Fantasy, Desire and War in “Ring of Fire (Zennar El-Nar)” Film

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국이슬람학회
· 수록지 정보 : 한국이슬람학회논총 / 31권 / 2호 / 207 ~ 228페이지
· 저자명 : 서정민

초록

The film, “Ring of Fire (Zennar El-Nar)” by Lebanese filmmaker Bahij Hojeij, portrays the unavoidable afflictions of war on the human psyche. Such conditions are manifested, often metaphorically, through the film’s ordinary characters and the depiction of absurdities in a society consumed by violence.
The protagonist, a university professor called Chafic, struggles to evade the chaos of the Lebanese Civil War as he attempts to reunite with a woman with whom he held a brief, yet unforgettable, flirtation under the cover of darkness while waiting for the most recent bombings to subside. Notably, he has violent dreams as well as visions of experiences at checkpoints and bloody encounters, which are either imaginary or real. The director moves the film in and out of Chafic’s realms of consciousness and unconsciousness, creating ambiguity as to whether the audience is viewing his dream, fantasy or reality. The director appears to suggest that there is no separation between fantasy and reality; rather, they are intertwined like two sides of a Mobius strip, and hence it would be meaningless to separate them. In the film, sexual desire and fantasy are closely related, and sexual desire is articulated through fantasy. With sexual desire and fantasy heightened by the events of the Lebanese Civil War, the war is seen to precipitate sexual fantasy throughout the film.
Taking into consideration these implicit and explicit cinematic effects, this study examines how psychological and mental dimensions, such as fantasy and desire, are embodied in the film, and analyzes to what extent these dimensions are influenced by events of reality, namely the Lebanese Civil War. In addition, this study explores how reality is metaphorically described in the film, and how the gloomy reality portrayed in the film can be compared with that in Albert Camus’ novel, “The Plague.” Specifically, this study delves into how the film depicts war and violence relative to the concept of “ownership,” and what questions can be asked in relation to the issue of “identity.” To summarize, this study focuses on investigating how personal issues presented as fantasy and desire are allegorical to social issues, such as the Lebanese Civil War and the Lebanese collective identity. In order to achieve the study’s objectives, a semiotic approach is used as a research method based on Barthes’ semiotic theory (Garibotto 2017, 655; Jehamat, Ngalu, & Putra 2020, 67-68; Zaimar 2017, 221-223). The method analyzes the signs, codes and symbols that appear explicitly or are depicted implicitly in the film, and unravel the significance behind them. This study identifies the metaphors, analogies and images used to construct the film’s characters, and examines how they are employed to present the external world or reality which the characters are facing. In so doing, a basis is formed to understand the relationship between the characters and the overall context of the film, and to help decipher the actual meanings of the messages which the film intends to deliver.

참고자료

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