Category: Film Criticism and Theory
Unraveling Themes of Feminism and Postmodernity in “And Just Like That…”
This essay examines the feminist and postmodern themes in And Just Like That… (2021–), and examines the malleability of their …
Toward Automating the Classification of Films’ Narrative Structures
Traditional methods of analyzing film narrative structure typically involve qualitative analyses of script and film elements as well as quantitative …
Cultural Symbolism in Vietnamese Horror Films
Vietnamese horror cinema has carved a niche in the global film industry, distinguished by its use of cultural symbolism to …
Childism and Maternal Dysfunction in Tatsushi Ōmori’s “Mother” (2020)
Tatsushi Ōmori’s Mother (2020) vividly portrays the harrowing realities of childism through a profoundly dysfunctional maternal relationship. The film centers …
Identity Re-Articulation, Muslim Hip Hop and ‘Mappila Cool’ in Kerala, South India: Reading “Thallumaala”
This paper seeks to analyse the recently released Malayalam film “Thallumaala” (2022) in the context of Muslim hip-hop and Hindutva …
Form of a Successful Y Series
The research in the topic of “Form of a Successful Y Series” is a qualitative research with the objective of …
How Brandon Teena Is Portrayed in “Boys Don’t Cry”
A transgender person is a person whose sexual identity does not match the sexuality assigned at birth. Brandon Teena in …
Further Studies of Temporality in Japanese Film: Phenomenological Reflections on ‘Ma'(間), and the In-Betweenness of Sound
This presentation is part of an ongoing investigation into the absence, presence, and in-betweenness of sound and music in selected …
Film Remaking and Practices: “Infernal Affairs” Versus “Double Face” – Film Repetition Networks, Contexts and Taxonomy
Scholars usually consider such “repetitions” through the scope of institutional and industrial practices for commercial benefits through previously established and …
Revisiting Collective Memory of the Nation Through Cartoon Violence
Rendang of Death is a short animated film that contains 38 scenes of violence, which take place in 3:30 minutes …
Historical Nostalgia in Animated Film
This paper examines elements of nostalgia and historical nostalgia in the 2001 Hong Kong animated film My Life As McDull. …
A Study of Gender Representation of Women in the 10 Highest Grossing Hindi and Tamil Movies of 2015-2020
India is the largest film industry, producing “unquestionably the most-seen movies in the world” (Kabir 2001: 1). Given its unique …
Portrayal of Men in Ray’s Films, Mirror to Present Heroes in Bollywood: Comparative Analysis With Reference to ‘Mahanagar’ and ‘Nayak’
Indian Hindi cinema particularly, Bollywood over the past 70 years has transgressed through various themes and influenced the audience at …
Wolves on the Prairie and Worms in the Sand: From Colonizer to Colonized – The Inversion of Principalities in Western Films
There is a consistent desire to locate the worldview on animals. In the Cheese and the Worms, Carlo Ginzburg (1992) …
The Power of Seeing and Being Seen: Feeling Shame in In the Mood for Love and The Grandmaster
This paper is about how the spectator can feel the emotion of shame through the lens of seeing and being …
Semiosphere and Taiwan’s Horror Movies of the 1970s
This article follows the line of thought from Lotmanian semiosphere to analyze the communication act in the works of the …
Exploring the Cinema of Exile in Hisham Bizri’s Films
This research paper examines the themes of exile and diaspora in Hisham Bizri’s films Vertices: Beirut. Dublin. Seoul (2016), Shooq …
Ethno-cinematographic Rhizomes: Examples From the Independent Cinema of Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Anocha Suwichakornpong
We propose a conceptual framework of filmic analysis, the "ethno-cinematographic rhizome", as a parallel and convergent vehicle of audiovisual artistic …
The Debt of Roy Anderson’s Dark Humor to Samuel Beckett and the New Objectivity
One of the main characteristics of Roy Anderson's movies is the dark humor and tragicomedy. Various art sources influence his …
Turning the Exorcist’s Heteropatriarchal Order ‘Upside Down’ in Stranger Things
The popular Netflix series Stranger Things is often-noted for critiquing homophobia and conservative gender norms (Joseph 2018; Roach 2018; Berns, …
Ghost and Desolate Place in Yao Feng-Pan’s ‘All in the Dim Cold Night’ and ‘Ghost Under the Cold Moonlight’
Known as the master of horror in Taiwan, Yao Feng-Pan directed over 30 movies of different genres, and more than …
Bollywood Representations of Kashmir and Kashmiris: Between Orientalist Melodrama and Post-colonial Representation
This paper starts from the ideas that Indian cinema seeks to describe Indian culture (Nandy, 1995) and that filmmakers’ use …
“Model Minority” – Embarrassing Difference or Proud Identity?
For over a century, Asians have been represented as “the other” on the American screen, which is very different from …
In the Claws of Tondo: The Convergence of Hero and Place as Depicted in Selected Fernando Poe, Jr. Films
This paper analyzes Tondo as setting, motif, and metaphor in selected films by Filipino actor Fernando Poe, Jr (FPJ). Using …
Fellini in Memoriam – Auteurship and Absurdism as Keys to Understand a 2020’s Society Where Normality is Anything but Normal
We live in global times where, at once, we enable the world to grow closer and become more unified, and …
Cultural Diversity in Film Festivals – A Case Study: Glocal in Progress, San Sebastián International Film Festival
The Universal Declaration of Cultural Diversity (UNESCO, 2001) and the subsequent Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity …
A Comparative Study of Chinese and Japanese Female Characters Portrayed in Hirokazu Koreeda’s and Ang Lee’s Family Films
China and Japan are both in the circle of Confucian culture. Under the influence of Confucian culture, the basic unit …
Breaking the Shackles: Toward a Taxonomy of Interactive Cinema
Drawing on Eric Zimmerman’s four types of interactivity, this paper proposes a taxonomy of interactive cinema by defining four modes …
Wild and Worldly: Redefining the ‘Forest’ in Thai Independent Cinema from Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Blissfully Yours to Anucha Boonyawattana’s Malila
The forest is a familiar symbol in Buddhist and Thai folktales. It also appears in various art forms, especially in …
Ingmar Bergman’s Portrayal of Death and Dreams in His Autobiographically Influenced Films Leading to a New Film Language
This paper argues that the films of the Swedish director, Ingmar Bergman has been inspired from his early life. This …
The Spectator Facing the Cut: A Neurocinematics Review
The cut, conceptualized as articulator of the filmic fact and as a sense-generating agent, constitutes the nuclear occupation of the …
Global Cinema as Environmental Ambassador
This argument connects several international cinematic shooting locations to ecological states of affairs that reside there in order to imagine …
Who is Afraid of Gays and Lesbians? : Power and Politics of Queer Visibility in Kingsley Iruoegbu’s Law58
While most countries in Europe, America and Asia are taking a more critical look at their homophobic positions and granting …
From Censorship to Rating System: Negotiations of Power in the Thai Film Industry
This is a conceptual paper to analyze the transformation of Thai film censorship in Thailand. The study reviews literature on …
Wartime Colonial Paradise and Postwar Doom: The Uses of Place, Time, and Memory in Mikio Naruse’s ‘Floating Clouds’
Japanese director Mikio Naruse made over 89 films over the course of his career and many of them are considered …
Left Behind: The Rural Children of Chinas Alternative Cinema
Against the narrative of success propagated by the Chinese government, China's independent filmmakers have committed themselves towards articulating an alternative …
Communication of Anti-Violence and Anti-Vengeance Themes in Revenge Films
Narrative film is potentially a powerful means to reflect, reinforce or alter attitudes within society. In Asia, popular martial arts …
Deconstructing Gender: Laurence Anyways and the Mise-En-Scene of a Transition
Can the cinema, in 2015, contain the rejection and ostracism that suppose the non-representation of the difference? Basing the analysis …
Stray Dog, A Gun, The Individual and Society in Shinji Aoyama’s “An Obsession”
Shinji Aoyama’s film An Obsession (1997) is a loose adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s film Stray Dog (1949). Aoyama has borrowed …
Artificial Consciousness: Where Does Science Fact Break from Science Fiction, and How Do We Know?
This paper explores what has been termed artificial consciousness (AC) (a.k.a., synthetic consciousness or artificial sentience). Like its companion, artificial …
Film Theory, Subject and Community: How Does Film Theory Relate to the Idea of Community Building?
In my paper I will discuss the relation between film theory, subject and the idea of community building. I will …
Seeing like a Feminist: Representations of Societal Realities in Women-Centric Bollywood Films
One of the most notable contemporary trends in Indian cinema, the genre of women oriented films seen through a feminist …
The Analysis on the Documentary, “The Big Picture”: The Moment of Sympathetic Connection as a Rupture
A recently released documentary, "The Big Picture", portrays the moment of a cross-cultural dialogue between the Japanese and Koreans regarding …
Indian Woman’s Search for Identity Vis-A-Vis Mainstream Bollywood Cinema
Bollywood cinema, while entertaining India�s millions, plays an important role in reinforcing cultural stereotypes. The Indian Woman�s �drama of self-formation� …