ABSTRACT
M y broad goal in this essay is to take stockof the constitutive role of sacrifice in representation, which I take to surpass my chosen
scope, namely film and specifically cinematic
racial representation. By closely analyzing the
Iranian film The Cyclist (1987), by Mohsen
Makhmalbaf, I argue that common concerns
about the “limits” of representations are philo-
sophically restrictive and that a liminal
approach sheds a new light on often neglected
nuances of representation and its troubles. I
will better explain liminality in due course,
but as a working definition it stands for the
structural inability to represent the margins.
