Island Hopping, Liquid Materiality , and the Mediterranean Cinema of Emanuele Crialese

摘要

The history of the “mare nostrum” is a long history of the entanglement of human and more-than-human actors. Three films directed by the Italian Emanuele Crialese, Respiro: Grazia’s Island (2002), Golden Door (2006), and Terraferma (2011), recount stories of encounters and collisions on Mediterranean islands, where the challenges of political, cultural, and ecological cohabitation are intensified. Drawing on theories of material ecocriticism, this article argues that in this trio of films, the Mediterranean sea is not simply a picturesque liquid border. It is instead a generative space that participates in the very process of constituting the narratives, even while the films add another layer to the rich geo-archaeological palimpsest of the region.