The contemporary cinema of the BRIC countries and the politics of change

Abstract

Abstract of the thesis entitled “The Contemporary Cinema of the BRIC Countries and the Politics of Change” Submitted by Tatu-Ilari Laukkanen for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong in November 2016

Debates on the global economy and globalization have focused on the new economic, political and cultural power of the 'emerging' economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China (the BRICs) and their potential challenge to Euro-American hegemony. This thesis analyzes the ideology of economical and political change in recent BRIC cinema, focusing on representations of capitalism (particularly its neoliberal variant), social class, new technologies (particularly in the sphere of telecommunications) and the role of the state versus that of the markets. Breaking new ground by introducing the concept of BRIC film to the study of film, this thesis shows a new cultural sphere that is needed for understanding world cinema at this point in time. The BRICs' cultural production reflects the politico-economic position of this bloc; this position especially evident in the capital-intensive field of film production. The knowledge produced by the dissertation is novel. There are no comparative studies of how economic change and the contemporary cinemas of the BRIC countries overlap, nor are there approaches that would view these sub-imperial entities as a cultural bloc. This thesis starts to take into account the cultural consequences of the insertion of these huge states into the global economy in a comparative manner. This dissertation comparatively surveys the gangster and crime film, war blockbusters, and films about the home and real estate that come from the BRIC countries, showing considerable similarity with the form and content of these cultural expressions that distinguishes them from products of both the first world an the periphery. As starting points, this thesis particularly analyzes the representation of three acknowledged dimensions of globalization: capitalism (with a focus on class and neoliberalism), new technologies such as the cellular phone and television, and culture. The representation of the role of the state versus that of the market and the private/public divide, which are both in great upheaval under neoliberal policy, are explored, the investigation finding the state and its organs, such as the police, to have suffered a mighty devaluation in BRIC cinema. The private/public divide, central to ideas of liberal democracy, is also shown to be highly porous, this demonstrated particularly in Chapter 6 about the home and real estate. The representation of public space is also investigated throughout the thesis, and it is shown that it is represented as a chaotic space of an almost Darwinian struggle. The investigation of the representation of new technologies shows that these technologies are considered with high anxiety and ambivalence – fitting for the general atmosphere of precariousness that pervades the cinema coming out of the unevenly developed BRICs. But with the capitalist deterritorialisation accounted for in BRIC cinema, comes reterritorialisations, as this dissertation shows. The backlash of the nation in the form of the BRIC nationalist blockbusters, which are often war films, is analyzed. These war films package nationalist histories in a form copied from Hollywood blockbusters. (An Abstract of 477 words)