Details
INSTRUCTOR: Elizabeth Hanly
SECTION: RVKB
SCHEDULE: Online (Summer B)
Course Description
What to do when you discover it is your beloved spouse who is the suicide bomber that filled your clinic with bodies? How is it that the most conservative of wives, this one living in a war-torn village, decides to take on a lover? How does one make peace with the memory of rabid dogs loose in a refugee camp? This class explores Middle Eastern film as art. The class also considers film as window into understanding the region’s cultures, history and politics. What is the history and social context of this work? Just how sophisticated are the visions, let alone the craft, from so-called underdeveloped areas? To quote a former student: “These films, in contrast to more familiar Hollywood productions, convey the human condition in profound detail. Sometimes what results is terrifying, sometimes it is glorious. We got to see more than we ever could have imagined.” By the end of the course, students would have furthered their understanding of film as art as well as the cultures/history/politics that give context to the films.
