"Art Cinema’s Suicidal Posthuman Women”

Air Doll (Kki ningy, dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2009) introduces a posthuman perspective through its protagonist Nozomi, an inflatable sex doll who miraculously comes to consciousness. Meanwhile, On Body and Soul (Testről s llekről, dir. Ildik Enyedi, 2017) centers on a surreal romance between Mria and Endre that thrives, in part, on their posthuman connections to animals and objects. Strong narrative, erotic and traumatic elements bind these filmsin particular, their treatments of their posthuman women protagonistswhich video editing offered the ideal method for unpacking. Air Doll and On Body and Soul explore the posthuman possibilities inherent in their protagonists nonhuman and neurodivergent subjectivities, yet the films handling of Nozomi and Mria's leaky bodies reveals their confinement within humanist norms. Left bleeding and deflated, what do Nozomi and Mria foretell for posthuman cinema?