Death and life through the tourist’s gaze: Reflections on Gianfranco Rosi’s Boatman

Abstract

This article examines Gianfranco Rosi’s first documentary Boatman (1993) from the perspective of the touristic gaze deployed by the film in its portrayal of the sacred city of Benares, India, and the activities that take place there on the banks of the River Ganges, from washing to funerary rites. I situate the film in relation to persistent ethical questions regarding documentary encounters with death, arguing that Rosi’s self-reflexive alignment with – and interrogation of – several touristic gazes opens a set of primarily political concerns. These are elucidated in dialogue with the thought of philosopher Roberto Esposito on biopolitics and the ‘immunitarian’ paradigm. Through this lens, the documentary’s self-conscious adoption of touristic perspectives may be understood as revealing and challenging an exoticizing fantasy, animated by contagion and immunity, that frames Benares as a space exempt from the modern biopolitical impulse to protect the boundaries of individuals from the shared fabric of the commons.