Dear MCLC members,
My new Open Access article, Boxed within the Frame: Tibetan masculinities in transformation in Pema Tseden’s Jinpa, has recently been published in the New Cinemas journal. I think anyone with an interest in Tibetan and Chinese (and indeed world) cinema was shocked and saddened to learn of Pema Tseden’s untimely passing in May of this year. He was a pioneer in so many ways and his death is a great loss to us all. The article looks at Jinpa (2018), which I think is one of his best and often overlooked works.
Abstract: The Tibetan auteur Pema Tseden is renowned for using the road movie as a means of interrogating the relationship between his characters and society in the Tibetan areas of the PRC. As his protagonists travel, the natural settings become an integral part of the journey through the Tibetan lands. The amalgamation of movement and landscapes enables the emergence of a Tibetan subject whose complex and heterogenous self-representation defies the dualism of tradition and modernity. In this article, I argue that Pema Tseden’s recent feature Jinpa (2018) marks an aesthetic and thematic departure from his earlier work. Rather than looming large over the characters, the landscapes serve as an underlying framework for a heightened emphasis on the interaction between the characters. At the heart of the film is the notion of Tibetan masculinity in crisis. Whilst portraying the ways that history, culture and tradition haunt the men in the film, Pema Tseden also turns his attention to the female characters. Proposing a new take on Tibetan masculinities who assume the previously women-only roles of carriers of culture, he offers a unique perspective on and in New Tibetan Cinema.
All the best,
Zoran Lee Pecic (zoran.l.pecic@ntnu.no)