Welcome to The Queue — your daily distraction of curated video content sourced from across the web. Today, we’re watching a video essay on the metaphor of water in queer cinema.
One of the best parts of writing this column is stumbling across video essays that clarify and give shape to half-formed observations about cinema and film-making. We all have those moments where we take note of potential patterns and file them away for the day someone smarter (and more well-read) can corroborate the suspicion. Then (ideally) you can bump into answers to your idle questions (e.g. Why do all movie haunted mansions look the same? Why do Terrence Malick’s movies look so tactile? Why are there so many fridges in David Fincher’s movies?).
“There sure are a lot of water scenes in queer cinema” you wonder to yourself. Maybe the thought crossed your mind while watching the glistening, beach-side bodies of Beau Travail or the crashing, undulating waves of Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Maybe it was the soothing surf of Moonlight or the exposed, gaze-inviting shores of Stranger by the Lake. In any case, today’s video essay is here to tie the metaphor together, as it were. Water is a key thematic presence in queer cinema: a liminal space where bodies are free to exist as they are; where the vast expanse of the sea reflects the unlimited potential and mutability of human experience; and where diving into the unknown requires courage, strength, and confidence.
Watch “Bodies Come Undone: Water and Temporalities in Queer Cinema“:
Who made this?
This video essay is by Riccardo Agostini. The essay is the product of Agostini’s Film Studies degree at Trinity College Dublin. If you enjoyed the above video you, like us, may want to keep an eye on Agostini, which you can do by following their Vimeo account here.
More videos like this:
- For another academically inclined video essay, here’s Allison de Fren‘s brilliant look at the relationship between the body, technology, and the cinematic symbolism of the fembot in a red dress.
- Likewise on the academic beat, here’s The Movement Image with an examination of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s connection to Béla Tarr’s The Turin Horse.
- No discussion of Queer Cinema is complete without mention of the Wachowski sisters’ debut film Bound, a genre-subverting thriller that flips the film noir script.
- And finally, here’s a video essay full of queer content (including plenty of water): the cinematic resonances of Portrait of a Lady on Fire.
Related Topics: LGBTQ, queer cinema, The Queue
