Az utolsó vigyor. Geszturális figuráció a filmbefejezésben. Nemes Jeles László: Saul fia (2015)
Last Smile: Gestural Figuration in the ending of cinematic narratives (Son of Saul. László Nemes Jeles, 2015)

Summary/Abstract: The paper examines the dynamics of gestural figuration in the ending of cinematic narratives. It seeks to answer the question of how meaning can be transformed by the transfiguration of a single gesture and how a gesture can become an exceptionally meaningful figure in the ending of a film. To this end, the paper uses the theories of Giorgio Agamben and Nicole Brenez in order to establish a bridge between the concepts of „gestural cinema” and „figural analysis”. The text contextualizes a recurring gesture of the smile in film endings, and then analyses the figuration of this gesture in the ending of the film Son of Saul, which uses a form that is understood as „neurotic minimalism”. The analysis concludes that the complexity of the closing gesture is the result of the tension between two figurative procedures: the triumphant sentimentality of the smile is not only counterpointed by the events that follow, but by the consistent logic of exchange and transformation.

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