ABSTRACT

The rebirth of French horror cinema at the start of the twenty-first century coincided with a critical moment in the country’s debates on immigration. The Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) called for cultural assimilation and integration from its immigrant population, but there was also a growing trend in the party towards a more hard-line approach. This article uses Jacques Derrida’s writing on hospitality to propose that the politics of the UMP and questions of identity, immigration and assimilation are key to the renewal of French horror cinema in the first decade of the twenty-first century. It argues that the films Sheitan (Kim Chapiron, 2006), Frontière(s) (Xavier Gens, 2007) and La Meute (Franck Richard, 2010) represent the white French anxiety over the nation’s political move towards the right (as opposed to a fear of the immigrant Other directly), reading these horror films as exhibiting the tension between tolerance and hospitality key to Derrida’s writing. Therefore, this article proposes that the negative depiction of white rural communities, the inclusion of characters of immigrant descent and the emphasis on ‘hosting’ locations such as the hotel and the roadside café reveal a country working through its position as a host nation within Fortress Europe.

摘要

21 世纪初，法国恐怖电影的重生恰逢该国关于移民的辩论的关键时刻。人民运动联盟 (UMP) 呼吁其移民人口进行文化同化和融合，但该党内也出现了越来越强硬的趋势。本文使用雅克·德里达 (Jacques Derrida) 关于好客的著作提出，UMP 的政治以及身份、移民和同化问题是 21 世纪头十年法国恐怖电影复兴的关键。它认为电影Sheitan (Kim Chapiron, 2006), Frontière(s) (Xavier Gens, 2007) 和La Meute（弗兰克·理查德，2010 年）代表了法国白人对国家走向右翼的政治行动的焦虑（而不是直接对移民的恐惧），将这些恐怖片解读为展示了德里达写作关键的宽容和热情好客之间的紧张关系。因此，本文提出，对白人农村社区的负面描述、移民后裔特征的包含以及对酒店和路边咖啡馆等“托管”地点的强调，揭示了一个国家通过其作为堡垒内的东道国的地位而努力。欧洲。