Drifting Between Paris and Beijing: Transnational Cityscapes in Lou Ye’s Sino-French Film Love and Bruises (2011)

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the transnational cityscapes of Paris and Beijing in the Sino-French urban-set film Love and Bruises directed by Lou Ye, one of the so-called Sixth Generation of Chinese filmmakers. Drawing on the method of textual analysis and Deleuzian theories of affect, it explores how these two global cities are depicted as dystopian and illusive utopian places respectively, how the cityscapes are connoted, and how they are charged with affects. The author argues that Lou’s imaginaries of transnational cityscapes insinuate individuals’ bruises of displacement and dislocation in an era of active integration into globalisation. Moreover, cityscapes are presented phenomenologically and affectively in the film by screening the protagonists’ act of viewing and the camera’s lingering on the urban spaces. Finally, the cityscapes of Paris transmit a sense of estrangement or alienation, while Beijing’s counterparts provoke postmodern bewilderment and anxiety.

KEYWORDS:

• Cityscape
• Lou Ye
• displacement
• affect
• phenomenology

Acknowledgements

This paper is adapted from a part of my Ph.D. thesis, which is still in progress; I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for providing me with constructive suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by University of Nottingham Ningbo China_ Graduate School_ Research Funds [grant number I03190700031].

Notes on contributors

Wei Dong

Wei Dong is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of International Communications at the University of Nottingham (China campus). She holds a master's degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is writing the thesis about representation of emigration in Chinese cinema. Her research interests include affect theory, Chinese independent films, and Chinese emigration.