Europe lost and found: Serbian cinema and EU integration (original) (raw)
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Culture and politics of post-national cinemas of the Balkans
Thomas Elsaesser pointed out in his seminal book European Cinema / Face to face with Hollywood (2005) that in the post-national period “Films’ attention to recognizable geographical places and stereotypical historical periods” begun to “echo Hollywood’s ability to produce ‘open’ texts that speak to a diversity of public, while broadly adhering to the format of classical narrative.” (p. 82) No matter how much this tendency had appeared in the past in the cinemas of the Balkans, not so rarely also in the period of “national” cinemas under communism, we have to deal today with small cinemas, which in most part confirm just mentioned hypotheses. This holds true in the case of many feature films, which deconstruct the past, but it could be proven in an increasing number of feature films, which make use of genre codes or simply try to work on globalized topics. However, at the same time, the location of the Balkans, its immeasurable cultural diversity, reach and in many respects baffling violent history remains to be a ground for some singular visualisations and dramatization in films by younger generations of film makers. On the other hand the “language” of visual media interferes into the formation of local cultures. Furthermore, digital technologies, which work not only in favour of democratisation and accessibility of contemporary visual media, are modifying perceptions and modes of appropriating cultural traditions. In such a framework aesthetics become interlaced with the social context and political statements in the cinema. Therefore aesthetics cannot be so transparently formulated as they could have been in times, when they made use of metaphors and “hidden” messages. Small cinemas of the Balkans nevertheless enter the world cinema as rather “readable” to global audiences and especially to those, who attend many film festivals. Keywords: film, socialism, post-communism, world cinema, nationalism
In the last decadc anda half, many cultural and social commentators have thcorized thc reconfis,ruration of thr geopolitical space of the Eumpran Union (EU) through the increasing prescnce of a wide variety of ethnicitics and nationalities. Tñis essay takes Dirty Prctty Things (Stcphen Frears, 2002) as a point of dcparture in ordcr to analysc how conternporary cinema captures thr ambivalent status of íllcgal ímmigrants inside thc Eumpcan global cityscape. First, it cxplains how the film rcprcscnts thc imrni::,rrants' subjcctivity in tenns of their split consciousncss between thcir homeland and their country of adoption. Second, it scrutinizes how the ímmigrant social body mayor may not function asan effective actor in the social fiel d. Thírd, it studies how Frrars utilizes a widc rangc of grneric dcviccs to situatc his film into the rcalm of popular culture. Fourth, it defines the concrpt of popular cinema and evaluatcs its role as a fonn of política! agrncy in the contcrnporary historical milieu. To conclude, this essay qucstions European cinrma asan all-encompassing concept that Jails to capture thc cultural and lini-,tUistic divrrsity of the Europear1 films that it is supposcd to define. Film scholarship is now attempting to explore the cffects on thc ways in which cinema is produced, cxhibited and consumed today in thc European KEVWORDS Frcars popular cinema European cinema immigrati(m política! film-making citizcnship