BA DISSERTATION, CATALYST INSTITUTE FOR CREATIVE ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY, 2025

the BA dissertation explores how cinematic form can embody a feminine conception of time through the films of Chantal Akerman and Lucrecia Martel. It reflects my ongoing interest in the relationship between cinematic form, memory, rhythm, and embodied experience.

ABSTRACT

This dissertation explores whether cinematic form, through its structure, rhythm, and visual

language, can embody a feminine conception of time, distinct from the dominant temporal

frameworks.

The study explores feminine temporality in relation to Kristeva’s ideas, which are plural

and embodied, encompassing not only chronology but also the felt experience of time, how

women experience it socially, biologically, historically, and psychologically, including

pregnancy, domestic labour, ageing, and emotional duration. Grounded in Julia Kristeva’s

concept of “women’s time,” connected to monumental and embodied temporality, the study

understands feminine time not merely as a slower duration, but as an experience marked by

cyclical rhythms, simultaneity, repetition, and care, often in contrast to historical, goal-oriented,

or linear time.

Two films, Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman and Lucrecia Martel’s La Ciénaga, are

analysed through a close reading as cinematic texts that engage with feminine subjectivity and

temporality through formal cinematic choices. The project relies on close formal analysis of film

elements, such as mise-en-scène, cinematography, rhythm, editing, repetition, stasis, and ambient

detail, to explore how time is constructed and perceived within each film, engaging with the

psychoanalytic and feminist theories of Julia Kristeva.

The dissertation does not approach the question as an aesthetic analysis alone. It aims to

operate through the lens of philosophical and feminist ideas to explore how cinematic time, when

viewed through a feminine lens, can challenge dominant temporal structures grounded in

linearity, productivity, and rational order. It presents both Jeanne Dielman and La Ciénaga

resisting conventional narrative progression by foregrounding repetition, stagnation, and

atmospheric detail. Through their distinct formal choices, the films evoke affective, cyclical, and

monumental rhythms, offering alternative ways of experiencing subjectivity on screen.

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