Liminality as cultural symptom : dreamcore aesthetics and the spatialization of impasse in contemporary Chinese cinema

Abstract

This thesis explores liminality as a cultural symptom in contemporary Chinese post-cinematic visual culture. Drawing on Shane Denson’s theory of “discorrelated images,” Victor Turner’s concept of “liminality,” and Lauren Berlant’s notion of “impasse,” this study introduces the idea of the “liminal impasse” to theorize how cinematic space mediates perceptual rupture and affective suspension. Through close readings of three contemporary Chinese films, Kaili Blues, Journey to the West, and Caught by the Tides, the study examines how dreamcore aesthetics and algorithmic visual logic disrupt spatial coherence and narrative linearity reflecting the collapse of futurity and affective stagnation experienced by Chinese youth in the post-pandemic era. These films construct cinematic spaces that are neither fully real nor entirely virtual, serving as transitional zones of perceptual drift and socio-cultural estrangement. Rather than merely representing a story, post-cinematic space becomes a perceptual dispositif, a site where affect is modulated and cultural tensions are encoded. Ultimately, this study argues that the aestheticization of liminality in digital-era Chinese cinema reveals a broader structure of cultural disorientation, marking a shift in both how images are produced and how lived experience is emotionally and spatially processed.