ABSTRACT

This article uses Lacanian psychoanalytic terminology and a feminist psychoanalytic theoretical framework to analyze the Greek film noirs Efialtis/Nightmare (Erricos Andreou 1961), and O ergenis/The Bachelor (Nikos Panayotopoulos, 1997). While acknowledging both the differences and the similarities between the corresponding sociopolitical and cultural contexts of two films produced during two distinct, but crucial periods in modern Greek history, we argue that both noir texts contain instances (at the level of both form and content) that can be read as potentially subversive in the particular ways they represent gender and sexuality, which they link to paranoia and psychosis.

Keywords: film noir, gender, Greek cinema, neo-noir, psychoanalysis, sexuality