Tracing the anthropology through the films: ‘’The boy who harnessed the wind’’

Year 2022, Volume: 12 Issue: 1, 23 - 33, 25.06.2022

Mustafa Karakurt

Abstract

The place of film such as ethnographic films which have the cinematographic aspect within anthropological theory and practice and provides a chance for anthropologists to be far more explicit about their field methodology is a medium of record from the beginning of the modern anthropological project. Similarly, the cinematographic features of a film can be used to show the construction and nature of the other societies, tribes, and cultures as is in the movie ''The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind’’, a 2019 British drama film. In this context, this article evaluates the features contributing to the ethnographicness of this film. Some ceremonies in this movie reflect the stages of ‘’rite of passage’’ that are separation, liminality, and reaggregation developed by the Durkheimian anthropologist Arnold Van Gennep in Les Rites de passage. As a matter of principle, these rituals and ceremonies characterize the worldviews, sense of truth, and lifestyles of societies in which they arose. Based on the principle in question, the current article seeks to draw the extensions and dimensions of separation, liminality, and reaggregation through the two funeral and one education ceremonies in this movie.

Keywords

rite of passage, death rite, separation, liminality, incorporation

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