The Gesture of Suffering—Kinetta

The chapter analyses Lanthimos’s film Kinetta through a threefold notion of tableau—Brechtian, cinematic, and Sadean. Foucault’s and Agamben’s discussion of infamy as a particular relation between lives and power is used to interpret the typical status of Lanthimos’s characters and the peculiar acting style and “weird” performances that define his cinema. The murder scene reenactments in the film are understood as operative performances and discussed in connection with the ideas of gestural labour, vulnerability, and gender performativity. The instrumental, spectacular, and sexist capture of gestures at the centre of Kinetta is eventually presented as a central aspect of contemporary capitalist biopower.