ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the repercussions of traumatic events on women’s representations in cinema. The Islamization of the woman’s body on screen following the Islamic Revolution and during the Iran–Iraq War (1980–8) in Iran is considered in this context. The emergence of post-traumatic cinema is highlighted through remarkable works of Rakhshan Bani-Etemad and Narges Abyar from different generations who reconstruct history from different perspectives. The reflection of the traumatic paralysis experienced in post-1980 coup Turkey on the representations of the woman – from infliction of graphic violence to her body to her audial or visual spatial disappearance from the screens – is integral to this chapter, which draws attention to the upsurge of male alienation and despair narratives in contemporary films starting with the Ömer Kavur classic Anayurt Oteli/Motherland Hotel (1987). The author explores a special subgenre that has created its own label, ‘masculinity in crisis’ films with a focus on the women in the films of Zeki Demirkubuz.
