Este ensayo fue escrito en diciembre de 2003 como requisito para la materia Ireland and National Cinema, en DCU. El tema es la "Representación de los Inmigrantes en el Cine Irlandés de Cortometraje". Después de la definición de los términos, se estudian tres ejemplos cronológicamente sucesivos en los que la metáfora del otro como proveniente de una caja negra permite intuir cambios en la mentalidad nacional. La adquisición de la voz del extranjero se muestra como un proceso paulatino, aunque la imposibilidad de comunicación con el anfitrión permanece.
1. On the definition of the topic.
Representation?
We know how the image of the Other is constructed in the individual realm. Not from the impossible objective and neutral comprehension, but rather in function of a projection: of our judgement categories, of our sympathy, empathy, antipathy, of our fears and our fantasies. Thus, the Other is always, in some way, a denied part of oneself. The Other is oneself plus (or minus) the representation of the difference. (Naïr 1994 p231, my translation)
Traditionally, foreign nationals have been represented in Irish film for an Irish audience from an Irish perspective (considering Ireland and the Irish as host country, culture or people). Their representation as Others is constructed as the projection described by Naïr; it is not how they are (their ‘objective and neutral comprehension’ is impossible both for the filmmaker/spectator and for the camera), or how the see themselves, but rather how they are perceived by the host.
The character of being Other, the otherness, is never stronger than at the moment of the first encounter. It is at this point when the differences are most accentuated, not because the other will become assimilated to the host culture (which won’t happen, at least not immediately, and features like their physical appearance or accent won‘t change anyway), but precisely because after the first encounter they will continue to be different to the host, but will cease to be new.
The portrayal of these initial encounters, however, can not be considered a representational image in the strict sense proposed by Lyotard in Acinema (1989):
The image is representational because recognizable, because it addresses itself to the eye’s memory, to fixed references or identification, references known, but in the sense of ‘well-known’, that is, familiar and established. (p174)
The three films examined in this text present, in different contexts, the first meeting of the Irish with the Other, from the Irish point of view. The phenomenon of immigration into Ireland is still too recent both for the ‘familiar and established’ references to have become ‘well-known,’ and for the cinematic presentation to go beyond the first meeting and explore the daily life of the immigrants in Ireland from their point of view.
Meeting the other for the first time implies unawareness of their culture, and ignorance of their personality; what initially strikes the host as different is the appearance of the other (their skin colour, facial features, the type and colours of their garments), and their voice, language or accent.
The ways these first encounters, the appearance, and the voice of the Other (s) are presented in the three short fiction films will allow us to see how the difference is perceived and ‘represented‘, and how these films shape and are shaped by the way Irish people understand the presence of the Other in Ireland.
Immigrants?
Immigrants in Ireland are not, as such, a defined social group or class, but rather a number of sub-groups, small communities, or categories including refugees and asylum seekers ***note. The centre of fierce discussions in the last decade. See for example Pollak (1999), and Black day at Blackrock and When Brendan met Trudy in the appended filmography***, language or college students and teachers from the EU or abroad, economic migrants brought due to the skilled labour shortage during the Celtic Tiger, and second or third generation Irish Americans or Irish Australians coming back for a long stay or to settle permanently, among others and suerly a variety of different individual cases.
Their presence in films made in Ireland, as well as the particular conditions of their representation, differ from one group to another, and must be taken into account when dealing with particular pictures.
Contemporary Irish Short Film?
As mentioned before, the phenomenon of immigration into Ireland is a recent one. ***the most currently used indicator being the number of applications for asylum in the country, which increased from 39 in 1992 to 3883 in 1997 (Pollak 1999), to more than 11530 (provisional figures) in 2002 (Haughey 2003)***. The proliferation of Irish ***Note: In the sense of made in Ireland, by Irish filmmakers, and with Irish money, a problematic definition, but one that serves our purposes, nonetheless.*** short films is similarly recent, and can be traced back to 1993, as a direct consequence of legislation that required RTE to fund independent production, and indirectly to the establishing of the Irish Film Board, and the creation of the Irish Film Centre, in the same year (Pettitt 2000, p41-43). Both phenomena (increase in immigration and proliferation of short filmmaking) have seen a continuous growth in the last decade, but specially since 1997, and can be considered effects of the development of the Irish economy in the same period, and the Celtic Tiger.
From a theoretical point of view, dealing with short films has certain implications that render it somewhat different to the analysis of feature length films. ***It is the same difference between novels and short stories, exposed by Julio Cortazar in a pugilistic metaphor: ‘… in the fight between a fascinating text and its reader, the novel (feature) always wins by points, whereas the short story (film) must win by knockout.’ Hence, the end of the short film, the last one or two minutes, is the final punch that must win over the audience.*** Traditionally, film studies consider the end of the film as one of its most important constituting parts, because it sets the mood the audience is more likely to remember afterwards for the whole film. This also applies for short films, but the punch-line function of the end must also be considered. Short film screenwriting theory also suggests that the short films, in terms of action, should start high, and finish even higher, giving little space in the narrative to low paced, reflexive sequences, and prevalence to the quick construction of tension conducing to a cathartic finale. In his introduction to the published version of his screenplay for Surviving Desire, Hal Hartley states that:
…shorter films can achieve a fullness of expression and execution, while still being essentially sketchy … Shorter films don’t insist on resolving. They don’t cry out for the rhythm of conclusion. They can merely collapse, explode or disintegrate. (Hartley 1992 p223)
When attempting an analysis of short films, the way the end serves ‘as a final resolution of dissonance’ (Lyotard op. cit. p173), whether by collapsing, exploding or disintegrating, is one of the key aspects to be pointed out.
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