Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2016
Department 1
Environmental Studies
Abstract
In this paper, I argue that Indian independent filmmaker Pankaj Rishi Kumar's documentary In God’s Land (2012) blends animation and live-action to illuminate the destructive nuances of postcolonial literary scholar, Rob Nixon's notion of slow violence. In turning to cinema, I also suggest that In God’s Land’s “aesthetic strategies” further eco-film scholarship’s recent interests in animation, which have tended to highlight the mode's "feel good affect." I draw attention to In God's Land's hybrid of dark, discordant animation spectacle interspliced in the documentary live-action to articulate the potential of eco-animation outside of this affect. Ultimately, the film not only draws attention to animation’s non-playful affect—its potentials and dilemmas, but I also suggest that reading such a film adds postcolonial understandings of cinema beyond the Western/Japanese center on with eco-animation scholars have so far focused.
Copyright Note
This is the author's version of the work. This publication appears in Gettysburg College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution.
Recommended Citation
Monani, Salma. "In God's Land: Cinematic Affect, Animation, and the Perceptual Dilemmas of Slow Violence." Ecodocumentaries: Critical Essays. Rayson K. Alex and S. Susan Deborah, eds. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. pp. 11-31.
Included in
Environmental Sciences Commons, Film and Media Studies Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons
Comments
Original version available from the publisher at: http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137562234