The search for a new subjectivity. The viewer as a cyborg (on the example of Adina Pintilie’s flm “Touch me not”)

Abstract

This article examines an original director’s approach to the viewer on the example of the flm “Touch me not” (2019) by Adina Pintilie. The spectator’s position is analyzed not from the cinema theory point of view, which is considered insufcient to describe the new defning characteristics, but in terms of the modern philosophical trope about the cyborg by feminist theorist Donna Haraway. It allows us to describe in detail the process of formation of a new subjectivity that meets the conditions of modern culture. This article argues that the flm provides a successful attempt to build a new type of cinematic narrative, where the viewer has a new subjectivity since the combination of expressive means forces him to expand his inner freedom and abandon the usual point of view. Art allows to impose ideas on the viewer and control him, it can also teach the viewer to be aware of their limitations. In modern feminist philosophy, one of the conditions of a free future society is the ability to accept oneself as a complex being who can no longer be called a human in the ordinary sense. Modern man is surrounded by technology, partly separated from nature, but in their instinctive desires they are still close to the animal world. In modern philosophical feminist thought, the ability to accept this is a necessity for the conditions of the world of the future. Adina Pintilie’s experimental flm allows to conclude that the becoming of a new subjectivity with the help of narratives that encourage acceptance of this fact is possible beyond the limits of theoretical thought.