Unease

What is it about?

If the first chapter in the book focused on a series of master-slave-like relations between director and spectators, the feel-bad films in the second chapter create unease precisely by dismantling this dialectic framework. The chapter begins with Gus Van Sant’s film about high school killings (Elephant). The topic appeals to our desire to understand, judge and move on; but all this is precisely what the film prevents us from doing. Instead, Van Sant ethics consists in reminding us that we can never fully know the situation that we are judging. A second part of the chapter develops this argument about the temporary suspension of judgment via a discussion of two texts by Judith Butler and two films by Claire Denis and Michael Haneke that similarly frustrate our desire for judgment and action. Finally, the chapter considers a couple films where the unease and the suspension of judgment are more difficult to pull back into the ethical sphere: Hadzihalilovic’s Innocence and Brakhage’s Kindering. In these cases a form of ‘affective disturbance via indeterminacy’ invites us to rethink our ways of being (a spectator) beyond the security of any clearly defined spectatorial position.

Featured Image