Shifting histories: Film and nationalist mythmaking through trauma

Abstract

National histories do not simply exist in the past but rather are curated from the present. This curation reveals dominant contemporary dynamics of power and the mythmaking quality of national narratives of the past. Narratives of heroism and sacrifice, which form the genesis of the nation, become challenged by alternative histories they try to obfuscate, which is particularly true when national histories contain moments of great suffering and trauma. The author argues that certain counter-narratives resist these national histories and bring to light not simply the inconsistencies of a nation’s history but, more importantly, the continued labour and oppression involved in the continuation of these stories in the present. To illustrate this argument, he draws upon two films, Waltz with Bashir and The Act of Killing, and shows how these ‘psuedodocumentaries’ exemplify the persistence of alternative historical narratives derived from trauma and demonstrate the discontinuity and precarity of dominant national narratives.