After the wall: touring the European border space in post-1989 French-language cinema

Abstract

This article examines French-language films produced after, and sometimes inspired by, the fall of the Berlin Wall and of communism in Eastern Europe. Commentators such as Alain Badiou have argued that that post-Wall ‘borderless’ Europe has failed to live up to its promise and cinema has taken a leading role in mapping what ‘Fortress Europe’ looks like from those literally or figuratively on the outside. I propose in this essay a different angle of vision, one that takes into account cinematic representations of what I label ‘touring’, an activity related to the often-maligned practice of tourism. Tourism, however, is changing and is often seen under a new light, particularly in Europe, where it is believed to have a crucial role in the construction of European citizenship. Low-cost air travel made possible by deregulation of the airline industry has made borderless travel within Europe increasingly affordable and common. The touring on display in eight cinematic case studies addressed here combines tourism with a variety of other practices that include work, study and ‘visiting friends and relatives’. I argue that this cinematic activity within the ‘soft border’ (K. Eder, 2006. ‘Europe's Borders: The Narrative Construction of the Boundaries of Europe'. European Journal of Social Theory 9 (2): 255–271) space of Europe or ‘borderland Europe’ (É. Balibar, 2009. ‘Europe as Borderland’. Society and Space, 27: 190–215) – in other words, the spaces within the EU and Schengen Zone – promotes what Balibar has called ‘translation’ and a variety of encounters with the potential to engender transnational hybridity and new, flexible notions of identity.