An aesthetics of intranquillité : fear and anxiety in Le fil and L’intranquille

This article locates an aesthetics of intranquillité in contemporary queer francophone cultural production by examining the dynamic combination of fear and anxiety in Mehdi Ben Attia’s Franco-Tunisian film, Le fil (2010), and Joseph Kai’s Franco-Lebanese graphic novel, L’intranquille (2021). Here, I examine the spatiotemporal dynamics, or what I call the affective orientations, of intranquillité . I argue that this aesthetics gives rise to an anxious eroticism that is itself represented textually through a series of narrative tools found in these texts: first, the challenge to normative narration; second, the use of inertial or propulsive imagery; and third, either a melancholic tie to the past or an anxious futurity. These tools textually reproduce the “feeling” of fear and anxiety for the viewer of these works. In an attempt to quell intranquillité , the creative and generative act of drawing is introduced in both narratives, ultimately producing new affective configurations of queer belonging and desire.