Aesthetics and Semiotics of Communication in Visual Language: A Multimodal Criticism on the Short Film of Ismail

Abstract

—This conceptual paper aims to present a multimodal critique of the visual language in the short film Ismail. It analyses the social semiotics represented in the film's composition of image and language, which portrays a day story from the Palestinian visual artist Ismail Shammout (1930-2006) in the diaspora. From an aesthetic perspective, the research focuses on the social construction of an artist's identity through visual language. Such film transforms the artist's narrative into a communicational oeuvre in Arabic to represent an individual description of the Palestinian diaspora, which constructed one of the prominent grand narratives in the modern history of Arab Art. The main character in the film is Ismail, a Palestinian painter who performs his daily job as a candy seller in the streets. The argumentation in this critique depends on the aesthetic manifestations of the social semiotics of Arab Art in the film. Throughout the film's visual language, Ismail keeps representing his thoughts about the characteristics of Arab Art. He is a travelling aesthetician who walks through the desert and sells candy to strangers while talking to a younger kid escorting him through the film. The research's problem corresponds to the need for more investigation into language study, which this research advances to render. The methodology dedicated the aesthetic critique to produce aesthetic research on the film's visual language. Introducing an aesthetic review of visual language and connecting it with sociopolitical semiotics is significant. This research raises awareness of the importance of visual language knowledge in education systems.