Australian Journal of French Studies

Abstract

This article appraises Chantal Akerman's La Folie Almayer, freely adapted from Joseph Conrad, as a creative extension of the source text which both moves beyond and converges with the original in its representation of exile, alterity and flawed cultural and racial encounters. Transcending the geo-political and temporal specificities of the novel and embracing a female perspective, Akerman revisits Conrad's interrogation of colonialism from a personal and contemporary vantage point. By crossing the source with other intertexts and fusing fiction with autobiography, she creates a work that productively decentres and "creolises" the original. Akerman's refusal of fixed identitarian models and her opposition to the narrative conventions of mainstream cinema form a cinematic strategy of resistance concomitant with Conrad's critique of the colonial project.