This article analyses the different ways contemporary American and
Egyptian films construct and understand space in the context of Middle
Eastern politics. The article contrasts Hollywood?s relationship with space
as one about mastery, mirroring America?s ?from-above? approach to
Middle Eastern politics, with the Egyptian films? more intimate portrayal of
space, where conflicts are more localized and closer to home. Space is
explored as both a physical and a mental/imagined/lived entity. In its
analysis of issues like the representation of Islamic fundamentalism in the
films and its spatial manifestations, the article demonstrates that political
space is not a matter of core versus periphery, where ?we? reside within a
space and ?they? outside it, but rather that old boundaries have been
erased while new ones have been (re)drawn. |