The changing face of the Other in Romanian films

Abstract

This article focuses on how the Other is represented and understood in films produced in Romania during periods of radical political, social and economic change. Specifically it addresses films produced during the years of communism and the planned economy, during the transition to democracy and to capitalism, as well as films produced during the period of democracy, capitalism and membership in the European Union. The research acknowledges two main aspects: the changing face of the Other over time (the socialist state, the foreign investors, the West, etc.) and the consistency of the fantasy structure. More specifically, the relationship between self and the Other generally follows a strict masochist fantasy script in which the Other has the power to constrain freedom, to inflict pain, and to function as an essential element through which pleasure is understood and experienced. The research proposes an understanding of this structure of fantasy, reflected in film through the existence of a national psyche written by the main myths and stories embraced by the society in discussion. This structure of fantasy hails and constructs a certain subject that has a basic masochistic psychic structure.

Keywords:

• Romania
• transition
• myth
• film
• the Other

Notes

In Lacanian psychoanalysis the concept of the Other (with capital O) refers to the Other of the symbolic order, to the Other of the unconscious; it is equated with the authority of the language and the social law but also the locus of truth and meaning. The Other may be embodied by the father, the law, God, the state or the nation. This type of authority, is constructed in the name of a symbolic locus, a linguistic source that finds expression in the actual person who embodies this authority (Borneman 16).

Statistics provided by Dr. Vasile-Niculae Ion from the Romanian National Center of Cinematography.

Concept used by Jacques Lacan to denote enjoyment (with sexual connotations). There is an opposition between jouissance and pleasure. The pleasure principle, according to Lacan, functions as a limit to enjoyment: it is the law that commands the subject to “enjoy as little as possible.” The result of transgressing the pleasure principle is pain. Jouissance is suffering.