Performativity, Austerity, and Allegory; Athina Rachel Tsangari's film, 'Attenberg'

Abstract

In 2010 the film Attenberg, written and directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari (b. 1966, Greece) was released at the 67th Venice International Film Festival. As her second feature film Attenberg is an example of the contemporary genre of film known as Greek Weird Wave, characterized by unconventional storytelling and an exploration of political and cultural issues through alienated protagonists, absurdist dialogue and haunting aesthetics. More broadly, “it’s a cinema that reflects on how systems of power manage groups of people (from a family to a population) and the bodies of individuals, and a cinema equally sensitive to forms of response, to noise, unease, and subversion.” What makes Tsangari stand out among her mostly male peers is her personalized, experimental, and movement-based modes of storytelling. Through her use of performativity, allegory and austerity, Attenberg blurs conventional ideas of sexuality, strength, simplicity, and dance. I aim to examine Tsangari’s storytelling techniques, which draw from genres such as dance film, experimental film, performance, punk rock, and feminism, focusing on her emphasis on physical theater–a type of performance art that has origins in Greek tragedy, but has contemporary artistic centers in Europe and New York respectively.