La Représentation de la femme comme autre: L'ambiguïté du cinéma de Léa Pool pour une position féministe

The aim of this article is to demonstrate the theoretical relevance of the concept of the other-woman in understanding the sociological, political and historical issues subtending a feminist position of enunciation in the debate over identity. Unfolding the ways in which the cultural discourse of Québécois cinema dismisses sexual difference in debates over national identity, I argue that women's sexual difference is made manifest by a social indifference to the other-subject. The films of the woman director Léa Pool are the object of an in-depth analysis of the paradoxes between a feminist position of enunciation, the critic of a female gaze, and the construction of a feminine subject in film. I argue that, far from opening itself to the possibilities of difference. Pool's work maintains women in a neutral a-political position of alterity, notably by denying a lesbian position in her films.