Viaggio in Oriente: l’esperienza dell’altro e dell’alterità nel cinema odeporico modernista

During the years of the appearance of the new waves in cinema and of the breakthrough of the so called “politique des auteurs” many European film directors make films abroad, especially in Asian countries such as India, China and Japan. Rossellini, Antonioni, Marker, Ivens, Pasolini and many others live the experience of the journey introducing innovative approaches: these are among the first travellers that are aware of the injustice caused by colonialisation, being themselves its cultural offspring and its political opponents; they are among the first who wish to go beyond a typified representation of foreign cultures that they show sympathy for openly; they are among the first who use light film cameras (16 mm) that make the practical approach easier. Viewing this phenomenon within the odeporic narrative and orientalist figurative tradition and pursuing a multidisciplinary theoretical and methodological approach, the present study aims at illustrating how modernist cinema questions and disconcerts, rather than conferming some of the historiographical characteristics commonly assigned to this period and to its protagonists: the rule of mimesis, the question of intentionality, the contextualization of the “auteur” in discussions on the other and otherness.