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The Limits And The Power Of Representation Analysis

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The Limit and the Power of Representation It was in my sophomore year that for the first time I saw the movie, Hibiscus Town. Vividly imprinted in my mind are the two devastated souls cleaning up the street and their being condemned publicly against the wall full of propaganda scribbles in the Hibiscus Town. Indeed, this cinematic representation informed me of the knowledge I already or did not yet know about the Cultural Revolution—how irrational a political movement could become, and how insane ordinary people could turn into, etc. Years later, reviewing this film, I could only think about the limit of representation of such a cruel history through cinematic language, yet also the power of it. What, after all, is the function of art in representing traumatic memories? Is it possible to really, truthfully, re-presenting historical events and experiences through artistic forms? …show more content…
To ask art for this task is tantamount to asking a person to afford what he/she cannot. It is impossible, through whatever approaches, to recreate any history that can only live in people’s memories, because even those memories can never be intact and unbroken. However, this limit is actually where the power of art lies. In The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien distinguishes two realities, i.e. the “story-truth” and “happening-truth” in retelling his experiences in the Vietnam War. What is experienced in the happening-truth can only be re-felt through the creation of a fictional

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