Visual Expansions in Narrating Contemporary Conflicts and History. The Possibilities of Virtual Reality (VR) Films

This article focuses on Virtual Reality films depicting contemporary conflicts, with an emphasis on building viewer-screen relations and considering the cinematographic elements establishing the emotional reaction to the films. Analyzing the visual and narrative architecture of chosen Virtual Reality productions, the author explains correlations between the level of immersion and the viewer’s experience from the perspective of film and media studies. Furthermore, the author uses multimodal critical theory as the primary methodological tool to focus on modes experienced through different sensual channels during the 360° screenings. Moreover, it is also analyzed how the discourse applied in chosen examples influences the presentation of historical events in a Virtual Reality environment. The choice of films, underlining the wide specter of thematic areas that can be covered under the term ‚contemporary conflicts,‘ allows for observing the variety of approaches.