Dissensus and the Politics of Transnationalism in the Cinema of Želimir Žilnik: A Case Study of the Most Beautiful Country in the World

Abstract

The paper takes as a starting point the concept of dissensus understood by the French philosopher Jacques Rancière as a gap in, or a redistribution of the right to speak, to see or to be seen. The paper further asserts that dissensus, thus understood, perfectly encapsulates the efforts of the post-Yugoslav filmmaker Želimir Žilnik: to intervene in representational order and render visible the socially marginalised and invisible. The notion of political cinema, usually associated with Žilnik, is here redefined as a practice geared towards changing the rules of visibility and towards a redistribution of the authority/right to speak and be seen. The paper also emphasises the immediacy of representation in Žilnik and argues that Žilnik’s ideological horizons revolve around Marx’s concept of immediate experience, rather than around historical Marxism. Lastly, the paper relates Žilnik’s early interrogations of social exclusion to his later preoccupations with displacement and exile and focuses on the author’s 2018 film The Most Beautiful Country in the World. In conclusion, the paper puts forward the suggestion that Žilnik’s last film, while showcasing some of its author’s long-standing views of exile, brings forth a new, transnational and socially pragmatic vista on the processes of integration and acculturation.