For the final multimedia presentation, I used pretzi to create a map for the films. In my essay, I wrote that the timeline of the films can all be non-linear, and pretzi’s circular structuring of slides show that. In my essay, I argue that the temporality is imposed on the narrative, and not the characters. In my presentation, the temporality is not on the film, but the pretzi itself. Although the concepts for each film do not have a temporal order, the order that the films are presented in do, and they help shape my arguments.
In order for the outsiders to understand the Greek identity crisis from a foreigner’s perspective, I first start with The Lobster, the only film that I used that is in English. Unlike many other Greek weird wave films that emphasize on the “Greekness”, The Lobster does not particularly identify with any recognizable country. And then I move to Xenia, a film where immigrants enter the Greek society as the outsiders that have some Greek origins. Finally, I explore the core of the society, the two opposing underground political parties that control the Greek ociety in the film.
For the pictures representing the films, I chose screenshots of the film where the characters are on their journey. My opinions of the Greek identity issues based on the films is that the happenings in Greece and in the films are seen as failed transitions from an origin to a destination, while in fact it should be a journey of continuous change. The theme that I picked, a world map, add on to the awareness of the outside spaces, which the societies in the films are continuously shaped by.
At the end of the presentation, I want to give the pretzi narration an ending, a resolution. I realize that in a lot of the films that we watched in class, the sea is a symbol of resolution, even though it is sadly self-destruction. But the sea also represents the wide, unexplored spaces that push our imagination in the definition of the other. At the same time when the water is calm and clean, the sea creates reflections of those who are looking at it. My presentation ends in the pacific ocean where the compass is. My paper gives a resolution that we should blur the boundary between the self and the other, but that is just a suggested direction that I purpose that can be explored. It is up to the audience’s interpretation whether my resolution is taking control of the compass or blocking it to create more disorientation.
https://prezi.com/view/UPrH5AsVo3M5QN5F1ZzD/
Holly Cao 