Drifting Between Paris and Beijing: Transnational Cityscapes in Lou Ye's Sino-French Film Love and Bruises (2011).

This paper examines the transnational cityscapes of Paris and Beijing in the Sino-French urban-set film Love and Bruises directed by Lou Ye, one of the so-called Sixth Generation of Chinese filmmakers. Drawing on the method of textual analysis and Deleuzian theories of affect, it explores how these two global cities are depicted as dystopian and illusive utopian places respectively, how the cityscapes are connoted, and how they are charged with affects. The author argues that Lou's imaginaries of transnational cityscapes insinuate individuals' bruises of displacement and dislocation in an era of active integration into globalisation. Moreover, cityscapes are presented phenomenologically and affectively in the film by screening the protagonists' act of viewing and the camera's lingering on the urban spaces. Finally, the cityscapes of Paris transmit a sense of estrangement or alienation, while Beijing's counterparts provoke postmodern bewilderment and anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]