The vicissitudes of postnational affects: visuality, temporality, and corporeality in global east Asian films

One of the salient changes East Asian films have undergone during the past decade of globalization is their increasing tendency to foreground affective intensities that are excessive in relation to their thematic or signifying aspects. My dissertation, The Vicissitudes of Postnational Affects: Visuality, Temporality, and Corporeality in Global East Asian Films, explores political implications of these affective features as expressed in some of the recent East Asian films, focusing on their relationships with the postnational condition that has increasingly swept over East Asia during the past two decades. By the term postnational condition, I mean the recent remarkable change in the mode of socio-political power, which is characterized by the gradual simultaneous processes of the decline of sovereign and disciplinary powers and the rise of global neoliberal governmentality. As such, the postnational condition needs to be understood as a double-edge sword in the sense that it makes it possible for hitherto unrepresentable affective others to emerge at the same time that it prepares for a new condition that makes it possible to manage and rationalize them in such a calculative manner that it may preempt subversive forms of affective otherness from appearing. My dissertation calls attention to how recent East Asian films have responded to this postnational condition in different ways by developing various kinds of narrative and stylistic strategies that can cinematically express, as well as cope with, this affective otherness. ❧ My dissertation focuses on three aspects of film experience—its visual, temporal, and corporeal ones—in which affective otherness is expressed in films. Part I focuses on the phenomenon of global exoticism and discusses and compares different ways East Asian films deploy the aesthetics of the exotic vis-à-vis the dominant neoliberal tactics of valorizing visual alterity or excess. If Kim Ki-duk’s recent films such as Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring (2003) and 3-Iron (2004) show how the exotic can undergo generification, thereby losing its singularity in accordance with the neoliberal governmental management of visual excess, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s recent films, such as Flowers of Shanghai (1998) and Flight of the Red Balloon (2007) illustrate the possibility that the residual, unvalorizable exotic can appear in the cinema of the era of neoliberal governmentality. ❧ Part II addresses how affective otherness can be expressed through contingency and temporal heterogeneity. The compulsive repetition characteristic of Hong Sang-soo’s Tale of Cinema (2005) serves to turn otherwise singular contingencies into probabilistic, and thus valorizable chances. This examination of Hong’s film shows how neoliberal governmentality regularizes these temporal disturbances through the process of the real subsumption of time. Yet, alternative thoughts on time such as Deleuze’s notion of the empty form of time and Benjamin-Agamben’s notion of the dialectical image indicate the possibility that unvalorizable temporal excess can remain in the form of a potential for becoming other. Kore-eda Hirokazu’s Distance (2001) expresses this possibility by employing narrative and formal strategies that fill the time for repetition with immeasurable possibilities and hesitations. ❧ Part III shifts its focus to the dark underside of these seemingly subversive affects. Biopolitical valorization of affects accompanies, as its underside, the thanato-political suppressions of unvalorizable bodies and gestures. Yet, thanato-politics is not simply a matter of processes of suppressing corporeal otherness, but is crucial to maintaining neoliberal biopolitical governmentality because it justifies the need to remove unvalorizable corporeal otherness by negatively regularizing it. Park Chan-wook’s Thirst (2009), though performing this thanato-political valorization, discloses how unvalorizable corporeal otherness is already internal rather than external to neoliberal biopolitical valorization, thereby problematizing the call for the thanato-political suppression of others. Part III also examines how unvalorizable corporeal otherness can elude the thanato-political valorization process and subsist in the form of the pure means without ends. Kore-eda Hirokazu’s Air Doll and Jia Zhang-ke’s Useless illustrate how these films allow audiences to encounter unvalorizable gestures and corporeal residues beyond the Sadean fantasy and thereby enable them to imagine a new community grounded on pure communicability without end.

近十年来全球化浪潮中，东亚电影经历的显著变革之一，便是愈发倾向于凸显那些相较于其主题或表意维度而言过度溢出的**情感强度（affective intensities）**。本论文《后民族情感的变迁：全球东亚电影中的视觉性、时间性与肉身性》（*The Vicissitudes of Postnational Affects: Visuality, Temporality, and Corporeality in Global East Asian Films*），探讨了近期东亚电影中所呈现的此类情感特征的政治意涵，重点剖析其与过去二十年来席卷东亚的**后民族状态（postnational condition）**之间的关联。本文所称的“后民族状态”，指的是当代社会政治权力模式所发生的显著变革：其核心特征为主权权力与规训权力的逐步式微，与全球**新自由主义治理（neoliberal governmentality）**的同步崛起。就此而言，后民族状态实为一把双刃剑：它既使得此前难以被表征的**情感他者（affective other）**得以显现，同时也催生了全新的治理条件，令人类能够以精准算计的方式对其加以管控与合理化，从而预先遏制颠覆性的情感他者形态的出现。本论文旨在揭示，近期东亚电影如何通过构建多样化的叙事与风格策略，以电影化方式呈现并应对此种情感他者，从而对后民族状态做出差异化回应。

本论文聚焦于电影体验中三类承载情感他者表达的维度：视觉性、时间性与肉身性。第一部分围绕**全球异域化（global exoticism）**现象展开，探讨并对比了东亚电影运用异域美学的不同路径，并将其与主流新自由主义所推崇的**视觉他者性（visual alterity）**或视觉溢出的价值化运作策略相对照。譬如金基德（Kim Ki-duk）近期作品《春夏秋冬又一春》（2003）与《空房间》（2004），展现了异域元素如何经历**泛化（generification）**，从而在新自由主义对视觉溢出的治理逻辑下丧失其独特性；而侯孝贤（Hou Hsiao-hsien）的《海上花》（1998）与《红气球》（2007）等新作，则揭示了在新自由主义治理时代的电影中，未被价值化的残余异域元素仍有可能得以呈现。

第二部分探讨情感他者如何通过偶然性与时间异质性得以表达。洪常秀（Hong Sang-soo）2005年作品《剧场前》（*Tale of Cinema*）所具有的**强迫性重复（compulsive repetition）**特质，将原本独一无二的偶然性转化为可被概率化、进而可被价值化的机遇。通过对洪氏影片的分析，本论文揭示了新自由主义治理如何通过“**时间的真实吸纳（real subsumption of time）**”过程，将此类时间扰动纳入常规化轨道。然而，诸如德勒兹（Deleuze）的“空的时间形式”概念、本雅明-阿甘本（Benjamin-Agamben）的“辩证影像（dialectical image）”理论等另类时间观，则表明未被价值化的时间溢出仍有可能以“成为他者的潜能”之形态留存。是枝裕和（Kore-eda Hirokazu）2001年作品《距离》（*Distance*）便通过叙事与形式策略，为重复的时间注入无限可能性与迟疑不决的状态，以此呈现了此种潜能。

第三部分转向这些看似颠覆性情感的黑暗面向。情感的**生命政治（biopolitical）**价值化，其背面伴随着对未被价值化的肉身与姿态的**死亡政治（thanato-political）**压制。然而，死亡政治并非仅是压制肉身他者的过程，更是维系新自由主义生命政治治理的核心环节：它通过负面常规化的逻辑，为移除未被价值化的肉身他者提供合法性依据。朴赞郁（Park Chan-wook）2009年作品《蝙蝠》（*Thirst*）虽践行了此种死亡政治价值化逻辑，却揭示出未被价值化的肉身他者实则内在于新自由主义生命政治价值化体系，而非外在于它，由此对“以死亡政治压制他者”的诉求提出了质疑。第三部分同时探讨了未被价值化的肉身他者如何规避死亡政治的价值化进程，并以“无目的的纯粹手段”之形态存续。是枝裕和的《空气人偶》（*Air Doll*）与贾樟柯的《无用》（*Useless*）展现了此类影片如何让观众邂逅超越**萨德式（Sadean）**幻想的未被价值化的姿态与肉身残余，进而引导观众想象一种以纯粹无终的可交流性为根基的全新共同体。