Intimacy and Uncertainty in the Visual Politics of Haptic Visuality and Narrative Spacing— A Comparative Study of Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Anatomy of a Fall

Yawen Xiong

doi:10.54254/2753-7064/2025.KM28429

Communications in Humanities ResearchOpen access

Intimacy and Uncertainty in the Visual Politics of Haptic Visuality and Narrative Spacing— A Comparative Study of Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Anatomy of a Fall

Research Article

Open Access

Intimacy and Uncertainty in the Visual Politics of Haptic Visuality and Narrative Spacing— A Comparative Study of Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Anatomy of a Fall

Yawen Xiong ^1*

¹ University of Liverpool

^*Corresponding author: hsyxion9@liverpool.ac.uk

Published on 23 October 2025

CHR Vol.89

ISSN (Print): 2753-7072

ISSN (Online): 2753-7064

ISBN (Print): 978-1-80590-459-5

ISBN (Online): 978-1-80590-460-1

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Abstract

This study investigates how contemporary women directors challenge and reconfigure the patriarchal logic of the “male gaze” through strategies of haptic visuality and narrative spacing. Using qualitative textual analysis, the study examines cinematography, mise-en-scène, sound design, and the role of silence and omission in shaping spectatorship. The findings reveal that Sciamma’s film generates intersubjective intimacy through reciprocal gazes, tactile imagery, and affective silences, while Triet destabilizes courtroom conventions by withholding visual certainty, emphasizing sound as embodied perception, and foregrounding epistemological gaps. Both films displace the spectator from a passive to an active interpretive position, thereby re-conceptualizing feminist theories of gaze, touch, and narrative. The research concludes that feminist aesthetics are not fixed but context-sensitive: in the romantic genre, they cultivate intimacy and desire; in the courtroom drama, they expose instability and power asymmetries. These results underscore the need to revise feminist film theory in dialogue with contemporary cinematic practice and highlight its continued relevance to cultural politics in the twenty-first century.

Keywords:

Feminist film theory, male gaze, haptic visuality, narrative spacing, spectatorship.

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References

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