
Mulvey, Laura (1998), 'Kiarostami's Uncertainty Principle', Sight and Sound 8.6:
24-7.
Murphy, Robert (ed.) (2000), British Cinema of the 90s, London: BFI.
Naficy, Hamid (1994), 'Veiled Vision/Powerful Presences: Women in PostRevolutionary Iranian Cinema', in Mahnaz Afkhami and Erika Friedl (eds), In
the Eye of the Storm: Women in Post-Revolutionary Iran, London: I. B. Tauris,
pp. 131-50.
Naficy, Hamid (1998), 'Iranian Cinema under the Islamic Republic', in Sherifa
Zuhur (ed.), Images of Enchantment: Visual and Performing Arts of the Middle
Q^East, Cairo: American University of Cairo Press, pp. 220-46.
Naficy, Hamid (2001), 'Iranian Cinema', in Oliver Leaman (ed.), Companion
Encyclopedia of Middle Eastern and North African Cinema, London: Routledge,
pp. 130-222.
Napier, Susan (2001), Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing
Contemporary Japanese Animation, New York: Palgrave.
Nayar, Sheila J. (2004), 'Invisible Representation: The Oral Contours of a
National Popular Cinema', Film Quarterly 57.3: 13-23.
Neale, Steve (1981), 'Art Cinema as Institution', Screen 22.1:11-39.
Orr, John (2000), 'Wong Kar-Wai: In the Mood for Reflection', Film West 42:52-4.
Orr, John (2002), 'Out of Dreyer's Shadow? The Quandary of Dogme 95', New
Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film 1.2: 69-77.
Orr, John (2004), 'New Directions in European Cinema', in Elizabeth Ezra (ed.),
European Cinema, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 299-317.
Osmond, Andrew (2003), 'Gods and Monsters', Sight and Sound 13.9: 34^5.
Patel, Geeta (2002), 'On Fire: Sexuality and its Incitements', in Ruth Vanita (ed.),
Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society,
London: Routledge, pp. 222-33.
Pathiraja, Dharmasena (2003), 'The Filial Bond: The Nation in Sri Lankan Film',
Cinemaya 58: 6-10.
Payami, Babak (2004), 'Necessary Illusions', Sight and Sound 14.6:28-30.

182

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

Pendakur, Manjanath (1996), 'India's National Film Policy: Shifting Currents in

the 1990s', in Albert Moran (ed.), Film Policy: International, National and
Regional Perspectives, London: Routledge, pp. 148-71.
Petrie, Duncan (2000), Screening Scotland, London: BFI.
Prasad, Madhava (1998), The Ideology of Hindi Film, Delhi: Oxford University
Press.
Pusan International Film Festival (2000), Salaam Cinema: The Films of the
Makhmalbaf Family, South Korea: Pusan.
Raghavendra, M. K. (2001), 'An Unmarried Woman: Abbas Kiarostami's Through
the Olive Trees\ Deep Focus 9.1: 77-81.
Raghavendra, M. K. (2002), 'Indian Cinema as Global Entertainment', Bollywood
and Beyond: A Guide to Teaching Indian Cinema, BFI Education CD-ROM,
Catalogue No. BR040.
Rajadhyaksha, Ashish (2000), 'Indian Cinema', in John Hill and Pamela Church
Gibson (eds), World Cinema: Critical Approaches Oxford: Oxford University
Press, pp. 151-6.
V
Ramachandran, Naman (2003), 'Clay Bird', Sight and Sound 13.8: 43-4.
Ramnarayan, Gowri (2002), 'Mr and Mrs Iyer', Cinemaya 56-7: 24-5.
Rao, Maithili (n.d.), 'Globalisation and Bollywood', <http://imagineasia.bfi.org.uk/guide/surveys/globalisation/index.html> (21 June 2004).
Rapfogel, Jared (2001), 'Don't Look at the Camera: Becoming a Woman in Jafar
Panahi's Iran', <http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/15/panahi_
jared.html> (14 June 2004).
Ratnam, Mani (1998), 'Straight from the Heart', Interview with Gautam
Padamanabhan, Asian Eye, 3 October.
Ratnavibhushnana, Ashley (2003), 'The Family as Paradox: Modern Sri Lankan
Cinema', Cinemaya 58: 10-11.
Rayns, Tony (1993), 'Story of Qiu Ju\ Sight and Sound 3.5: 55.
Rayns, Tony (2001), 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon', Sight and Sound 11.1:
45-6.
Rayns, Tony (2004), 'Deep Cover', Sight and Sound 14.1: 26-9.
Redding, Judith M., and Victoria A. Brownworth (eds) (1997), Film Fatales:
Independent Women Directors, Seattle, WA: Seal Press.
Rentschler, Eric (2000), 'The Post-Wall Cinema', in Mette Hjort and Scott
MacKenzie (eds), Cinema and Nation, London: Routledge, pp. 260-77.
Reynaud, Berenice (1997), 'I Can't Sell My Acting Like That', Sight and Sound
7.3: 24-6.
Reynaud, Berenice (2003), ''Centre Stage: A Shadow in Reverse', in Chris Berry
(ed.), Chinese Films tn Focus: 25 New Takes, London: BFI, pp. 31-8.
Rich, B. Ruby (26 March 2003), 'Divine Comedy', <http://www.sfbg.com/37/
26/artJilm_divine.html> (10 June 2004).
Ridgeon, Lloyd (2000), Makhmalbaf's Broken Mirror: The Socio-political
Significance of Modern Iranian Cinema, Durham: University of Durham.
Roberts, Les (2002), '"Welcome to Dreamland": From Place to Non-place and

BIBLIOGRAPHY

183

Back Again in Pawel Pawlikowski's Last Resort*, New Cinemas: Journal of

Contemporary Film 1.2: 78-90.
Robins, Kevin and Asu Aksoy, 'Deep Nation: The National Question and Turkish
Gnema Culture', in Mette Hjort and Scott MacKenzie (eds), Cinema and
Nation, London: Routledge, pp. 203-21.
Romney, Jonathan (2004), 'A Silky Sadness', Sight and Sound 14.6:20-3.
Rose, Steve (2003), 'Hong Kong Phooey', The Guardian, 11 July.
Rosen, Philip (1996), 'Nation and Anti-Nation: Concepts of National Cinema in
the "New" Media Era', Diaspora 5.3: 375-402.
Rutherford, Anne (2000), 'Arrested Motion in the Korean Detective Film',
<http://www.sensesofcinema.eom/contents/00/7/arrested.html> (19 July
2004).
Rutsky, R. L. (1999), High Techne: Art and Technology from the Machine Aesthetic
to the Posthuman, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Saeed-Vafa, Mehrnaz and Jonathan Rosenbaum (2003), Abbas Kiarostami,
Urbana, EL: University of Illinois Press.
Said, Edward (1978), Orientalism, London: Penguin.
Schrader, Paul (1972), Transcendental Style, Berkeley, CA: California University
Press.
Sciolini, Elaine (2000), Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of Iran, New York: Free
Press.
Shafik, Viola (1998), Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity, Cairo: American
University of Cairo Press.
C ^Shohat, Ella (2003), 'Post-Third-Worldist Culture', in Anthony R. Guneratne
and Wimal Dissanayake (eds), Rethinking Third Cinema, London: Routledge,
pp. 51-78.
< Shohat, Ella and Robert Stam (1994), Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism
and the Media, London: Routledge.
Shohat, Ella and Robert Stam (1996), 'From the Imperial Family to the
Transnational Imaginary: Media Spectatorship in the Age of Globalization', in
Rob Wilson and Wimal Dissanayake (eds), Global/Local: Cultural Production
and the Transnational Imaginary, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp.
145-70.
Siegel, Joshua (1998), Baby It's Cold Outside: Filmsfrom Finland 1917-1997, New
York: Museum of Modern Art.
Siegel, Marc (2001), 'The Intimate Spaces of Wong Kar-Wai', in Esther Yau (ed.),
At Full Speed: Hong Kong Cinema in a Borderless World, Minneapolis, MN:
University of Minnesota Press, pp. 277-94.
Sinka, Margit (n.d.), 'Tom Tykwer's Lola Rennt: A Blueprint of Millennial
Berlin', <http://www.dickinson.edu/departments/germn/glossen/heftl l/lo
la.html> (16 July 2004).
Soila, Tytti, Astrid Soderbergh Widding and Gunnar Iversen (1998), Nordic
National Cinemas, London: Routledge.
Solanas, Fernando and Octavio Getino (1976), 'Towards a Third Cinema', in Bill

184

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

Nichols (ed.), Movies and Methods, Volume One, Berkeley, CA: California
University Press, pp. 44-64.
Stephens, Chuck (1996), 'Intersection: Tsai Ming-liang's Yearning Bike Boys and
Heartsick Heroines', Film Comment 32.5: 20-3.
Stephens, Chuck (2001a), 'Kingdom Come', Film Comment 37.1: 33-40.
Stephens, Chuck (2001b), 'Tears of the Black Tiger', Film Comment 37.3:
16-17.
Stephens, Chuck (2001c), 'Another Green World', Film Comment 37.5: 6472.
Stephens, Chuck (2002), 'High and Low: Japanese Cinema Now: A User's Guide',
Film Comment 38.1: 35-46.
Stevenson, Jack (2002), Lars von Trier', London: BFI.
Stevenson, Jack (2003), Dogme Uncut: Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg, and the
Gang that Took on Hollywood, Santa Monica, CA: Santa Monica Press.
Stokes, Lisa Oldham and Michael Hoover (1999), 'Hong Kong to Hollywood',
Cinemaya 46: 30-9.
V
Stone, Rob (2002), Spanish Cinema, HarlowsBearson.
Stringer, Julian (1997), '"Your Tender Smiles Give Me Strength": Paradigms of
Masculinity in John Woo's A Better Tomorrow and The Killer\ Screen 38.1:
25-41.
Stringer, Julian (2002), 'Tsui Hark', in Yvonne Tasker (ed.), Fifty Contemporary
Filmmakers, London: Routledge, pp. 346-53.
Stringer, Julian (ed.) (2003a), Movie Blockbusters, London: Routledge.
Stringer, Julian (2003b), 'Regarding Film Festivals', Ph.D. thesis, Indiana
University.
Stringer, Julian (2003c), 'Scrambling Hollywood: Asian Stars/Asian American
Star Cultures', in Thomas Austin and Martin Baker (eds), Contemporary
Hollywood Stardom, London: Arnold, pp. 229-42.
Subramanyam, Radha (2000), 'India', in Gorham Kindem (ed.), The International
Movie Industry, Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Press, pp. 36-59.
Suner, Asuman (1998), 'Speaking the Experience of Political Oppression with a
Masculine Voice: Making Feminist Sense of Yilmaz Gtiney's YoF, Social
Identities 4.2: 283-300.
Suner, Asuman (2005), 'Horror of a Different Kind: Dissonant Voices of the New
Turkish Cinema', author's manuscript, forthcoming in Screen 46.1.
Teo, Stephen (2001), 'Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love: Like a Ritual in
Transfigured Time', <http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/13/
mood.html> (26 June 2003).
Thomas, Rosie (1985), 'Indian Cinema: Pleasures and Popularity', Screen 26.3-4:
116-31.
Uberoi, Patricia (1998), 'The Diaspora Comes Home: Disciplining Desire in
DDLJP, Contributions to Indian Sociology 32.2: 305-36.
Vanita, Ruth (ed.) (2002), Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism in Indian
Culture and Society, London: Routledge.
Vincendeau, Ginette (2000), 'Designs on the banlieue\ in Susan Hayward and

BIBLIOGRAPHY

185

Ginette Vincendeau (eds), French Film: Texts and Contexts, London: Routledge,
pp. 310-27.
Virdi, Jyoti (2003), The Cinematic Imagination: Indian Popular Films as Social
History\ New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Von Bagh, Peter (2000), Drifting Shadows: A Guide to the Finnish Cinema, Helsinki:
Otava.
Ward, Nada (2001), 'Audition', Film Ireland (June/July): 39-40.
Wayne, Mike (2001), Political Film: The Dialectics of Third Cinema, London:
Pluto.
Williams, Kevin (2003), Why I [Still] Want My MTV: Music Video and Aesthetic
Communication, Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
Williams, Tony (1997), 'Space, Place, and Spectacle: The Crisis Cinema of John
Woo', Cinema Journal'36.2: 67-84.
Willis, Andrew (2003), 'Locating Bollywood: Notes on the Hindi Blockbuster', in
Julian Stringer (ed.), Movie Blockbusters, London: Routledge, pp. 255-68.
Wu, Chia-Chi (2002), ''Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is Not a Chinese Film',
Spectator 22.1:65-79.
Xiaoping, Lin (2002), 'New Chinese Gnema of the "Sixth Generation": A Distant
, Cry of Forsaken Children', Third Text 16.3: 261-84.
Yeh, Yueh-Yu (1999), 'A Life of Its Own: Musical Discourses in Wong Kar-Wai's
Films', Postscript 19.1:120-36.
Yeh, Yueh-Yu (2001), 'Politics and Poetics of Hou Hsiao-Hsien's Films', Postscript
20.2-3:61-76.
?hang, Yingjin (2002), Screening China: Critical Interventions, Cinematic
Reconfigurations, and the Transnational Imaginary in Contemporary Chinese
Cinema, Ann Arbor, MI: Centre for Chinese Studies.
Zizek, Slavoj (1997), The Plague of Phantasies, London: Verso.
2izek, Slavoj (1999), 'Death and the Maiden', in Elizabeth Wright and Edmond
Wright (eds), The iiiek Reader, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 206-21.
Zuhur, Sherifa (ed.) (1998), Images of Enchantment: Visual and Performing Arts of
the Middle East, Cairo: American University of Cairo Press.
Useful Journals
(For coverage of the most recent world cinema)
Cineaction
Cineaste
Cinemaya (dedicated to Asian cinema)
Film Comment
Film Quarterly
Screen Digest (source of business data on global audiovisual media)
Screen International (weeklyfilmtrade paper)
Sensesofcinema (online journal)
Sight and Sound

186

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

Useful Websites
Internet Movie Database <www.imdb.com>
The British Film Institute website <http://www.bfi.org.uk> contains study
guides and has extensivefilmlinks.
Video/DVD purchase
Facets Multimedia, Chicago <http://www.facets.org>
Moviemail, UK <http://www.moviemail-online.co.uk> specialises in world
cinema.

Abbas, Ackbar, 116,123

Abril, Victoria, 45
Academy Awards, 6,22,26,28,32,44,48,
99,104,132,165,167
action films, 124-9; see also violence
adultery, 80,130-1
Afghanistan, 55,67,74,79,81,83-4
Akhtar, Farhan, 158
Akira (1988), 103,104
Alaipayuthey (2002), 163,173
Aldrich, Robert, 106
Algeria, 55,56,59
Alice (1988), 28
Alien: Resurrection (1997), 22
All About my Mother (1999), 26
allegory, 57,67,75,77,82,98,106,116
Almodovar, Pedro, 26
'Ambush (1999), 43
~2melte (2001), 22,32
Amenabar, Alejandro, 26
Anarkaii (1953), 138
And Life Goes On (1991), 76,77,85
Anderson, Benedict, 2
Andersson, Roy, 42
Ang, Ien, 5
animation, 1,28,94,103-5
Anna and the King (1999), 124
anti-colonialism, 56
Antonioni, Michelangelo, 8
Aoyama, Shinji, 106
Aparajito (1956), 145
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 109
The Apple (1998), 71,74,78,82,89-91
ApurSansar (1959), 145
Argentina, 11
Ariel (1988), 44
art cinema, 7-8,23,34,71,101,110-12,
116,120,137,150,167; see also New
Wave Cinema
Ashes of Time (1994), 123,129
Asoka (2001), 150
Astaire, Fred, 118
Astro Boy (1963), 103

asylum-seekers, 19-20,42
At Five in the Afternoon (2003), 74,81,82,
83-4
audiences, 4-6,18,21,42,44,58,65,67,
73,101,140-1,142,146,156,163; a*
also cinemas
Audition (2000), 107-8,113
Australia, 4
auteursy 8,26,27,34,38,63,147
Autumn Moon (1992), 122
Awaara (1951), 141
Bachchan, Amitabh, 141,143,160
Bad Education (2004), 26
Bagher, Reza, 42
Balkanism, 31
The Bandit (1996), 6&
Bandit Queen (1995), 164-5
Bangladesh, 137,138,151,152
Bani-Etamed, Rakshan, 74,75
Bar an (2001), 74,78
Barjatya, Soorja, 158,159
AwM1989),74
The Bank ofAlgiers (1965), 11,57,72
The Bank of Britain (1969), 29
Becker, Wolfgang, 23,24-5
Before the Storm (2000), 42
Beijing Bastardy (1993)* 99
Beijing Film Academy, 95
Beineix, Jean-Jacques, 21
Beirut, 59,60,63
Beizai, Bahram, 74
Bend It Like Beckham (2002), 18-19
Benegal, Dev, 148
Benegal, Shyam, 146-7
Bengali cinema, 145-8,152,153
Bergman, Ingmar, 8,34,35,40,42,49
Berlin Film Festival, 6,104,121
Besson, Luc, 21-2
A Better Tomorrow (1986), 119
BFI (British Film Institute), 17,18
Bhaji on the Beach (1993), 18
Bhosle, Asha, 143

188

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

Bhuvan Shome (1969), 146

Bier, Susanne, 37
Binoche, Juliet, 27
Birro, Peter, 42
Bjork, 39
BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), 157,163,166
Black British Cinema, 11,17-18
Black Cat, White Cat (1998), 30
Black Narcissus (1947), 17
Blackboards (2000), 74,82-3
Blade Runner (1982), 104
Bltnd Chance (\m\23y 27
Block C (1994), 68
blockbusters, 1,4, 5,7,22,98,112,115,
126,132-5,13'
Blue (1993), 15
Blue Kite (1993), 96
The Boat People (1982), 120
Bollywood, 5,11,18,32,137,144,145-6,
156-61,165,166-9,170
actors, 143,149,160
Brat Pack directors, 158-60
Bombay (\995)y 158,161,162,163,172
Bordwell, David, 7-8
Bose, Rahul, 148
Bosnia, 30, 31,32
Boughedir, Ferid, 65
Bouzid, Nouri, 65-6
Bread and Alley (1970), 76
Breaking the Waves (1996), 40,45-7
Bresson, Robert, 139
Bright Future (2003), 106
A Brighter Summer Day (1991), 100
Britain, 4,17-21,27
Black and Asian cinema, 11,17-18
co-productions, 3
multiplexes, 5
The Buddha of Suburbia (1993), 18
Buddhism, 93
buddy film genre, 123,126
Buftuel, Luis, 25
Bush, President George W., 81,112
Business (1992), 65
Cambodia, 129,132
Camera Buff(\919\ 11
Cameron, James, 1
Canal Plus, 4
Cannes Film Festival, 6,22,30,39,44,45,
48,59,64,67,69,76,78,82,101,
109,123,129,145,153,165
Canto-Pop, 116
Carax, Leos, 21

Caro, Marc, 22
Carthage Film Festival, 64
Cartlidge, Katrin, 32
Cassavetes, John, 38,50
censorship, 3,25
Bangladesh, 153
British colonial, 116
China,96-7,98,100,116
India, 140,161,163,164,165,170
Iran, 37,71,72-3,74-5,78,80,82, 86
Middle East, 55-6
Pakistan, 151
Saudi Arabia, 58
Scandinavia, 36
Soviet bloc, 16
Tunisia, 64,67
Turkey, 67
Centre Stage a.k.a. Actress (1992), 121
Ceylan, Nuri Bilge, 68,69
Chadha, Gurinder, 18
Chahine, Youssef, 58-9,83
Chan, Fruit, 124
Chan, Jackie, 112,115,118,121,124,
125
Chang Cheh, 117,119
Chahine, Youssef, 8
Channel 4 television, 17,18,20,28,64,
164,165
Chanway (1951), 151
Chaplin, Charlie, 118
Chatrichalerm Yukol, Prince, 109
Chen, Chang, 133
Cheng PeiPei, 117,132,133
The Chess Players (1977), 145
Cheung, Leslie, 121
Cheung, Maggie, 98,120,121-2,129
child abuse, 48,65
children, 41,76-7
Children of Heaven (1997), 78
Children of Nature (1991), 44
China, 1,7,95-100
'Fifth Generation' directors, 95-8
'Sixth Generation' directors, 98-100
Chinese Film Bureau, 99
A Chinese Ghost Story (1987), 166
Chokher Bali (2003), 146,148
Choortan (1998), 152
Chopra, Aditya, 158,160
Chopra, Yash, 158,159
Chow, Rey, 97
Chronicle of a Disappearance (1997), 63-4
Chungking Express (1994), 115,123
cinema beurt 22-3

INDEX

Cinema Gty Company (Hong Kong), 118,

119,120
cinema du look, 15,21-3
cinema-verite style, 15, 56,165
cinemas, 4-5,43,73,109,156
cinematography, 37,38,40,41,46-7,49,
50-1,75,78,82,101,122-3,123,
124,127-8,130,131-2,149,161
The Circle (2000), 75
city, representation of, 24,35,44,60,
101-2,122,126
City of Lost Children (1995), 22
City of Sadness (1989), 100,101,129
City on Fire (1987), 115
class, 22,48-9,68,145
middle, 79,156,157,159,161
working, 17,18,22,43,48, 50
The Clay Bird (2003), 152-3
Clay Dolls (2002), 66-7
Close Up (1990), 79
Cloud-Capped Star (1960), 145
Clouds of May (1999), 6&
"club culture, 20,21
co-productions, 3
Bangladesh/France, 153
Britain/USA, 30
British/Indian, 164,165
Hong Kong/East Asia; 125
Indian parallel cinema, 146
Iranian/European/USA, 84-6
Iranian/French, 76,81,82,87-91
Middle East, 57,59,60
Palestinian/European, 63
Pan-European, 16
Scandinavia, 36
Tunisia/Europe, 64-5
Cold Fever (1995), 44
Cold War, 14,43,55,112
colonialism, 10-11,55,129,132,137,140,
145
Colour of Paradise (1999), 78
Columbia Pictures, 4,125
Come Drink With Me (1966), 117
comedy, 15,17,18,35,44-5,56,57,63-4,
80,118
comic strips, 21
communal living movement, 50-2
communism, 24,26-7,28,29-30,31,72,
95-6,99,115,130,132; see also
China; Marxism; socialism; Sovietbloc countries
Confession (2001), 68
Confucianism, 93,95, 111, 132-3

189

Conservative Party (UK), 18,20

Conspirators of Pleasure (1996), 28
consumerism, 24,25,42,43,50,91,93,
100,156,161
The Cook, the Thief His Wife and Her
Lover (1999), 17
Coppola, Francis Ford, 9,161
The Com (1969), 74
Crimson Gold (2003), 78,79
Croatia, 30
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000),
97-8,117,125,132-5
Cui Jian, 99
cultural identity, 18,42,130
Cultural Revolution, 95,96,99,115,130
Cure (1997), 106
cyberpunk genre, 104
Czech Republic cinema, 15,27-9
Dabashi,Hamid,90,91
Dahan (1997), 148
Dali, Salvador, 25
dance, 56,58,99,138,143-4,146,147,
149,167,168
Dancer in the Dark (2000), 39,40,42,45
Danish Film Institute, 36,37
Dark Blue World (2001), 29
Dasgupta, Buddhadeb, 146,147,148
The Day I Became a Woman (2000), 74
Days and Nights in the Forest (1970), 146
Days of Being Wild (1991), 121
Dead or Alive (\999)y \0&
Decalogue (1988-9), 27
Delbaran (2001), 74
Delicatessen (1991), 21
Delpy, Julie, 27
Demirkubuz, Zeki, 68
democracy, 84 m
Deng Xiaoping, 96
Denmark cinema, 34,35,37-40; see also
Dogme 95
deregulation, 18,156
Desser, David, 94,124,126
Destiny (1997), 59
Devi, Phoolan, 164-5
Dharshan, Dharmesh, 158
diaspora, 17,157,160-1,169,170
Die Hard (1988), 126
digital technology, 106,110,133,149,
165
Dil Chahta Hai (2001), 161
0*75* (1998), 112,158,161,163,171-3
Dil to Pagal Hai (1997), 159

190

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

Dilwale Dulhama Le jfayenge (DDLjf)

European cinema see under individual
(1995), 160,161
countries
Dimensions of Dialogue (1982), 28
European Union, 16
Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1982), 49
Everybody Says I'm Fine! (2001), 148
Dissanayake, Somaratne, 150-1
exile, 120,122
Dissanayake, Wimal, 141
distribution, 3-4,16,19,29,145-6,150
F^(1968),38
Diva (1981), 21
Faithless (2000), 42
Divine Interpretation (2002), 64
Fajr Film Festival, 76
divorce, 25,65,75,76
Falconetti, Marie, 46
documentaries, 15,62-3,119,121,124
Fallen Angels (\99S)y 123
Dogme 95,14, 34,35,37-40,41,47-50,
family themes, 26,101,150-1,159,165-6
165 (
170-1
Dogville (ip03), 40
Fanny and Alexander (1982), 49
Dooratwa (1$78), 148
fantasy film, 7,17,20,22; see also magic
The Double Ltjfof Veromque (1991), 27
realism
Doueiri, Ziad, 60
Farabi Cinema Foundation (Iran), 73,84
Doyle, Chris, 122,129
Fares, Josef, 42
Dragojevic, Srdjan, 31
Farewell China (1990), 122
The Dream Life of Angels (1998), 21
Farewell My Concubine (1993), 96,101,12
dreams, 28,148
Farrokhzad, Forugh, 74
Dreyer, Carl, 34,35,46
Fassbinder, Rainer Werner, 8,23
Drifting Clouds (1996), 44
Fate (2001), 68
drug culture, 20,26
Faust (\99A)y2%
Drunken Master (1978), 118
feminism, 11,25,45,47,78,146,159-60,
Durian Dunan (2000), 124
165
dystopia, 22,104
Festen (1998), 37,38,39,47-50,165
The Fifth Element (1997), 22
Fifth Generation (Chinese directors),
Earth (\99S)y 166,167
East Is East (1999), 18
95-8
The East is Red (1992), 120
fight choreography, 117,125,133-4
film festivals, 3, 5-6,73,76,98,109,110,
East Palace, West Palace (\996)y 99
119,144-5; see also individual film
Egypt, 54, 56, 58-9,61,65,142
festivals
Electric Dragon 80,000 Volts (2001), 106
film foundations, 3
Element of Crime (1984), 39
Film i Vast, 41
IV 09" 01 (2002), 83
film noir, 36,44
Elizabeth (\99$)y 17,164
film schools, 58,82,120
The Emigrant (1994), 59
financing, 3
emigration, 126,129
emigre directors, 57,60,63,122,133,157,
Black British cinema, 18,19
164-6,169-70; see also individual
European cinema, 16
directors
expatriate Indianfilmmakers,164,165
End of Violence (\991)y 23
Hong Kong cinema, 129
Enter the Dragon (1973), 118
Indian parallel cinema, 145-7
Epidemic (m&)y 39
Scandinavian cinema, 36,41,45-6
Erice, Victor, 25
subsidies, 3,16,23,26,31
Ermo (1994), 96
Finland, 1,34-5,43-4
ethnic cleansing, 30,31,163
Finnish Film Institute, 36
ethnography, 97
iV*(1996), 157,166,169-71
Etre et Avoir (2Q02)y 21
Fish and Elephant (2001), 99
Eurimages fund, 16
Fiza (2000), 162
Eurocentrism, 10-11
Floating Life (1996), 122
Europa (1991), 39
Fong, Eddie, 122

INDEX
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), 17
400 Blom (195% 74
France, 4,132
box-office receipts levy, 21
cinema du look, 15,21-3
cinema-verite, 15,56,165
co-productions, 3,76,81,82,87-91,
153
financing, 129
market-share levels, 38
and Middle East, 55,57,59,60-1
New Wave, 8,15,74,119,123
Franco, General, 25
Freud, Sigmund, 69
Fridriksson, Fridrik Thor, 44-5
Friend (2001), 112
Fuckland (2000), 37
7%* Full Monty (1997), 17
fundamentalism, 152,153,166,170-1

191

globalisation, 4,7,24,39,93,97,124,148,
156,164,170
God, Construction and Destruction (short),
83
Godard, Jean-Luc, 8,123
Goddess of 1967 (2000), 122
The Godfather (1972), 161
Godzilla (1954), 103,106
Golden Harvest (Hong Kongfilmstudio),
117-18,119
Golden Horseshoes (1989), 65
Golden Way (film company), 121
Gone with the Wind (1939), 12n, 110
Gong Li, 97
Goodbye, Lenin! (2003), 24-5
Gopalakrishnan, Adoor, 147
Gorbachev, Mikhail, 14
Gowariker, Ashutosh, 166-9
Greenaway, Peter, 17
Guney, Yilmaz, 8,67-8

Gabbeh (1996), 80,81

Gadar (2001), 157
L*/fatW(1995),22,60
Gandhi, Indira, 141
Hallstrom, Lasse, 41
Gandhi, Rajiv, 150,171-2
HanSuk-Kyu,112
gangsterfilms,123,126-9
Hana-Bi (1997), 105
British, 17
Handagama, Asoke, 150
Hong Kong, 118-19,125-6
Haneke, Michael, 27
Indian, 161
Happy Together (1997), 121,129
Hard-Boiled (1992), 119,125,126-9
yakuzafilms,105-6,108
Garbo, Greta, 34
The Heart Is Still Indian (2000), 157
The Gasman (1997), 20
Heaven (2002), 27
- GATT, Uruguay Round of (1993), 4,112
heritagefilms,17
gay cinema, 17,95,99,102,110,121,123
Hero (2002), 98,129,133
Geetanjali (1989), 161
Heroic Trio (1993), 121
gender-bending, 120-1
Herzog, Werner, 23
gender politics, 22,25,57,65-6,85-6,160 Hibakusha genre, 103
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 133-5 The Hidden #*//(2001), 76
India, 146-7
Hinduism, 137-8,146,152,153,157,159,
South Korea, 111
161,166/170-1,193
Spain, 26
historicalfilms,28-9,100-1,109
German cinema, 3,4,23-5
Hitchcock, Alfred, 99
German reunification, 24
Hjort, Mette, 38
Getino, Octavio, 11,57
Holland, Agnieszka, 26
Ghai, Subhash, 159
Hollywood, 1,3,7,141
Ghatak, Ritwik, 145
and art cinema, 8,9
Ghobadi, Bahman, 74,83
in China, 97
Ghosh, Gautum, 146,147
distribution, 4-5
Ghosh, Rituparno, 146,147,148
and European cinema, 14,15
Ghost in the Shell (1995), 104
Hong Kong actors and directors in,
ghost stories, 49-50
124-6
Girlfriend (2004), 170
in India, 140
Gitai, Amos, 62,83
influence on Bollywood, 138
glasnost, 28,43
musicals, 59

192

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

Hollywood (continued)
realism, 15
thrillers, 15
see also Academy Awards
Hollywood Hong Kong (2001), 124
Holocaust, 61,62
home/homeland, 54,61-2,68-9,79,115;
see also family themes; nostalgia
homelessness, 44
homoeroticism, 26,119,121,127,148,170
homosexuality, 25,102,121,170; see also
gay cinema; lesbian cinema
Hong Kong, 3,4,7,101,110,115-35
actors, 116,118,120,121-2,124-6,
119
Hong Sang-Soo, 110
horror filmv23>106-7
Hou Hsiao-Hsien, 95,100,101
House (1980), 62
7%* House is Black (1963), 74
Hsu Feng, 117
Hu,King, 117,120
Hui, Ann, 120
Hum Aapke Ham Koun (1994), 159
Human Traffic (1999), 20
humour see comedy
Hung, Sammo, 118,125
Ibn Rushd (Averroes), 59
Ibsen, Henrik, 35
Icelandic cinema, 34,44-5
Icelandic Film Centre, 36
identity, 2-3,14,18,19,25, 39,42,99,
126,130,157
The Idiots (\m\ 37,40,45
ImKwok-Taek, 110
Im Sang-Soo, 110
immigrants/immigration, 5,20,22,42,
61,62,122,130
In the Forest... Again (2003), 146
In the Moodfor Love (2000), 129-32
In the Realm of the Senses (1976), 108
Indian cinema, 1,4, 5,11,137-9
expatriate filmmakers, 164-6
films of Mani Ratnam, 149,150,158,
161-5,171-3
parallel cinema, 7,144-8,162
popular cinema, 18,139-44
south, 149-50,158
see also Bollywood
Infernal Affairs (2002), 125-6,129
Innocence (1997), 68
Insomnia (\997)y 36

Institute for Intellectual Development of

Children and Young Adults (Iran),
73,75,76
intertextuality, 9,142
IPTA (Indian People's Theatre
Movement), 144
Iran-Iraq War (1980-8), 72,74,83
Iranian cinema, 54, 55,71-91
Iraq, 55
Irma Vep (1996), 121
Iron Ladies (2000), 109,110
Iron Monkey (1993), 118
Iruvar (1997), 149
Islam, 55, 57, 59,65,67,71-2,75,137-8,
146,147,152,153,157,163
Islamic Revolution (1978-9), 71-2
Israel, 54,60,61-4
Israeli Film Fund, 63
Italian for Beginners (2000), 35,37,38,39
Italian neorealism, 7,8,15,38,56,60,139
145
Italy, 4
Jacob, Irene, 27
Jalili, Abolfazl, 74
JallalJallal (2000), 35,42
Jang Sun-Woo, 110,111
Japanese cinema, 4,44,115
co-productions, 3
highest-grossingfilms,1
'New' New Wave, 105
New Wave, 102-5
and Taiwan, 100,101
Jehan, Noor, 151
Jensen, Peter Aalbaek, 39
Jet Tone production company, 122
Jeunet, Jean-Pierre, 22
Johar, Karan, 158
Johar,Yash, 158
Joint Security Area (2000), 112
Jordan, 55,61,62-3
Josephson, Erland, 42
Joy of Madness (2003), 84
>/)<> (1990), 96
Julien Donkey-Boy (1999), 37
Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), 142,
159
Kabuki theatre, 28,103
Kadosh (1999), 62
KalHoNaaHo (2003), 161
Kama Sutra (1996), 165
Kammerspiel (chamber drama), 35,49

INDEX

Kanchenjunga (1962), 145

Kandahar (2001), 74,75,81-2
Kandukondain Kandukondain (2000),
Kannathil Muthamittal (2002), 164
Kapoor, Karisma, 147
Kapoor, Raj, 144,157,160
Kapur, Shekhar, 164-5
Kari, Dagur, 45
Karmitz, Marin, 27
Karun, Shaji, 146,147
Kashmir, 158,162
Kassovitz, Matthieu, 22
Kaurismaki, Aki, 34,35,43-5
Keaton, Buster, 118
Kedma (2002), 62
Keertana, Shweta Prasad, 164
Kelly, Gene, 118
Kemal Atatiirk, 67
Kerala, 146,147,149
Khan, Aamir, 138,160,167
Khan, Shahrukh, 138,160,171,172
Khatami, Mohammed, 72,73
Khleifi, Michel, 63
Khomeini, Ayatollah, 72
Khrushchev, Nikita, 28
Kiarostami, Abbas, 37,69,71,74,75
76-9,80,84-6,153
Kidman, Nicole, 40
Kieslowski, Krzysztof, 26-7
KikVs Delivery Service (1989), 104
Kill Bill, Vols land 2 (2003-4), 125
The Killer (\n% \\9
The King Is Alive (2000), 37
The Kingdom (1994), 39-40
Kippur (2000), 62
Kira's Reason (2001), 37
Kitano, Takeshi, 105-6
KMT (Kuomintang), 100,101
Kohl, Helmut, 23,24
Koi Mil Gaya (2003), 156
Kolya (1996), 28
Koreeda, Hirokazu, 106
Kormakur, Baltasar, 45
Kragh-Jacobsen, Seren, 37
Kristeva, Julia, 21
Kuch Kuch Hota Hat (1998), 159-60
Kulthum, Umm, 56,66
Kumar, Dilip, 138
Kumari, Meena, 138
kung-fu films, 118,133
Kurds, 55,67,68,74,83
Kureishi, Hanif, 17-18
Kurosawa, Akira. 8.95.119

193

Kurosawa, Kiyoshi, 106,107

Kusturica, Emir, 30
Kuwait, 55
Kwan, Stanley, 119,120,121
Kwangju Massacre (1980), 110
Labour Party (UK), 20
Lacan, Jacques, Mirror Stage theory, 90
Lagaan (2001), 32,158,166-9
Lajmi, Kalpana, 147
Lakshya (2004), 158
Lam, Ringo, 124
landscape, 76-7
Larsen, Thomas Bo, 38
The Last Resort (2000), 15,19-20
Latin America, 11,15
Lau, Andrew, 122,124,125
Law, Clara, 120,122
Lebanese cinema, 59-61
Lee, Ang, 133,134
Lee, Bruce, 117-18,133
Lee, Spike, 22
LeeMyung-Se, 110,111-12
Leigh, Mike, 17,41
Leila (1996), 75
Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989),
44
Leon (1994), 21-2
Leone, Sergio, 110
lesbian cinema, 17,95,99,102,157,166,
169-71
Leung, Tony, 98,125,129
Levring, Kristian, 37
Li,Jet,98,118,124,125
Li Ping-bing, Mark, 129
Li Yu, 98
Lies(1999), 111
Lilya 4-ever (2002), 29,41-2
Lin, Brigitte, fl8,120
Lindgren, Astrid, 41
Lingyu, Ruan, 121
Little Cheung (1999), 124
Little Otik (2000), 28
Liu Yichang, 129
Live Flesh (1997), 26
Lloyd, Harold, 118
Loach, Ken, 17,41,83
L.O.CKargil (2003), 158
Locarno Film Festival, 87
locations, 24,160-1,173
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
(1998), 17
The Longest Summer (1998), 124

194

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

lottery funding, 16,20

Lou Ye, 99
Lovers (1999), 37
Lumiere Brothers, 15
Macedonia, 30
Made in Hong Kong (1997), 110,124
Madsen, Ole Christian, 37
magic realism, 15,30,63,81,148
Mahabharata, 138,141,143
Mahfouz, Naguib, 59
Majidi, Majid, 74,78
Mak, Alan, 125
IVkakhmalbaf, Hana, 82,84
Makhmalbaf, Maysam, 82
MaRhmalbaf, Mohsen, 71,73,74,75,
79=52,87-9
Makhmalbaf, Samira, 74,78,81,82-4,
89-91
Malaysia, 4,149
Malik, Sarita, 17
Malkovich, John, 150
Mammo /Grandmother (1994), 147
Man of Ashes (1986), 65
Man Without a Past (2002), 44
manga, 94,120
Mangeshkar, Lata, 143
Mantle, Anthony Dod, 49
Mao Zedong, 95
marketing, 8-9,19,107
marriage, 42,76,85-6,158,159-60,163,
165-6
martial-artsfilms,7,97-8,98,117,118,
123,125,132-5
Marxism, 11,146
masalafilms,139
masculinity, 25,65
Mashawari, Rashid, 63
Masud, Tareque, 152
The Matrix (\999\\\7, 125
A Matter of Life and Death (1946), 17
MCIG (Ministry of Culture and Islamic
Guidance), 73,74,82
Medem, Julio, 26
MEDIA programmes (EU), 16,36
MediaAsia, 125
Mehrjui, Dariush, 74,75
Mehta, Deepa, 157,166,169-71
melodrama, 7, 56,65,95,129,138
Hong Kong, 121
New Iranian cinema, 76
Sri Lankan, 150
Thai cinema, 109-10

Melville, Jean-Pierre, 119

Merchant Ivoryfilms,17
Meshkini, Marzieh, 74,82
'Middle Cinema' (parallel/popular Indian
cinema), 146-7
Middle Eastern cinema, 3,4,7,11, 54-69,
140
Midnight Sun Film Festival, 43
Mifune (\999\ 35,37
migration, 122,145,157,160-1,169,170
Miike, Takashi, 106,107-8
Mikkelsen, Mads, 38
Milani, Tahmineh, 74,76
Milky Way (\997\ (A
Milosevic, Slobodan, 30,31
Miramax Films (USA), 29,84
The Mirror (1997), 78
Miyazake, Hayao, 104-5
MK2 (French production company), 27,
76,81,82,87,89,153
modernisation, 10,65,93-4,95,96,99,
100,101,110,111
modernism, 8,77,94-5,96,101,111
Mohammed, Khalid, 147,162
Mokammel, Tanvir, 152
A Moment of Innocence (1996), 71,74,80,
82,87-9
Monsoon Wedding (2001), 165-6
Montenegro, 30
Moodysson, Lukas, 29,34,40-1, 50-2
Moritz, Henning, 48
Morocco, 55
Morvern Callar (2002), 15,20-1
Mother India (1957), 142,167
movtda (Spanish underground culture), 26
Mr and Mrs Iyer (2002), 148
MTV, 10,15,22,120,123,143-4,161,
173
MTV Lifetime Achievement Award, 115
Mughal-e-Azam (1960), 138
Mujhse Dostt Karoge (2002), 160
multiplex cinemas, 4-5,43,109,156
Murdoch, Rupert, 4
music, 56,58,99,116,138,142-4,147,
149; see also song-and-dance;
soundtracks
music videos, 10,21,143-4
musicals, 39, 59,138
My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), 17,18
My Life as a Dog (1985), 41
My Neighbour Totoro (1988), 104
My Son the Fanatic (1997), 18
mythology, 153,168,169

INDEX

Naderi, Amir, 74
Nagase, Masotoshi, 44
Nair, Mira, 83,165
Nakata, Hideo, 107
Nakba ('disaster'), 62
Nang Nak (1999), \0&, m
Napier, Susan, 104
Nargess (1992), 7 5
Nargis, 138
Nassar, Ali, 63
Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 56,58
Nasty Girl (1990), 23
National Film Institute (India), 145
National Front Party (France), 22
national identity, 2-3,14,19,39,157
nationalism, 14,19-20,30-2,68
Indian, 157-8,162
pan-Arab, 57
Serbian, 30
Tamil, 150-1
Tunisian, 66
naturalism, 43,46,74
Nayakan (1987), 161
Nehru, Jawaharlal, 156
neo-noir genre, 15,22,23,60,124
neorealism, 7,8,15,38, 56,59,60,74,139,
145
Netherlands, 4
The New Country (2000), 42
New Wave Cinema, 8,15
British, 17
French, 8,15,74,119,123
Hong Kong, 120-4
Iranian, 7,71-91
Japanese, 102-5
Japanese New, 105-8
Korean, 110-13
Taiwanese, 100-2
Turkish, 67-8
New Woman (1934), 121
Nielson, Asta, 34
999-9999 (2002), 107
No End (19*5), 27
No Man's Land (200l\ 32
Not Albinoi (2003), 35,45
Nonzee Nimibutr, 109
Nordic Council, 36
Nordic National Cinemas, 35
North Korea, 112-13
Norway, 1,34,35
nostalgia, 26,28,50-2,109,113,116,160
Not One Less (1999), 96
Notting Hill( 1999), 17

195

Nowhere to Hide (1999), 111-12

NRI (non-resident Indian), 157,160-1,
165
Obayashi, Nobuhiko, 108
Offthe Limit (1987), 75
Once Upon a Time, Beirut (1995), 60
Once Upon a Time, Cinema (1992), 80-1
Once Upon a Time in China series, 116,
118,120
One-Armed Swordsmanfilms(1967,1969,
1971), 117
101 Reykjavik (2000), 45
Open Hearts (2002), 37
oral storytelling, 56,77,95,142
Ordet (1955), 46
Orientalism, 6,10-11,31, 54,64,77,97,
98,101,124,133
Orlando (1992), 17
Oscars see Academy Awards
Oslo Accords (1993), 61
Ostalgiet 25
The Other (1999), 59
Ottoman Empire, 55,67
Outinen, Kati, 44
OVAs (Original Video Animations), 103
Ozdemir, Muzaffer, 69
Ozu, Yasujiro, 94
Pahlavi dynasty, 71
Paizira, Nelofer, 81
Pakeezah (1971), 18
Pakistani cinema, 137,138,139,151-2
Palestine, 55
Palestinians, 54,56,60,61-4
Pallavi Anupallavi (1983), 161
Palme d'Or (Cannes Film Festival), 6,30,
39,67,76
Panahi,Jafar,74,75,78
parables, 63,80
Paradis-Orly Films, 129
Pardes (1997), 159,161
parental authority, 82,90
Paris, Texas (\9M)y 23
Paroma (1984), 148
Parsa, Reza, 42
Parsi theatre, 138
Passion of Joan ofArc (1928), 35,46
pastiche, 9,21,26,44,110
Pather Panchali (1955), 145,153
Pathiraja, Dharmasena, 151
patriarchy, 65,66,81,82,89; see also
women, oppression of

196

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

Pawlikowski, Pawel, 19,29

Peckinpah, Sam, 106,119
Pellonpaa, Matti, 44
Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, 109
Pennebaker, D. A., 165
The People's Party (Spain), 26
Peries, Lester James, 8,150
Persona (1966), 35
PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine), 62
Pinon, Dominique, 22
Platform (2000), 99
PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation),
61,62-3,64
police genre, 126-9
Police Stiry series (1985,1992), 118,121
Polish cinema, 26-7
post-colonialism, 10-11
postmodernism^-10,110
Powell, Michael, 17
Prague Spring movement, 27-8
Preisner, Zbigniew, 27
Pressburger, Emeric, 17
Pretty Village, Pretty Flame (1996), 31
Princess Mononoke (1997), 104, 105
Priyadarshan, 149
production values, 16,149,152
propaganda, 16,30,31,61,62
pseudo-documentary style, 40,41,46-7,
111
Pulp Fiction, 23
Pulse (2001), 107
Punjab, 158,160,165
Puppetmaster (1993), 100,101
Quiet Flows the River Chttra (1999), 152
racism, 22,48
Rahman, A. R., 147,149,162,167
Rai, Aishwarya, 143,149
Raise the Red Lantern (1991), 96,97,101
Ramachandran, M. G., 149
Ramayana, 138,141,143,157,171
Ramsey, Lynne, 20-1
Rashomon (1950), 95
Ratcatcher (1999), 20
Ratnam,Mani, 149,150,158,161-5,
171-3
Rattana Pestonji, 109
Ray, Satyajit, 8,137,145,146,153
realism, 7,20,150
cinema-veritestyle, 15, 56,165
Dogme films, 37-40

European, 14-16
Finnish, 43
Indian expatriate filmmakers, 164-6
'kitchen-sink,* 17
Polish cinema, 26-7
see also neorealism
refugees, 120,130,153
regional cinema, 115,137,139,145,158
Rekava (1956), 150
religion, 34,45-7,104,153,157,162-3
Renoir, Jean, 145
Replacement Killers (1998), 124
Reservoir Dogs (1992), 115,128
Retake (workshop), 17
The Ring (\9%\ 107y 10$
Ring 2 (1999), 107
The Road Home (1999), 96,97,125
road movies, 123
Roeg, Nicolas, 17
Roja (1992), 158,161,162,163,172
romance films, 35,158-61
Roshan, Hrithik, 160
Rothrock, Cynthia, 118
Rouge (l%7\ 116,121
Roy, Arundhati, 165
Roy, Bimal, 144
Rudaalt, 150
Rumi (Persian poet), 80,88
Run Lola Run (1998), 23-4,27
Russell, Ken, 17
Saab, Jocelyn, 60
Saarela, OUi, 43
Sada (1998), 108
Sadat, Anwar, 58
Saddam Hussein, 72
sadomasochism, 111
Said, Edward, 10,31,54
Salaam Bombay! (1988), 165
Sam & Me (I99\)y 166
Le Samurai (1967), 119
Samurai films, 95,117,119
Sandgren, Ake, 37
Sangam (1964), 160
Sankofa (workshop), 17
Sardari Begum (1996), 147
Saroja (1999), 150-1
satellite television, 5,73,139,146,
156
satire, 42-3,57
Saudi Arabia, 55, 58
Scandinavian cinema, 34-52
Scherfig, Lone, 37,39

INDEX

science-fiction genre, 22,104

Scorsese, Martin, 9,22,23,48,119
Scottish cinema, 20-1
screen quota system (South Korea), 112
Second World War, 15,29,30,140
secularisation, 65,67
A Self-Made Hero (1996), 22
self-reflexivity, 77,80,97,111
Sen, Aparna, 147,148
Sen, Mrinal, 146
Sengupta, Rituparna, 147
Sense and Sensibility (1995), 133
Sense and Sensibility (Austen), 149
September 11th attacks, 66-7,81,83
Serbia, 30-2
Seven Samurai (1954), 119
sex-trafficking, 42
sexuality, 26,60,65, 111, 144,147,164,
165; see also gay cinema;
homosexuality; lesbian cinema
Sexy Beast (2000), 17
Shakespeare in Love (1998), 17
Shallow Grave (1994), 20
sharia law, 65,75
Shaw Brothers Studio, 117,119
Shinto, 104
Shiri (1999), 1,112-13
Shiv Sena (Hindu nationalist group), 157,
163,169-70,171
Shohat, Ella, 6,57,138
Short Film Forum (Bangladesh), 152
Shorn Me Love (1998), 1,40-1
Shri420 (1955), 157
Siegel, Don, 106
Silences of the Palace (1994), 66
silentfilms,34
Singapore, 132,149
Sirk, Douglas, 129
Sivan, Santosh, 149,150,158,162
Six Day War (1967), 61,62
Sjostrom, Victor, 34
Sliding Doors (\99&)y 27
Slovenia, 30
The Small Town (\99$)y 6S
Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), 49
soap operas, 143,146
social class see class
socialisation, 90-1
socialism, 36,57,156
Socialist Realism, 15,80
Solanas, Fernando, 11,57
Solidarity movement, 26-7
Somai, Shinji, 106

197

song-and-dance, 143-4,146,149,150,
167,168,173
Song of the Exile (1990), 120
songs, 58,142-4,153,160,172
Songsfromthe Second Floor (2000), 35,42
soundtracks, 20,23,43-4,47, 50,56,
143-4,147,162
South Asian cinema, 137-53
South Korea, 1,110-13
Soviet-bloc countries, 14,15,16; see also
individual countries
Soviet Union, 43
Spanish cinema, 3,15,25-6
special effects, 29
Spirit of the Beehive (1973), 25
Spirited Away (2001), 1,104
SplU Wide Open (1999), 148
Springtime in a Small Town (1940s), 129
Srebrenica massacre (1995), 32
Sri Lankan cinema, 137,138,149,150-1,
164
Sriram, P. C, 149,161
Stam, Robert, 6, 57,138
stardom, 34,56,143,160
statefilmpolicy, 3,8,21,29, 30,36,64,96,
173
Steen, Paprika, 38
Stephens, Chuck, 105
Stiller, Mauritz, 23
The Story ofQiujfu (1992), 96,97
The Stranger (\99\)y U5
Strindberg, August, 35
studio system, 102,103,117-18
subsidies, 3,16,23,26,31
suicide, 78
Sujatha Films, 161
Suleiman, Elk, 63-4
Sun Alley {\999)y 2*
Suriyothai (200Y), 108,109
Surrealism, 15,25,28,80
Suzhou River (2000), 99-100
Svankmajer, Jan, 28
Sverak, Jan, 29
Swedish cinema, 1,34-5,40-3,50-2
Swedish Film Institute, 36
Swordsman 2 (1991), 120-1
Syria, 55,56,60,61
Taiwan, 117
Taiwanese New Wave, 100-2
Take Care of Your Scarf Tatjana (1994),
44
Taliban, 55,67,81,82,83-4

198

CONTEMPORARY WORLD CINEMA

Talk (1997), 51
Tsui Hark, 119,120,124,125
Talk to Her (2002), 26
Tsukamoto, Shinya, 106
Tamil Nadu, 149
Tunisian cinema, 55,64-7
Tamils, 150-1,162
Turkey, 5, 55,65,67-9
Tang, Emily, 98
Twentieth Century Fox, 4
Tanovic, Danis, 32,83
2046 (2004), 129,130
Tarantino, Quentin, 23,60,105,115
24 Hour Party People (2002), 20
A Taste of Cherry (1997), 76,78
2499 Antaparn Krong Muang (1997), 108
Tati, Jacques, 63
Two Women (\999)y14y 76
Tears (2000), 110
Tykwer, Tom, 23,27
Tears of the Black Tiger (2000), 109-10
Ullman, Liv, 42
technology, 3,107
Unaroo (1984), 161
television, 9-10,17-18,29,39-40,146,
159; see also satellite television
Underground (1995), 30-1
Ten (2002), 75,76,78
underground cinema, 98,110,152
Termtnator (1984), 104
Unishe April (1994), 148
terrorism, 26, 89,150,158,162,171-3
United States, 3,4, 55,71,72; see also
The Terrorist (1999), 150,158
Hollywood
Tetsuo (1988), 106
Unknown Pleasures (2002), 99 S\
Thackeray, Bal, 163
Until the End of the World (1991), 23
Thailand, 4, 5,107,108-10
Utsab (2000), 148
Tharani, Thotta, 161
Uttara (2000), 146
/
Thatcher, Margaret, 18,20
Uzak (2003), 68
/
Third Cinema, 11-12, 57,60,146
Third Page (2000), 68
Vanaprastham (1999), 146
36 Chowringhee Lane (1981), 148
Varma, Ram Gopal, 149
Three Colours trilogy (1993-4), 27
veiling, 72,73,74-5,78,81-2,84
Through the Olive Trees (1994), 71,77,
Venice Film Festival, 6,100,105
Vertigo (1958), 99
84^-6
Tiananmen Square massacre (1989), 97,
video games, 94
video piracy, 5,97,115,143
115,116,126
Videodrome (19*3), \My 107
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Dorm! (1990), 26
Tiger economies, 93-4
videos, 5,10,21,73,89,106,143-4,159,
A Time for Drunken Horses (2000), 74,83
165
Time of Love (1990), &0
Vietnam refugees, 120
Time of the Gypsies (1988), 30
Vietnam war films, 15,31
Timeless, Bottomless Bad Movie (1998), 110Vincendeau, Ginette, 22
Titanic (1997), 1,40,98,109,113,139,
Vinterberg, Thomas, 34,37,47-50
violence
142
Tito, 29-30,31
cinema du look, 21
Tlatli, Moufida, 65,66-7
East Asian cinema, 94
To Live (1994), 96,101
in Korean cinema, 111
Together (2000), 40,41, 50-2
neo-noir, 22-3
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), 124
sexual, 164-5
Toprak, Mehmet Emin, 69
Vithange, Prasanna, 150,151
A Touch of Zen (1969), 115,117,133
von Trier, Lars see Trier, Lars von
traditionalism, 19, 56,68,156-7
voyeurism, 45-7
Trainspotting (1996), 15, 20
Trier, Lars von, 34, 37,38, 39-40,45-7
Wajda, Andrzej, 26
Trintignant, Jean-Louis, 27
Walls Within (1997), 151
Truffaut, Francois, 123
Wang Xiaoshuai, 98
Truly Human (2001), 37
Waqt (1965), 159
Tsai Ming Liang, 102,123
warfilms,15,29-32,31,43,140

INDEX

199

Wong Wing-Heng, 126

War of Israeli Independence (1948), 61
Woo, John, 23,112,118-19,124,125
Water (2004), 166
Hard-Boiled, 119,125,126-9
Watson, Emily, 45,46
WTO (World Trade Organisation), 97,
The Wedding Banquet (1993), 133
Wedding in Galilee (1987), 63
101
Welcome to Sarajevo (1997), 30
Wu Tianming, 96
muxia pian see martial-artsfilm,117
Wenders, Wim, 23
West Beirut (1998), 60
Where Is the Friend's Home? (1987), 76,77 xenophobia, 19-20,48
85
yakuzafilms,105-6,108
White (1994), 27
Yang, Edward, 100,101-2
The White Balloon (1995), 78-9
Yang + Yin: Gender in Chinese Cinema
widowhood, 166
Wiener, Steve, 5
(1996), 119,121
Yeh DilAap Ka Huwa (2002), 152
Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself'(2002), 39
Yeoh, Michelle, 118,124,132,133
Wimalaweera, Sirisena, 150
Yi Yi: A One and A Two (2000), 101-2
The Wind Will Carry Us (1999), 76,77
Yol( 1982), 67-8
Wing Chun (1994), 118
Yom Yom (1999), 62
Wings of Desire (1987), 23,24
Yongyooth Thongkonthun, 109
Wmgs of Glass (2000), 42
Young Soul Rebels (\99\)y IS
Wings of the Dove (1997), 17
youthfilms,94,99,106-7,110,124
Wisit Sasanatieng, 109
Yuen Woo-Ping, 117,118,124,125,133,
women
in anime, 104-5
134
Yugoslavia, 29-32,163
directors, 18,20,26,37,42,60,66,75,
Yun-Fat, Chow, 119,124,125,126,132,
76,82-4,89-91,96,98,120,122,
148,150,151,164-6
133
Iranian cinema, 74-6,78
Zanussi, Krzysztof, 26
and Islam, 72,73,74-5,78,81-2,84,
Zentropa (film company), 39,41
146,147
Zhang Yimou, 97-8
in Japanese cinema, 108
Zhang Yuan, 98,99
and John Woo films, 128
Zhang Ziyi, 97-8,133
in Korean cinema, 111,113
Zhangke, Jia, 98,99
in martial-arts film, 134
Middle East, 56
Zionism, 61-2
oppression of, 57,62,66,82,84,146-7
Zizek, Slavoj, 31,46
164
Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain
see also under individual names
(1983), 120
Zubeidaa (2000), 147
WoneKar-WaL 120.122-4.129-30.132

Shekhar Deshpande World Cinema A Critical Introduction
No ratings yet
Shekhar Deshpande World Cinema A Critical Introduction
821 pages
Shohini Chaudhuri - Contemporary World Cinema
100% (1)
Shohini Chaudhuri - Contemporary World Cinema
203 pages
Matsyagandhi by Sajitha Madathil - Summary and Analysis
No ratings yet
Matsyagandhi by Sajitha Madathil - Summary and Analysis
6 pages
A Companion To Latin American Film
100% (3)
A Companion To Latin American Film
237 pages
The Global Film Book
No ratings yet
The Global Film Book
393 pages
Laikwan Pang - Building A New China in Cinema - The Chinese Left-Wing Cinema Movement, 1932-1937 (2002, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers) - Libgen - Li
No ratings yet
Laikwan Pang - Building A New China in Cinema - The Chinese Left-Wing Cinema Movement, 1932-1937 (2002, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers) - Libgen - Li
312 pages
A History of Canadian Literature (W. H. New (Auth.) ) (Z-Library)
No ratings yet
A History of Canadian Literature (W. H. New (Auth.) ) (Z-Library)
401 pages
Jatra
No ratings yet
Jatra
215 pages
Theory of Rasa
No ratings yet
Theory of Rasa
3 pages
The Militant Image A Cine Geography PDF
No ratings yet
The Militant Image A Cine Geography PDF
13 pages
NAME - Anthony Gumingo - DATE - The King's Speech - Film Clip Scene Analysis
100% (1)
NAME - Anthony Gumingo - DATE - The King's Speech - Film Clip Scene Analysis
11 pages
Teshome, Gabriel - Third Cinema in The Third World
100% (1)
Teshome, Gabriel - Third Cinema in The Third World
168 pages
Shonini Chaudhuri - Contemporary World Cinema Europe, The Middle East, East Asia and South Asia
50% (2)
Shonini Chaudhuri - Contemporary World Cinema Europe, The Middle East, East Asia and South Asia
203 pages
Tweedie Age of New Waves Intro
No ratings yet
Tweedie Age of New Waves Intro
32 pages
Indianizing Shakespeare: Adaptations and Performances: Dr. Satyabrata Rout
100% (1)
Indianizing Shakespeare: Adaptations and Performances: Dr. Satyabrata Rout
17 pages
Alphaville (Film)
100% (1)
Alphaville (Film)
4 pages
De Lauretis, Teresa. Guerrilla in The Midst. Women's Cinema
0% (1)
De Lauretis, Teresa. Guerrilla in The Midst. Women's Cinema
20 pages
Stuart Hall, Film Studies and The Cinema
No ratings yet
Stuart Hall, Film Studies and The Cinema
12 pages
The Caravan Profile of Dibakar Banerjee
100% (1)
The Caravan Profile of Dibakar Banerjee
39 pages
Elements of Greek Tragedy
No ratings yet
Elements of Greek Tragedy
21 pages
Contemporary Cinemas in India
No ratings yet
Contemporary Cinemas in India
38 pages
Colonialism and "Law and Order" Criticism by Teshome Gabriel
No ratings yet
Colonialism and "Law and Order" Criticism by Teshome Gabriel
9 pages
Tabulation of Design Standards
75% (4)
Tabulation of Design Standards
5 pages
History of Malayalam Cinema Presentation
0% (1)
History of Malayalam Cinema Presentation
20 pages
Third Cinema
100% (1)
Third Cinema
21 pages
Tagore
No ratings yet
Tagore
21 pages
Italian Neo-Realism Through Bicycle Thieves
No ratings yet
Italian Neo-Realism Through Bicycle Thieves
3 pages
National Building Code PD 1906
No ratings yet
National Building Code PD 1906
21 pages
Mythical Elemts in Nagamandala
No ratings yet
Mythical Elemts in Nagamandala
4 pages
Dorgelo Thesis
No ratings yet
Dorgelo Thesis
298 pages
New Ecuadorian Cinema
100% (1)
New Ecuadorian Cinema
23 pages
Basic Color Schemes
No ratings yet
Basic Color Schemes
6 pages
Zozula MA F2019
No ratings yet
Zozula MA F2019
136 pages
Films and Ideology
No ratings yet
Films and Ideology
10 pages
A Copmanion To Love Druga Knjiga
No ratings yet
A Copmanion To Love Druga Knjiga
237 pages
Wesker The Merchant
100% (1)
Wesker The Merchant
7 pages
On Dramatic Method - Harley Granville-Barker
No ratings yet
On Dramatic Method - Harley Granville-Barker
200 pages
10 - Chapter 3 PDF
No ratings yet
10 - Chapter 3 PDF
72 pages
Historical Overview of Indian Theatre
No ratings yet
Historical Overview of Indian Theatre
7 pages
Contemporary Indian English Drama
0% (1)
Contemporary Indian English Drama
5 pages
1,2,3, - Thinking About Exhibitions
No ratings yet
1,2,3, - Thinking About Exhibitions
38 pages
Toward A Third Cinema
No ratings yet
Toward A Third Cinema
11 pages
Joshua Usman PDF
No ratings yet
Joshua Usman PDF
285 pages
Presentation Shyama Rabindranath Tagore
No ratings yet
Presentation Shyama Rabindranath Tagore
11 pages
Core-XI - Diasporic Writings (18MEN33C) Unit - IV Rootless But Green Are The Boulevard Trees - Uma Parameswaran
No ratings yet
Core-XI - Diasporic Writings (18MEN33C) Unit - IV Rootless But Green Are The Boulevard Trees - Uma Parameswaran
10 pages
The Concept of Third Cinema
No ratings yet
The Concept of Third Cinema
2 pages
A C Ompanion To Latin American Film: Stephen M. Hart
No ratings yet
A C Ompanion To Latin American Film: Stephen M. Hart
34 pages
Third Cinema: A Brief Overview by Ramchandra PN
No ratings yet
Third Cinema: A Brief Overview by Ramchandra PN
29 pages
S. Sulochana Rengachari - T S Eliot - Hamlet and His Problems - An Analysis-Prakash Book Depot (2013)
No ratings yet
S. Sulochana Rengachari - T S Eliot - Hamlet and His Problems - An Analysis-Prakash Book Depot (2013)
50 pages
A Film Theory and Spectatorship in The Age of The Posts
100% (1)
A Film Theory and Spectatorship in The Age of The Posts
11 pages
Critical Analysis of Indian Film Noir
0% (1)
Critical Analysis of Indian Film Noir
35 pages
Mimesis and Diegesis Foundations of Aest PDF
No ratings yet
Mimesis and Diegesis Foundations of Aest PDF
17 pages
FMST 200B: Introduction To Film and Media Studies
No ratings yet
FMST 200B: Introduction To Film and Media Studies
13 pages
Chem 16 1st Long Exam Review - UPD
No ratings yet
Chem 16 1st Long Exam Review - UPD
2 pages
Zodiac Model Descriptions Final
No ratings yet
Zodiac Model Descriptions Final
14 pages
Exploring Anurag Kashyap As An Auteur: A Comprehensive Study of His Films
No ratings yet
Exploring Anurag Kashyap As An Auteur: A Comprehensive Study of His Films
6 pages
Buchsbaum 2011
No ratings yet
Buchsbaum 2011
17 pages
Dalit Literature and Counter-Culture
No ratings yet
Dalit Literature and Counter-Culture
4 pages
Is Cinema The Reflection of Society
100% (1)
Is Cinema The Reflection of Society
6 pages
Tfa 30Th Year Org Video: I. General Idea
No ratings yet
Tfa 30Th Year Org Video: I. General Idea
7 pages
Indian Literature 2
No ratings yet
Indian Literature 2
9 pages
Impact of Bollywood Movies On Cultural T
No ratings yet
Impact of Bollywood Movies On Cultural T
31 pages
Indian Drama
No ratings yet
Indian Drama
9 pages
CH 21
No ratings yet
CH 21
61 pages
Aesthetics of Resistance Artistic Research As Discipline and Conflict
No ratings yet
Aesthetics of Resistance Artistic Research As Discipline and Conflict
6 pages
Speech Sounds Octavia Butler - Literary Analysis - Formalist & Moralist
No ratings yet
Speech Sounds Octavia Butler - Literary Analysis - Formalist & Moralist
11 pages
Course Guide Global Cinema
No ratings yet
Course Guide Global Cinema
6 pages
World Cinema in Focus: A Critical Case Study of Edward Yang's Stylistic Cinematic Approach
No ratings yet
World Cinema in Focus: A Critical Case Study of Edward Yang's Stylistic Cinematic Approach
35 pages
Syllabus - 329fall 2015
No ratings yet
Syllabus - 329fall 2015
12 pages
Dhvani
No ratings yet
Dhvani
9 pages
Very Imp Project
No ratings yet
Very Imp Project
52 pages
Sea of Poppies Postcolonial Critique
No ratings yet
Sea of Poppies Postcolonial Critique
8 pages
Third World
No ratings yet
Third World
9 pages
The Rhetoric of Remix
No ratings yet
The Rhetoric of Remix
18 pages
Maqbool, Omkara, and Haider: Adapting Shakespeare in Indian Society
No ratings yet
Maqbool, Omkara, and Haider: Adapting Shakespeare in Indian Society
8 pages
Culture and National Identity by Roy Armes
No ratings yet
Culture and National Identity by Roy Armes
7 pages
F-Indian Cinema Today
No ratings yet
F-Indian Cinema Today
10 pages
Violence To Women in The Plays of Tendulkar and Karnad
No ratings yet
Violence To Women in The Plays of Tendulkar and Karnad
7 pages
Kidlat Tahimik
No ratings yet
Kidlat Tahimik
2 pages
To Be An Overseer
No ratings yet
To Be An Overseer
3 pages
Brief General Introduction To Indian Music
No ratings yet
Brief General Introduction To Indian Music
4 pages
Tragic Plot Structure With Notes PDF
No ratings yet
Tragic Plot Structure With Notes PDF
2 pages
Bollywood Vs Hollywood
No ratings yet
Bollywood Vs Hollywood
4 pages
Cinematic Adaptation From Literature: A Study of Chetan Bhagat's Novels
No ratings yet
Cinematic Adaptation From Literature: A Study of Chetan Bhagat's Novels
5 pages
Ritual Theatre in India
No ratings yet
Ritual Theatre in India
2 pages
New Verse: This Modern Poetry
No ratings yet
New Verse: This Modern Poetry
24 pages
Brochure
No ratings yet
Brochure
2 pages
Arch 3 - Rendering Water
No ratings yet
Arch 3 - Rendering Water
2 pages
A Research Paper On Women in Shakespeares
No ratings yet
A Research Paper On Women in Shakespeares
10 pages
Bhakti Poetry Its Relevance and Significance
No ratings yet
Bhakti Poetry Its Relevance and Significance
11 pages
Influence of Western Music On The Film Music of Satyajit Ray
No ratings yet
Influence of Western Music On The Film Music of Satyajit Ray
2 pages
Indian Movies in Japan
No ratings yet
Indian Movies in Japan
14 pages
Final Proposal As Assignment
No ratings yet
Final Proposal As Assignment
10 pages
Thappad Movie Review-A Slap To Misogyny
No ratings yet
Thappad Movie Review-A Slap To Misogyny
2 pages
Cinema
No ratings yet
Cinema
2 pages
Restaging Marathi Theatre
No ratings yet
Restaging Marathi Theatre
2 pages
Tagore As Translator
No ratings yet
Tagore As Translator
1 page
Ghashiram Kotwal - Modassar
No ratings yet
Ghashiram Kotwal - Modassar
8 pages
Closely Watched Films - An Introduction To The Art of Narrative Film Technique - Marilyn Fabe
No ratings yet
Closely Watched Films - An Introduction To The Art of Narrative Film Technique - Marilyn Fabe
3 pages