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Articles

Vol. 11 No. 3 (2017): Adaptations, Translations, Permutations

Towards Another Cinema: (After Kidlat Tahimik & Ulrike Ottinger)

  • Catalina (Jordan) Alvarez
DOI
https://doi.org/10.14288/cinephile.v11i3.198115
Submitted
April 26, 2023
Published
2016-09-01

Abstract

Kidlat Tahimik’s 1976 film, Perfumed Nightmare, is widely regarded as a “Third Cinema” film. Meanwhile, Ulrike Ottinger’s 1989 film, Joan of Arc of Mongolia, has been criticized by certain film theorists for reproducing the colonialist paradigm (and praised by others for subverting it). Notwithstanding their differences, both films are–to varying degrees–fake orientalist ethnologies. Both depict journeys through a spectrum of urban first world and rural third world landscapes using an unorthodox filmic language of spectacular convergence. I am interested in assessing the respective qualities of these films for a global influx aesthetic; I shall analyze the creative solutions which each offers for portraying “the other” to a Western spectator and fulfilling Third Cinema’s goals.