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Archipelagic Cinemas
Screening Southeast Asian Modernity
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Dag S. Yngvesson
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2025
About this book
A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.
Archipelagic Cinemas compares trajectories of cinematic and political development across Southeast Asia from the mid-twentieth century to the present, taking the Indonesian island of Java as a key point of departure. Its "archipelagic" approach reflects a region of tanah air (land-water) where strategies of communication are shaped by the inevitability of difference and constant change. Archipelagic Cinemas foregrounds the outgrowth of local motion pictures from established regional modes of expression, such as touring vernacular theaters, known for their improvised assemblies of narratives and aesthetics from diverse places and times. Similarly, Southeast Asian movies have distinguished themselves by rejecting the imposition of a single, sovereign, or necessarily masculine point of reference. Filmmakers respond to political and social shifts with populist shows of unruliness, mockery, and often horror while challenging binary interpretations of good and evil, self and other, and on- and off-screen space. A common cinematic "matrifocal gaze" takes the blurring of women's and men's roles in the region as a tool of engagement with nationalist contests over gender and power. Together, regional cinemas set the stage for a multifarious modern visuality rooted in the unique, intertwined histories of Southeast Asian nations.
Archipelagic Cinemas compares trajectories of cinematic and political development across Southeast Asia from the mid-twentieth century to the present, taking the Indonesian island of Java as a key point of departure. Its "archipelagic" approach reflects a region of tanah air (land-water) where strategies of communication are shaped by the inevitability of difference and constant change. Archipelagic Cinemas foregrounds the outgrowth of local motion pictures from established regional modes of expression, such as touring vernacular theaters, known for their improvised assemblies of narratives and aesthetics from diverse places and times. Similarly, Southeast Asian movies have distinguished themselves by rejecting the imposition of a single, sovereign, or necessarily masculine point of reference. Filmmakers respond to political and social shifts with populist shows of unruliness, mockery, and often horror while challenging binary interpretations of good and evil, self and other, and on- and off-screen space. A common cinematic "matrifocal gaze" takes the blurring of women's and men's roles in the region as a tool of engagement with nationalist contests over gender and power. Together, regional cinemas set the stage for a multifarious modern visuality rooted in the unique, intertwined histories of Southeast Asian nations.
Author / Editor information
Contributor: Dag S. Yngvesson
Dag S. Yngvesson is a filmmaker and Assistant Professor of Cinema and Cultural Studies in the School of Humanities at the University of Nottingham Malaysia.
Topics
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Prologue
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1. “Culture Bound” Aesthetics and Archipelagic Form
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2. The Emergence of Archipelagic Aesthetics: Vernacular Theaters and Regional Modernisms
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3. Archipelagic Modernism and Traditions of Gender: The Matrifocal Gaze and the “Undecided” Modern Girl
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4. Signatures of the Invisible: Southeast Asian Patriarchs and the Feminization of Resistance
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5. Monstrous Feminine Superheroes: The Order of the Other and Regional Screens
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6. Reclaiming Affect: Freedom, Reform, and Many Historical Returns
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
November 4, 2025
eBook ISBN:
9780520416802
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
296
eBook ISBN:
9780520416802
