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The Semiosis of the Body in Modern Asian Cinema - A Comparative Study of Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Tsai Ming Liang Film
Cross-Cultural Studies
2018,
51(), pp.133-160
DOI : 10.21049/ccs.2018.51..133
Publisher : Center for Cross Culture Studies
Research Area : Literature
DOI : 10.21049/ccs.2018.51..133
Publisher : Center for Cross Culture Studies
Research Area : Literature
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The films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Tsai Ming Liang expose one of the main features of modern Asian cinema: corporality. In their films, the various emotions of characters are expressed and exchanged through the body, not the language, so their film world is a world in which language has lost its function and symbolic order has collapsed. In Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Tsai Ming Liang movies, body language plays a more important role than general language. t=The body performs semiosis, pointing to wildness, anti-civilization, rite, alienation, illusion, etc. At the root of this variety of semiosis is the common denial of Western material civilization which has been rapidly transplanted in modern Asian countries. In addition, while the body of the two directors' films are seen as a sign of wildness, or anti-civilization that contains the intention of escaping from the oppressive and inhuman modern civilization, the body as a sign of illusion, and embraces the will of resistance to civilization. The illusion of experience in their films is ultimately a manifestation of the will to resist the physical and emotional pressures of reality and to continue the irrational persistence.
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