University of Wollongong Research Online Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts 2014 "If you can hold on...": counter-apocalyptic play in Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales Marcus O'Donnell University of Wollongong,
[email protected] Publication Details O'Donnell, M. ""If you can hold on...": counter-apocalyptic play in Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales." Journal of Religion and Film 18 .2 (2014): 1-35. Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library:
[email protected] "If you can hold on...": counter-apocalyptic play in Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales Abstract Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales (2006) presents a dystopic, post-apocalyptic, near-future through an aesthetic, which fuses contemporary postmodern screens with the phantasmagorical of traditional apocalyptic visions. This article argues that Southland Tales is an example of what feminist theologian Catherine Keller calls the “counter-apocalyptic” (Keller 1996:19-20). Through strategies of ironic parody Kelly both describes and questions the apocalyptic and its easy polarities. In situating the film as counter-apocalyptic the paper argues that the film both resists the apocalyptic impulse however it is also located within it. In this sense it produces a unique take on the genre of the post-apocalyptic film and a powerful fluid critique of the post 9/11 security state. Keywords play, apocalyptic, counter, tales, hold, southland, can, you, if, kelly, richard Disciplines Arts and Humanities | Law Publication Details O'Donnell, M. ""If you can hold on...": counter-apocalyptic play in Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales." Journal of Religion and Film 18 .2 (2014): 1-35.