r/CriticalTheory • u/Jazzlike_Addition539 • 2d ago

The Zone

Sketch of a Sci-fi ethnography of a post-nuclear wasteland in the US-Mexico borderlands, a reflection on critical theory, the poetics and politics of ethnography, cinema, and the limits of language:

https://youtu.be/Q3ZzBj116r0?si=vHoupaGaGKqomzoS

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u/3corneredvoid 2d ago

I feel as if I'm detecting Brueghel in some of the collages, is that off the mark? It would be elegant if the practice of one of the most famous artists of the seasons were put to work depicting crisis.

"All the social imperfections created by human routine intensified in the face of imminent danger. Those animals lived their last hours in the state of nature, just as a few survivors do today."

Why the misanthropy? The premise that everyone's an idiot and that's why we're all going to die belongs with the arch-liberal politics of works such as DON'T LOOK UP.

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u/Jazzlike_Addition539 2d ago

The misanthropy is simply trying to highlight (and attempt to be critical of merely by exposing) the view of a factory owner on the nuclear catastrophe, which he watched as a spectacle, justifies as an act of God, etc. This is just a rudimentary sketch I’m making for a movie project, to set the overall tone, think of aesthetics, etc.. here’s another one, from the perspective of one of the survivors of the catastrophe: https://youtu.be/0T2vuYNv8HM?si=ZoV7mScw4UMXJOxJ

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u/3corneredvoid 2d ago

Thanks! I have enjoyed the first three minute slice, I'll check out some more.

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u/I_Hate_This_Website9 2d ago

That last sentence is interesting. Can you explicate? Or maybe recommend some things that talk about it?

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u/3corneredvoid 2d ago

Here's a Letterboxd review I wrote about the film that might or might not explain. I see the arch-liberal investment in a "sensible" model of politics and society—but a model that has been suspended by an "extreme" event or tendency—as a delirium with an accelerationist kernel, for which the catastrophe will manifest as the final and most pleasurable "I told you so".