Rituals: The Unlikely Journey

Abstract

I will now turn to a discussion of rituals in society and how individuals undertake a journey in order to find themselves. I examine several films that fall within this category. Alain Corneau’s Nocturne Indien (1989) takes the spectator on a trip to India, casting a Western traveler in search of his lost friend, and losing himself in the process, only to find himself. Antonio Tabucchi’s postmodern novel on which the script is based sheds a light on my interpretation of Corneau’s film. Khaled Ghorbal’s Un si beau voyage (2008) is featured in the second part of the chapter ‘The Sacred’, when an exiled worker journeys back to his home country of Tunisia and sheds all his material belongings. The next segment covers Emmanuel Finkiel’s Voyage/Tracks (1999) as it maps out three different itineraries of discovery and travel in Europe, with France, Poland, and Israel, integrating the full weight of Jewish history and identity.