Bodies Underwater

Abstract This article engages with French filmmaker Jean Painlevé’s experimental shorts on the physiognomy and behavior of marine animals. The argues that films establish a corporeal nonlinguistic mode interspecies communication draws upon spectators’ immediate emphatic empathetic reactions to animal creatures on-screen. By evoking affective responses below visible audible registers, place human body both in proximity at distance from nonhuman animal, revealing ontological ties as well uncanny encounters other ways living. In doing so, inspire plurality ethico-political perspectives species entanglement all propose distinct responsibilities without making any organism center agentic events. To illuminate those perspectives, brings into conversation Massumi’s politics, Deleuze Guattari’s idea becoming-animal, neuroscientific research. It thus shows how cinematic medium can make palpable debates environmental studies political theory installs an phenomenon involves bodies shared space. Last, reclaims Painlevé for contemporary concerns, linking aesthetics ethics politics bodily movement care world.