Borders: Russia and Eastern Europe as a Crime Scene
Borders: Russia and Eastern Europe as a Crime Scene
The first chapter is concerned with the cinematic narratives of Eastern noir, which adopt a border discourse and imagine Russia (and thereby often Eastern Europe) as a crime scene. In these crime narratives, Russia is essentialised as a crime scene, where the traces of crime comprise evidence of an omnipresent evil emanating from the centre of power. The chapter argues moreover that whereas Russia serves as the ‘great Other’, in whose gaze the small nations from the Nordic region are controlled and overseen, Eastern Europeans function merely as unfamiliar, rather than threatening, ‘others’. By juxtaposing diversity of genres, including popular Nordic action films (Orion’s Belt and Born American), two documentaries and a television series (Occupied), the chapter shows that the hegemonic Eastern noir narrative, although persistent in mainstream cinema, functions across various modes of cinematic expression. The analyses corroborate the fact that border discourse affords the viewers a sense of safety in the increasingly globalised reality.
Keywords: Russia, Eastern Europe, small nation, crime scene, crime narratives, great Other, Nordic action films, Orion’s Belt, Born American, Occupied
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