‘Paradoxes to Live With’: A Feminist Approach to Binka Zhelyazkova’s »The Tied Balloon«
‘Paradoxes to Live With’: A Feminist Approach to Binka Zhelyazkova’s »The Tied Balloon«

Author(s): Lilia Tőke
Subject(s): Gender Studies, Studies of Literature, Film / Cinema / Cinematography
Published by: Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti
Summary/Abstract: ‘No matter how strong the ties of the imagined communities of the particular Balkan nationalities may be, the Balkans as a whole do not share a feeling of togetherness; their cultural products cannot be considered products of a group of nations which co-exist and consciously explore the same “chronotrope” (Iordanova, ‘Women’). It is no accident that Dina Iordanova’s comment on the heterogenic character of the Balkan cultures (which is also relevant to Eastern European ones) comes up in a work on images of women generated through post-communist Balkan cinema. It is the most important premise that one has to consider when talking about gender relations in cinema as well as the moving image industry. Yet, after making clear that there is no place for generalization and simplification regarding the region’s cultural representations, Iordanova finds convincing traces of similarities in the gendered nature of the cinematic image, which leads her to an overall conclusion that these images do ‘not serve any feminist cause’ (Iordanova 1995:1). While Iordanova is looking at a particular corpus of films, namely gender representations in the Balkan cinematic narratives created by men, what I would like to focus on in this paper is a possible feminist interpretation of a woman director’s career and more importantly, of one particular cinematic discourse created by her.

• Details
• Contents