Today I wished Edward Said were alive. Browsing through the responses of those the New York Times calls ‘Middle East Experts’, to Obama’s speech in Cairo yesterday, I found myself wondering what Said would have to say about it all. Primarily the subject of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict and Obama’s assertion that both sides have equal rights over the territory. Obama is in a position of having to walk a very fine line here as he expresses the desire for a peaceful resolution where both sides feel satisfied. As someone outside the conflict, I think he is right in taking a bi-partisan position, and I think that as much as he could, he did. There has been some unease in the blogosphere that in calling for a two state resolution Obama is unaware of the Palestinians premier occupation of the land, and consequently some questioning of his ability to fully understand the conflict. What all this throws up for me is the question of communication and understanding between two parties, between different nations, races, languages and cultures, and the possibility or impossibility of finding common ground.
In his book The Differend, the French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard argues that there is a point at which no understanding between two opposing parties can be made – a place where their language (and by language he means not only verbal language but cultural/experiential/historical language) is so different that communication cannot happen. This he terms the differend. He illustrates with an example of court trials where for some reason or other, the plaintiff is asked to provide evidence which by it’s very nature cannot be given, thereby taking away the rights of the plaintiff to defend himself against the charges. He writes, ‘I would call a differend the case where the plaintiff is divested of the means to argue and becomes for that reason a victim.’ He presents as examples having ‘to prove rape in a language and culture that has no conception of what this could be’ or ‘to be asked to provide physical evidence of the absolute destruction of something’. Guantanamo is a good example of the differend - where those judging are so far removed from those being judged in language and ideology that there is no possibility of discussion or reply, where the tortured cannot produce evidence of their torture, and cannot produce evidence of their innocence for those who accuse them of crimes, whose crimes are hazy and indistinct rather than quantifiable acts. Thus the judged are silenced and the whole system operates on hearsay and conjecture.
I often wonder if Lyotard is right about the differend, and, if such a degree of miscommunication does exist, can it ever be bridged? Furthermore, can cinema play a part in bridging the differend?
Tsai Ming-Liang’s first film shot in his homeland, Malaysia, is the enigmatic I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone (2003). I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone is banned in Malaysia, presumably for its depiction of its poverty stricken protagonists – at least one of whom is an illegal immigrant – who live in a vast unfinished mall in the middle of KL. The mall, like its inhabitants, is a remnant of the Asian economic crisis. The three main characters speak different languages and have different sexualities, yet find a common bond in their displacement.
I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone is a strange film. Like Liang’s previous films it is punctuated by long still shots where the characters are overwhelmed by the space around them, and slightly surreal imagery; like the shot at the end of the film where the three protagonists float on a tattered mattress on the lake that has formed in the centre of the abandoned mall. There is a scene where one of the men sits fishing in this lake – although there can’t be any fish in it – quietly being, unperturbed by the stasis. There is no internal existential crisis here, it is the world outside the mall that questions these characters existence.
Liang’s narrative structure reflects the lives of his characters. There is very little dialogue, after all, the characters have no common verbal language, and no concrete plot. Instead the film is a string of scenes marked by stasis and silence. This style makes the film an equivalent of its subjects, an abject citizen of the film world, relegated to the festival circuit where it can be seen and applauded by those who have made it their business to watch such discomforting sights from the safe distance of their cinema seats.
But still, as Malaysia attempts to conceal the image of its scattered poor by banning the film, I think its very presence pulls them into the light. Does this narrow the gap between two incompatible modes of living? I don’t know. It’s a tenuous proposition, but because I am a hopeful, naïve person who lives a comfortable middle class life and thus is at liberty to believe in the power of art, I like to think it might.
