L’enfermement des personnages féminins dans le cinéma tunisien : évolution d’un thème, des années 1990 à aujourd’hui
This master’s thesis examines the imprisonment of female characters in Tunisian cinema from the 1990 until today. The notion of imprisonment articulates relations of power within a spatial dimension, while integrating the temporal and corporal dimension. For this, we chose a corpus of four long-feature films directed by women: The Silences of the Palace (Moufida Tlatli, 1994), Bedwin Hacker (Nadia El Fani, 2002), Burried Secrets (Raja Amari, 2009) and Beauty and the Dogs (Kaouther Ben Hania, 2017). We think those movies are part of a female Tunisian cinematographic tradition dealing with oppressions felt by women and their desire for emancipation. However, we observe some variations in the way the heroines’ imprisonment is shown. This is emphasized by the mise en scène and the discourse of the directors about female characters and their emancipation. This corpus explores different spatial scales (domestic, public, global and virtual) and shows the diversity of oppression faced by the heroines. To begin with, we study the imprisonment of female characters in a domestic space, employing the notions of heterotopia and harem. Then, we examine the exit of those spaces and the occupation of public spaces to explore the institutional dimension of imprisonment. Finally, we analyze the possibility of overcoming this imprisonment in order to hold a discourse of emancipation.
harem Tunisian cinema women spaces body heterotopia imprisonment emancipation nomadism Arab Spring