Asian Cinema and the Use of Space: Interdisciplinary Perspectives

by Lilian Chee (Editor), Edna Lim (Editor)

Asian cinemas are connected to global networks and participate in producing international film history while at the same time influenced and engaged by spatial, cultural, social and political transformations. This interdisciplinary study forwards a productive pairing of Asian cinemas and space, where space is used as a discursive tool to understand cinemas of Asia. Concentrating on the performative potential of cinematic space in Asian films, the contributors discuss how space (re)constructs forms of identities and meanings across a range of cinematic practices. Cities, landscapes, buildings and interiors actively shape cinematic performances of such identities and their significances. The essays are structured around the spatial themes of ephemeral, imagined and contested spaces. They deal with struggles for identity, belonging, autonomy and mobility within different national and transnational contexts across East, Southeast and parts of South Asia in particular, which are complicated by micropolitics and subcultures, and by the interventions and interests of global lobbies.

234 pages, Hardcover

First published December 15, 2014

Reviews

[Tito Quiling, Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great set of chapters that tread on how Asian Cinemas use spaces in representing traditions, values, and layers of history from commercial, to public, and private spaces. While cinema usually presents spaces in fragments or wide shots, its usage and visual presentation defines its characteristics. Apart from noting how projecting familiar spatial grounds are entwined within Asian cultures, there are discussions on the possibilities of expanding the connections between spaces used by humans, within other Asian countries in the region to present how the differences can be slimmer more than defined.