Political Imaginary and Gender in Contemporary Lithuanian Cinema

Article

Abstract

[In Russian]

The article aims to reflect the recent political and cultural
changes in Lithuania and to explain how these political changes
relate to more fundamental changes in the visual regime. These
changes can be detected with the help of Lacanian psychoanalysis
and feminist film criticism. Both psychoanalysis and
feminist film criticism give us theoretical concepts and tools to
analyze the interface between the visual regime and the power
structures that underlie it. Lacanian psychoanalysis analyzes the
mechanism of identification, which defines not only the formation
of the «I» but also the identification of the spectator with
the filmic characters. Elaborating this insight, feminist film criticism
describes the cinematic visual regime in terms of voyeurism
and fetishism. The aim of my article is to introduce these theoretical
frameworks into the context of Lithuanian contemporary
cinema and discuss two films: Witch and Rain by Algimantas
Puipa (2007) and The Collectress by Kristina Buožytė (2008). My
interpretation aims not only to compare their different visual
strategies and ideologies but also to disclose the mechanism of
patriarchal power working at the heart of these films.