Global South as Method: Decolonial Vision in the Films of Walter Salles (Brazil) and Jia Zhangke (China)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22409/gragoata.v30i67.66814.enKeywords:
Coloniality, Root-seeking, Border-thinking, Resistant solidarity, Resistant ideologyAbstract
Anne Garland Mahler provides a road map to studying and validating South-South dialogue through a three-tiered model consisting of the periphery; the (trans)national; and the reciprocal recognition of shared subaltern positionality and resistance under global neoliberalism, with its nodes of power in elite urban centers in all quarters of world. This paper offers a richly detailed summary of the multilayered contexts, connections, and collaborations of filmmakers Walter Moreira Salles of Brazil (and his brother João) and Jia Zhangke of China (and his closest collaborator, and cinematographer, Yu Lik-wai). Finally, through paired comparisons of three films from each filmmaker at scales of Region, Nation and the Transnational, some underlying and even uncanny commonalities are revealed. Despite hundreds of articles written about Salles, on the one hand, and Jia, on the other, these commonalities have gone completely unnoticed. Together, this work proposes a paradigmatic case for the study of lateral solidarity across many latitudes based on similar commitments to the Global South.
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