LANDSCAPE, BODY, POETRY: FROM ECOLOGICAL AESTHETICS TO GREEN THERAPY IN KOREAN AND VIETNAMESE ART CINEMA [THROUGH SHI AND MOON AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WELL]

Abstract

The article analyzes the deep and complex relationship between nature, the feminine body and poetry in two art films The moon at the bottom of the well (Nguyen Vinh Son, 2008, Vietnam) and Shi (Bourne, 2010). From there, we see these two films as critical discourses against the commercial cinema that is dominating the Asian market (which tends to beautify and romanticize both subjects, “landscape” and “female”). Then, going deeper into the powerful expression of the ancient capital landscape, as well as the feminine body’s resistance to that invisible power, through comparison with other popular entertainment works with the “picturesque” appeared at the same time, the article examines the process of eco-aesthetics in art films that question ecological and gender discourses in commercial films or television series. Finally, the article also looks for an exciting point connecting the two films in the sharing of the conservatism of the traditional patriarchal society colliding with recent changes, in the beauty of the natural world is internalized associated with the trauma and salvation of women in the lower classes of society, in the redefining of poetry not only as of the surface of beautiful landscape images but also as the depths of forgotten human tragedy and crisis.