Through an Orientalist Lens: Colonial Renderings of Poland in German Cinema after 1989
Publication Title
Edinburgh German Yearbook 15: Tracing German Visions of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century
Document Type
Book Chapter
Department or Program
German and Russian Studies
Publication Date
9-20-2022
Abstract
This article proposes to interpret the “Eastern European turn” in German cinema of the last 25 years as an opportunity to revisit the colonial paradigm in German film productions that are set in the German-Polish border area and in Poland. The overview of the films in the text assists in drawing a picture of landscapes still haunted by notions of “adjacent colonization” or “inner colonization” of the East to the present day. Many directors choose Germany’s eastern borderlands as the sites of their films: the borderlands emerge here as sites of hybridity, exposed to foreign trans-border influences and cross-border movements, and subjected to cultural clashes. This portrayal is an instrument for proposing an alternative to the processes of European identity building, for decentralizing and challenging debates about German identity. One of the most fascinating aspects of this instrumentalization of the borderlands is their shifting character over time: as they become more “European” (more integrated into the European political and administrative structures), the sites of hybridity (together with their colonial associations) relocate farther east, to Poland’s eastern border. To illustrate the shift, as well as the emerging critique of the processes of Europeanization that are often charged with neo-colonial practices, the article focuses on two films that offer a particularly interesting treatment of colonial tropes: Schröders wunderbare Welt (Schröder’s Wonderful World, dir. Michael Schorr, 2006) and Hochzeitspolka (Wedding Polka, dir. Lars Jessen and Przemysław Nowakowski, 2010).
Recommended Citation
Kazecki, Jakub. “Through an Orientalist Lens: Colonial Renderings of Poland in German Cinema after 1989.” In Edinburgh German Yearbook 15: Tracing German Visions of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, edited by Jenny Watson, Michel Mallet, and Hanna Schumacher, 133–54. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2022.
Comments
The book that includes this chapter, Tracing German Visions of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, is a part of the series Edinburgh German Yearbook.
Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781800103221.006