What can a body do ? Answers from Arab cinema

Abstract

Baruch Spinoza’s statement “We do not know what a body can do” argues that bodies learn their powers not from divinely imposed laws but through experience in the world. Thought must pass though the body, in a way that menaces both existing thoughts and the body as it is at present. Great works of contemporary independent cinema in Arabic-speaking countries express the body’s forces of becoming in numerous ways, some of which this essay tracks: from not yet living to cultivating molecular forces, enfolding powers, expressing volatile passions, coming to life, and attaining adequate ideas. Some of these dynamics are common to all world cinema, while some address questions of the capacities of bodies and of thought specific to the present-day Arabic-speaking world. I use a method of embodied and affective analysis that experiences the Artaudian “cruelty” of these movies, by attempting to move through the body to thought.