"Coined by American philosopher W.V. Quine, " Gavagai" is a nonsense word meant to convey the indeterminacy of translation. The classic example: A British ethnologist visits some "exotic" foreign land, where a speaker of the native tongue points to a rabbit and says "gavagai." While the natural assumption would be that "gavagai" is the local word for "rabbit," the reality is that " gavagai" could just as easily mean "food," "pet," "mammal," or "we're all vegans here.""
"Loosely inspired by his experience shooting "Sleeping Sickness" (2011) in Cameroon, when the well-intentioned German director - sweating under the pressures of running a set in a distant country with a local crew - wound up "reproducing the neocolonial hierarchies and behavioral patterns that we address in the film " (as he puts it in the "Gavagai" press notes), this stilted meta-drama allows Köhler to more deliberately trace the inexorable tensions that underpin today's globalized film trade."
A single ambiguous word like "gavagai" exemplifies fundamental limits on perfect understanding across cultures, where many plausible meanings compete. Miscommunication multiplies with complexity, so ancient plays, modern adaptations, or racially charged incidents can generate layers of interpretive uncertainty. The film Gavagai reimagines a director's experience filming abroad to trace how well-meaning professionals can nonetheless replicate neocolonial hierarchies and problematic behaviors on set. The film frames these dynamics as systemic tensions within the global film industry, exposing ethical dilemmas and the challenges of responsible cross-cultural collaboration amid uneven power relations.
#indeterminacy-of-translation #neocolonialism-in-film #cross-cultural-miscommunication #global-filmmaking
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