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Lola Rose’s Blog: Cultural Borderlands and Liminal Spaces: The Diasporic Experience in Accented Cinema

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In the complex landscape of global representation, Gayatri Spivak’s pivotal question – Can the Subaltern Speak? – has long challenged Western understanding of marginalised voices’ struggle for representation and agency (Spivak 1998:28). When applied to cinema, this enquiry evolves into a more specific challenge: ‘Can the Subaltern be heard?’ (Naficy 2001:11). The international cinematic stage emerges as a battleground where silenced voices must negotiate and subvert dominant Western narrative frameworks that have historically suppressed diasporic experiences. How, then, can these complex diasporic identities assert themselves within a Western-dominated cultural terrain? The answer lies in the style of Accented Cinema, a cinematic approach that provides transnational filmmakers with a platform to represent cultural displacement. By embracing fragmentation, hybridity and cultural nuances the style navigates the in-between spaces of cultures and histories to offer an account of what it means to exist on the periphery. The selected films- Persepolis (Satrapi 2007), A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Amirpour 2014) and Circumstance (Keshavarz 2011)– exemplify how diasporic filmmakers navigate these intricate cultural terrains by producing films about Iran within American contexts. This essay will examine how these works explore liminal spaces to depict the complexities of cultural displacement and identity formation. Persepolis serves as the first critical lens, employing animation as a hybridised visual language that fuses Western and Eastern aesthetic traditions to represent the protagonist’s perpetual state of cultural negotiation. A Girl expands this exploration, leveraging spatial, narrative and character ambiguities to construct fluid, dynamic identities that defy essentialist cultural paradigms. Circumstance completes this analysis by examining the interaction of public and private spheres in Iran, exposing the dialectical tension between tradition and personal desire. This discourse will argue that these diasporic filmmakers actively resist the commodification of cultural identity in both their home and host societies. Rather than creating simplified representations for Western consumption, these films compel viewers to engage deeply with the nuanced experiences of displacement. Through strategies of fragmentation, hybridity and cultural negotiation, the selected films transform the margins into a powerful site of resistance and reimagination, challenging essentialist paradigms. Ultimately, this analysis will reveal how displacement functions as a multifaceted space- simultaneously a site of struggle and radical creativity.

Hamid Naficy, the coiner of Accented Cinema, suggests that ‘if the dominant cinema is considered universal and without accent, the films that diasporic and exilic subjects make are accented’ (Naficy 2001:10). Emerging between 1985-1996, this cinematic approach was catalysed by multiculturalism, non-commercial film funding and postmodern intellectual interventions that systematically deconstructed traditional narrative architectures (Marks 2001:1). Accented Cinema distinguishes itself through filmmakers’ transnational positionality and strategic deployment of hybridity across genre, music, style and form. These practitioners occupy a critical liminal space, navigating the intricate cultural complexities of in-between identities and articulating experienced situated at the intersections of multiple cultural paradigms. Diasporic filmmakers thus act as reflective agents, acutely aware of their epistemological positioning in producing narrative about the East within predominantly Western representational frameworks (ibid). By strategically occupying this interstitial space, they simultaneously reflect and resist cultural dichotomies inherent in their dual existential experiences. The accented film’s transformative potential lies in its capacity to transgress fixed geopolitical boundaries, dismantling traditional representational strategies. Through hybridisation, the films therefore challenge established knowledge systems and reimagine conventional conceptualisations of identity and cultural expression (Naficy 2001:1). By blending diverse cinematic traditions, accented cinema generates alternative discursive modalities that transcend restrictive political and societal limits. This approach creates a nuanced space of resistance, exposing the constructed nature of representation and revealing the underlying assumptions that shape narrative frameworks (Marks 2000:8). Accented Cinema will therefore be examined as a critical hermeneutic tool that articulates diasporic subjectivity through transnational visuals. By revealing the nuanced multiplicities of transnational identity, it enables Western audiences to engage empathetically with marginalised experiences that would otherwise remain insensible. Through these liminal interstices, this analysis will explore how diasporic filmmakers negotiate and reconfigure the boundaries of selfhood.

Naficy conceptualises exile as a state of cultural liminality, positioning individuals within a complex ‘in-between’ space where identities are continuously negotiated between their original homeland and host society (Naficy 2001:8). This transitional ‘slipzone’ emerges as a critical site for identity formation, marked by uncertainty and the challenges of cultural integration (ibid). Marjane Satrapi’s animated film Persepolis exemplifies this framework through the protagonist Marji’s journey of displacement. The narrative follows Marji as she navigates the space between her Iranian cultural heritage and her life in the West, after leaving Iranian during the revolution. By destabilising the boundaries between personal memoir and collective history, the film challenges traditional storytelling conventions and provides a platform for diasporic voices. It chronicles Marji’s experiences during the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the Iran-Iraq War and her personal migrations to Vienna and Paris (Malek 2006:369). As Marji navigates between Eastern and Western cultural identities, she embodies a hybrid existence that reflect the complexities of balancing dual cultural influences. Her character transcends cultural specificity through the negotiation of both Western and Eastern markers, making her narrative relatable to Western audiences. Her engagement with global pop culture-such as her admiration for Michael Jackson, her interest in Nike shoes and her embrace of punk aesthetics-creates a hybrid cultural space (Malek 2006:372). This not only enhances her universal appeal but also educates audiences about Iran’s Westernisation under the Pahlavi regime (ibid). Through this hybridity, Marji humanises and demystifies the Iranian experience, allowing viewers to connect with her struggles on a broader scale. Her migration to Vienna serves as a pivotal narrative device, enabling the exploration of universal coming-of-age themes. Her personal struggles with sexuality, heartbreak and social isolation are depicted in a way that resonates beyond cultural boundaries, reinforcing the film’s broader transnational relevance. In doing so, Persepolis not only educates audiences about Iranian history but also bridges the gap between the particular and the universal. By presenting a protagonist whose experiences are both culturally specific and globally resonate, Satrapi encourages viewers to recognise shared human experiences, challenging and deconstructing the binary between the West and East breaking down preconceived notions of difference.

Maji’s hybrid character is not the only element functioning as a liminal space in Persepolis; the medium itself plays a crucial role in negotiating cultural intersection. Animation is more than a stylistic choice; it creates a ‘third space’ where Iranian and Western perspectives intersect, allowing cultural boundaries to become fluid (ibid:354). Satrapi employs a graphic style to challenge dominant cinematic representations of Iran, utilising memoir as a transgressive tool to disrupt essentialist discourses and foster transnational empathy (ibid:367). The fluidity of animation allows Iranian and Western influences to coexist harmoniously within the visual space, creating an aesthetic where cultural elements interact and shape one another. Through its bold simplicity, animation becomes a vehicle for breaking down barriers that typically separate cultural experiences. The childlike drawings and black-and-white colours present themes of war and trauma in a way that is visually accessible to global audiences, while camouflaging the complex politics of identity and nation (Naghibi 234). Beneath this simplicity lies a complex portrayal of the political histories that would otherwise be too difficult to depict in more traditional, realistic forms. Animation creates a safe distance for viewers to engage with challenging subjects, allowing them to confront the complexities of war, trauma and displacement without becoming overwhelmed by emotional intensity. At the same time, Satrapi’s use of this technique prevents oversimplified accounts of Iranian history through its disruption of Western cinematic stereotypes. By challenging conventional Western storytelling, she resists the tendency to exoticise or victimise Iranian culture. Her deliberate inclusion of culturally specific Iranian refences, which may not be immediately accessible to Western audiences, ensures that the film does not fully confirm to Westen frameworks, leading to a dual process of ‘othering’ (ibid:231). While incorporating recognisable elements- such as Marji’s Western interests and the animation style- Satrapi introduces moments of dissonance, creating tension between the familiar and the unfamiliar. This invites viewers to engage with the complexities of Iranian identity, resisting oversimplified interpretations and encouraging them to engage with a more humanised understanding of Iranian life. In doing so, Satrapi fosters a deeper empathy and challenges the simplifications imposed by dominant cultural narratives, while highlighting shared experiences that transcend geopolitical divides. Persepolis operates on three levels: Marji’s personal story, the collective Iranian experience during the revolution and a universal narrative of childhood and growth (ibid). The animated medium serves as both a literal and metaphorical space for cultural negotiation, reflecting Marji’s fluid identity. This approach transforms a specific Iranian story into a broader exploration of human vulnerability, allowing the audience to recognise the constructed nature of otherness (ibid:226). The animated medium serves as a conduit for the intersection of Eastern and Western cultural perspectives, not only depicting Marji’s state of liminality but also enabling the aesthetic to subvert and deconstruct traditional cinematic forms. In doing so, it redefines cultural difference from a source of division to one of mutual understanding. Through this approach, Satrapi encourages viewers to recognise the shared emotional landscapes beneath what may initially appear as foreign or unfamiliar, thereby offering a way to engage with transnational stories that transcends cultural boundaries.

Transnational subjectivity is a fragmented process in which individuals forge hybrid identities that transcend socio-cultural limitations, seeking transformative possibilities beyond their immediate realities (Naficy 2001:13). In Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, this subjectivity materialises through the vampiric protagonist and the liminal space of Bad City. The nameless vampire deconstructs cultural boundaries, challenging traditional conceptualisations of identity, gender and belonging, instead presenting model of existence that is fluid, empowering and resistant to binary distinctions. By targeting exploitative men, she disrupts patriarchal power structures and reframes female agency, challenging the way Iranian women are deemed as submissive both within the context of Iranian society and in Western discourses. In doing so, her supernatural existence transforms from a symbol of passive victimhood into active empowerment. Bad City itself is a critical interstitial landscape, blending elements of Tehran and Los Angeles to create a symbolic space that disrupts both geopolitical and cultural boundaries (Kazemi 2022:16). This space allows the vampire to inhabit a ‘queer utopia’ where traditional ideas about identity, gender and culture become fluid and negotiable (Abdi & Calafell 2017:363-364). Her indeterminate nature challenges binary oppositions- human/monster, self/other, insider/exile-offering a nuanced exploration of transnational experience. The vampire’s monstrosity is a cultural signifier, intricately tied to societal anxieties and fears, particularly in its symbolism as a diasporic other (ibid:359). The vampire’s supernatural existence becomes a metaphor for displacement, with her outsider status embodied through her perpetual marginality. Lurking in the shadows of Bad City, she emerges as a solitary figure whose very being challenges conventional social boundaries, with her alienation serving as a visceral manifestation of transnational dislocation. Her supernatural nature shifts from a source of horror to a form of existential resistance, reframing ‘otherness’ as a potential source of agency and transformation. The vampire’s monstrosity evolves from terror to subversion, presenting displacement not as weakness, but as a space for new identities and strength. Her dual identity as both human and monster symbolises the tension between belonging and alienation. Her relationship with Arash reveals the complexities of her hybrid identity. Though she primarily communicates with him in Persian, in emotionally charged moments, English-language music seems to voice her emotions, transcending language and expressing her dual nature (ibid). The music bridges her human and monstrous sides, emphasising her liminality as she navigates her Iranian heritage and interactions with the Westernised world. Through this liminal existence, the vampire deconstructs binary notions of identity, positioning herself as neither fully monster nor human, neither entirely Iranian nor wholly Westernised. Instead, she embodies a transformative space where cultural boundaries become fluid and identity is an ongoing process of negotiation. Her hybridity mirrors Amirpour’s own ‘dislocation’, symbolising the complex negotiations of cultural belonging as an Iranian-American immigrant and filmmaker (Kazemi 2015:15). By merging human and supernatural traits, the vampire resists fixed identities, embodying the potential for radical reimagination of self and society. This hybridity challenges the conventional boundaries between the human and the otherworldly, much as Amirpour’s experience straddles two distinct cultures.

The Girl’s liminal existence as a diasporic subject is not the only focal point; the creation of a fictional city and the blending of genres also plays a key role in allowing the accented style to flourish, with surrealism blurring cultural and spatial boundaries. By merging horror, romance and Western genres, the film transcends traditional conventions, becoming the first Iranian Western vampire film (Kazemi 2021:11). The city itself is portrayed as a ‘nightmarish interzone’, a fragmented space that reflects the materialised psyche of its characters (ibid:16). Much like the Girl, the city resists clear definitions, embracing the tension between competing identities to mirror the evolving nature of the exilic experience. The fusion of Westernisation and Persian culture is evident through the supporting characters, who speak exclusively in Persian while incorporating Western aesthetics, each representing different facets of the city’s hybridity. For instance, Arash, the vampire’s love interest, adopts a James Dean-like persona, while Saeed, the drug dealer, embodies a 1980s hip-hop aesthetic with Adidas tracksuits, gold chains and tattoos reading ‘pimp’ and ‘sex’ (Abdi & Calafell 2017:258-259). The mysterious trans character and Arash’s father, Hossein, a drug addict, further illustrate the ‘underworld’ of Iran (Kazemi 2011:13). By foregrounding subcultures that challenge traditional Iranian values, the film brings to light marginalised aspects of Iranian society that fall outside the scope of mainstream narratives- those excluded from Iranian state-sanctioned representations and absent in Western depictions of the East. The city and its inhabitants, through their blend of cultural influences, further challenge and deconstruct the East versus West binary, while also exploring the diasporic condition where belonging us never fully realised but instead remains an ongoing process of adaption. Within the liminal space of Bad City, norms are rejected, binaries dismantled and new possibilities for identity and existence emerge. In this way, A Girl critiques rigid cultural boundaries and highlights the transformative potential of hybridity.

Circumstance by Maryam Keshavarz opens with the question, If you could be anywhere in the world, where would you be?- setting the stage for an exploration of escape into queer-topian, liminal spaces. The narrative follows the evolving relationship between two teenage girls, Atafeh and Shirin, whose queer desires can only be expressed in secrecy within Tehran’s restrictive social landscape. Set against the backdrop of contemporary Tehran, the film highlights the tension between public conformity to sociocultural norms and the private pursuit of personal autonomy. Shirin, from a modest background and living with her extended family, contrasts with Atafeh, who comes from a wealthier, more liberal upbringing and their differing social positions highlight how they navigate Iran’s underground youth culture (Antic 2024:97). Atafeh’s brother, Mehran, returning from rehab, becomes a critical antagonist in their relationship, as his newfound religious zealotry and involvement with the morality police drive him to monitor their interactions. Eventually marrying Shirin to appease her family, Mehran installs surveillance cameras to spy on their intimacy, embodying the pervasive control that defines the film’s tension. The girls’ fantasies of escape reflect a desire for a more open, globalised world free from traditional cultural expectations that define life in Iran. Their bedroom becomes a liminal terrain where desire, identity and defiance are constantly negotiated. This private space symbolises resistance against societal constraints, exploring critical issues of female subjectivity and non-normative sexual desire. (Antic 2024:98). Keshavarz’s narrative approach deliberately avoids clear resolution, instead revisiting the central theme of escape which allows for ‘gendered reconfigurations of accented film aesthetics’ that reflect a state of ‘in-betweenness’, with the home serving as a site of diasporic identity tension (ibid). The girl’s dual existence- oscillating between the relative freedom of home and the outside world’s strict constraints-symbolises the diasporic experience of navigating personal identity against cultural expectations. Home becomes both a refuge and a reminder of societal limitations. Their queer identity remains constrained by the absence of a cultural framework that can acknowledge or validate their desires. The first intimate scene powerfully illustrates this tension, with the characters making love to the sound of Islamic prayer. This moment creates a transgressive space that challenges conventional boundaries, blurring lines between repression and rebellion (Karim 2019:78). By pairing the adhan, traditionally heard to purify the soul and guide the faithful, with an act deemed immoral in both Islamic and Iranian society, Keshavraz creates a scene that liminaly challenges the boundaries between sacred and profane (ibid). Through this act, Keshavarz not only critiques the homophobic elements of Iranian society but also reimagines a space where personal freedom and sexuality can coexist with, and even challenge, the dominant cultural and religious narratives. Their private realm becomes a complex map of desire, a temporary refuge from the oppressive national and social boundaries of Iranian society (Antic 2023:104). The narrative’s climax devastatingly dismantles their fragile sanctuary when Mehran’s surveillance is discovered. Consequently, Atafeh flees to Dubai, while Shrin remains trapped, forced to stay married to Mehran. This conclusion exposes the precarity of their queer existence and the difficulty of sustained resistance in such highly regulated sociocultural landscapes. Keshavar’s ‘queering’ of home situates the film within a broader diasporic reimagining, with the girls’ fantasies serving as sites of creative agency and hybrid strategies (ibid:121). Their resistance operates through narrative assertion, challenging dominant cultural narratives. The private world, thus, operates as a heterotopic space-simultaneously real and imagined-where forbidden desires can be momentarily enacted and explored. Through fantasy, the film creates alternative queer-centered spaces that challenge the complex dynamics between cultural, societal and personal forces. While the girls’ liminal spaces are ultimately fragile and penetrable, their moments of defiance-whether in real or imagined spaces-represent a profound challenge to the systems seeking to control and define them. Through this lens, the film becomes more than a personal story; it is a broader meditation of the possibilities of resistance, identity and hope that can only be fully explored within liminal spaces. The recurring question- ‘If you could be anywhere in the world, where would you be?’ becomes a motif that challenges the rigid dichotomies between inside and outside, public and private life (Bradbury 2019:76). It establishes a narrative framework that prioritises possibility over inevitability, exploring the nature of freedom, desire and resistance within systems of oppression. Ultimately, it reveals how these themes can be expressed through liminal spaces that allow such fantasies to thrive.

To conclude, the analysis of Persepolis, A Girl and Circumstance reveals the significance of liminal spaces in diasporic cinema as sites of cultural negotiation, resistance and reimagination. Each film demonstrates how accented cinema transcends traditional narrative boundaries, offering complex representations of identity that challenge monolithic cultural narratives and Western hegemonic frameworks. These films illustrate the transformative potential of liminal spaces as dynamic terrains of agency where diasporic subjects critique, resist and reimagine their cultural experiences. Through choices such as Satrapi’s animated hybridity, Amirpour’s supernatural urban landscape, or Keshavarz’s exploration of queer relationships, these filmmakers construct spaces that disrupt binary cultural paradigms and expose the constructed nature of identity. By creating these liminal spaces, the films achieve crucial interventions. First, they deconstruct essentialist representations of culture, particularly those related to Iranian experiences. Second, they provide nuanced explorations of female subjectivity that resist both Western and global patriarchal narratives. Third, they offer audiences a more complex understanding of displacement, showing it not as a state of loss, but as a generative site of potential transformation. Ultimately, accented cinema transforms the margins, not by romanticising them, but by reconstructing them as spaces of agency and creativity. Thus, diaspora is presented as a dynamic process of ongoing negotiation and reimagination, where borders transform into spaces of dialogue, encouraging audiences to recognise the rich, complex humanity that exists in the intersections of cultural experience.

Lola Rose, September, 2025

Filmography

Amirpour, Ana Lily. 2014. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. (Los Angeles: Spectre Vision)

Keshavarz, Maryam. 2011. Circumstance. (Los Angeles: Participant Media)

Satrapi, Marjane. 2007. Persepolis. (New York: Sony Pictures Classics)

Bibliography

Antic, Mara. 2024. Cinematic Homelands: The Cultural and Gendered Imaginaries of Iranian Diasporic Women’s Filmmaking. (London: Palgrave Macmillan).

Abdi, Shadee and Bernadette Marie Calafell. 2017. ‘Queer utopias and a (Feminist) Iranian vampire: a critical analysis of resistive monstrosity in A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night’ in Critical Studies in Media Communication. 34.4:358-370. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2017.1302092 (Accessed 15/15/2024).

Bradbury, Clara R. 2019. Lesbian Cinema after Queer Theory. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press).

Karim, Abdel M. 2021. ‘Queer Representation in Arab and Middle Eastern Films: A Case Study of Women in Caramel (2007), Circumstance (2011) and In Between (2016)’ in Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media. 20:71-86). https://doaj.org/article/fd607d8f376c4e77b733237266fd8d67 (Accessed 15/12/2024).

Kazemi, Farshid. 2021. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press).

Malek, Amy. 2006. ‘Memoir as Iranian Exile Cultural Production: A Case Study of Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis” Series’ in Iranian Studies. 39.2:353-80.  https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy2.lib.gla.ac.uk/stable/pdf/4311834 (Accessed 15/15/2024).

Marks, Laura U. 2000. The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses. (Durham: Duke University Press).

Naficy, Hamid. 2018. An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking. (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

Naghibi, Nima and Andrew O’Malley. 2005. ‘Estranging the familiar; “East” and “West” in Satrapi’s Persepolis’ in English Studies in Canada. 31.2-3:223-248.  https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy1.lib.gla.ac.uk/stable/pdf/4311834 (Accessed 15/15/2024).

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1998. ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture London, ed. by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg. (New York: Macmillan).

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