ABSTRACT
The concept envisages "the precarious boundary or rind of the bodily ego as a bit less of a carapace or armor and a bit more of a matrix or medium – a porous interface between the organism and the world that would allow for a greater mobility and circulation of psychic energies". By envisaging mise-en-scene within the terms of this "porous interface" between spectator and the material, the materialities of cinematic experience are understood as intrinsically linked with the affective power of cinema. The sensory/material focus in Theo Angelopoulos's work situates his project as pivotal to these attempts to reinscribe the question of cinematic materiality at the center of contemporary theories of cinema, and to rethink notions of cinematic realism. Even as frail old lady becomes just another incidental casualty of Balkans dislocation, the desolation of the square lingers in an overwhelming sense of vulnerability, bewilderment, and disorientation.
