Enter Freely, and of Your Own Will”: Cinematic Representations of Post-Socialist Transnational Journeys

Abstract

The current literature on what is now called “transnational feminist studies” has recently been taken to task by some critics who point out how its “politics of location” operate primarily within the first/third world axis. Indeed, as Katarzyna Marciniak comments, this literature has little to say about the postcommunist second world, “as if the Second World, as a conceptual category and an actual geopolitical region, did not exist, despite the fact that the second world has changed the most thoroughly and the most rapidly in association with neoliberal globalization” (2006, xv). In light of this concern, my essay seeks to respond to Marciniak’s invitation to expand the scope of transnational feminist studies, so that “the voices and perspectives from the Second World may find their way into the field that many consider a radical and indispensable direction for feminist studies” (2005, 4). To do this, I propose an examination of contemporary cinematic representations of three post-socialist journeys. My focus here is primarily on Pawel Pawlikowski’s Last Resort (United Kingdom, 2000). In analyzing the critical reception and spectatorial investments of this film, I compare it to Lukas Moodysson’s Lilya 4-Ever (Sweden, 2002) and align its representational practices with those of Michael Haneke’s Code Unknown (France, 2000).

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