Crossing the (Inner) Borders: Aesthetics and Identity Policies in Contemporary European Cinema

In the last twenty years, European cinema has frequently represented the ongoing changes in the geopolitical asset. Many films address globalization issues – both in their economic and cultural consequences, also narrating the lives of migrants and diasporic subjects. Women’s cinema has been involved in this new configuration of the world, with particular attention to the transnational approach to the cultural context, and to the representation of gender relations. Many films address the lives of first or second-generation migrants (see for example Depuis qu’Otar est parti, Since Otar Left, Julie Bertuccelli, Georgia-France-Belgium, 2003, and the films directed by Gurinder Chadha in UK), or create a metaphorical journey across the borders of differences, approaching a problematic representation of gender identity and subjectivity inside the otherwise dominant culture (see A mi madre le gustan las mujeres, My Mother Likes Women, Daniela Féjerman and Inés París, Spain, 2002, or Hævnen, In a Better World, Susanne Bier, Denmark, 2010). The chapter addresses the representation of gender proposed by some of these films, dealing with their articulation of differences in society, families, and subjects. In particular, the chapter emphasizes the idea of the world as configuration and narration enhanced by these films, that interrogate the transnational perspective face to face with the Eurocentric one. Moreover, this configuration contributes to the representation of gender as performance, and to the consequent imbrication between the intimate, private, and public spheres. The past and the present are both consciously proposed as personal narrations, often with a complex visualization of the gendered subjects, related to a reflection about cinematographic genres. These films then represent a journey across differences, that can be both physical and metaphorical, questioning the idea of the border itself. Therefore, the chapter addresses a film like Regarde moi (Ain’t Scared, Audrey Estrougo, France, 2007), that emphasizes the clash of gender and cultural identities inside a small neighbourhood. Through the scattered spatial-temporal construction and the gendered configuration of everyday life, this film proposes the border as an intimate and social discourse at the same time. But the chapter addresses as well the literal crossing of borders that are proposed by Almanya: Wilkommen in Deutschland (Almanya: Welcome to Germany, Yasemin and Nesrin Samdereli, Germany-Turkey, 2011); here, the historical past becomes a nostalgic and epic family narrative, and the present cultural conflicts are displayed in the spatial dialectic between the exotic Turkey and Germany as a political and economic institution.