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Bruges as a Philosopher of Digital Refusal (Martin McDonagh's "In Bruges" (2008))

Bibliographic Data

ID22040793
AuthorsArtem Perchyk (0009-0002-4917-7846, V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, corresponding author)
Year2025
Issue72
Publication date2025-06-30
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of V N Karazin Kharkiv National University Series Philosophy Philosophical Peripeteias (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2226-0994 • E-ISSN: 2414-5904
PublisherV. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.26565/2226-0994-2025-72-16
OpenAlexW4414334260
LanguageEN
References cited14

This article proposes, for the first time, a philosophical reading of the film «In Bruges» through the lens of the «digital refusal» concept. In contrast to traditional interpretations focusing on the crime plot or existential motives, this research unveils a unique metaphysical dimension of the film, where the medieval city of Bruges emerges as a fully-fledged philosophical subject resisting the algorithmic logic of modernity. The innovative approach lies in treating the urban space not as a scenographic backdrop, but as an active actant influencing the temporal and ethical parameters of the narrative. The author's concept of «city-as-code» opens a fundamentally new perspective on understanding the urban environment as a proto-algorithmic structure operating according to a logic distinct from digital perceptions of time and space. This view radically differs from existing interpretations of urban semiotics in cinema and urban studies. The paper identifies a previously unarticulated problem of «ontological lag» – a specific state of the digital modern subject who finds themselves in an environment incompatible with the logic of algorithmic operations and network communication. This interpretation allows for a new understanding of the film's visual strategy as a deliberate media glitch that prevents a cathartic perception of the main characters' ethical drama. The proposed interpretation of the aesthetics of slowness and opacity in the film is fundamentally new, not as a stylistic device, but as a philosophical gesture that exposes the fundamental contradiction between digital temporality and the analog mode of presence. These reading challenges conventional notions of a unidirectional process of the digitalization of cultural experience. Of particular value is the proposed typology of «digital subjects» in a state of glitch, which opens a new approach to analyzing characters in contemporary cinema as carriers of various forms of temporal dissonance. For the first time in the context of film analysis and media philosophy, the problem of «ethics without an audience» – moral choices that occur outside the logic of digital publicity – is articulated. The research paves the way for the formation of a new interdisciplinary field combining media theory, the philosophy of ethics, and digital aesthetics to understand the transformations of subjectivity in the post-digital age

Contradiction · Existentialism · Movie theater · Semiotics · Temporality · Cinema and Media Studies · Cybernetics and Technology in Society · Digital Games and Media

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