From Polski Crash to Meine polnische Jungfrau: Orientalizing Poland in the German Cinema of the 1990s
Abstract
This article examines how German anxieties about reunification and shifting borders are represented through Orientalist portrayals of Polish women in two post-reunification films, Polish Crash, dir. Kaspar Heidelbach (1993), and My Polish Maiden, dir. Douglas Wolfsperger (2001). Building upon Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism and the idea that the concept of East-Central Europe has been invented as a counterimage of the “West” (Larry Wolff), the analysis reveals how depictions of Polish women as pas-sive, vulnerable, and in need of German male assistance serve to reassert German masculinity in the face of perceived social and economic threats from the “East.” The article argues that these films perpetuate long-standing colonial paradigms within German discourse on Poland that cast Poland as an uncivilized other, and Polish women as feminized objects of control, reaffirming German cultural superiority. By analyzing specific narrative and visual strategies in both films, the text highlights the persistence of Ori-entalist representations of Poland in German post-unification cinema and their role in constructing national and gendered identities in the context of Germany’s changing geopolitical landscape.