Urban encounters: Stasis, movement, editing and memory in contemporary cinema

Abstract

This article employs a comparative approach to connect cities and cinemas by discussing the presence of the urban space in the films Foreign Land (Terra Estrangeira, Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas, 1995), Head-On (Gegen die Wand, Fatih Akin,2004), Import Export (Ulrich Seidl, 2007) and What Time Is It There? (Ni Neibian Jidian, Tsai Ming-liang, 2001). Shot mainly on location, these films are structured upon a movement between two cities, located in two different countries, and tackle questions of time and space and the fabrication of memory. A focus on their interconnectedness enables me to turn away from usual centre-periphery schemes and propose a new, and more complex, geography for recent and contemporary cinema.