Film and Everyday Resistance

VÁclav Havels concept of living within the truth in an authoritarian regime frames Marguerite La Cazes readings of international cinema, highlighting forms of resistance in which seemingly pre- or nonpolitical aspects of lifesuch as professional labor, exile, and truth tellingcan be recognized as political when seen against a backdrop of general acquiescence. La Cazes case studies cross genres, historical eras, and national contexts: the apartheid regime in South Africa, in A Dry White Season; post-Suharto Indonesia, in The Look of Silence; 1980s East Germany, in Barbara; the Chilean military dictatorship, in No; contemporary Iran, in A Separation; and current-day Saudi Arabia, in Wadjda. This book explores the films use of image, sound, narrative, and character in dialogue with the work of Simone de Beauvoir, AimÉ Cesaire, Hannah Arendt, Sara Ahmed, and W. E. B. Du Bois to reveal how cinema depicts ordinary people enacting their own philosophies of defiance.