On shifting sands: Exploring the role of the third space in new Basque cinema’s Pikadero and Oreina

Abstract

Cinema is a powerful tool for depicting and critically addressing the dual nature of identity (composed of both individual and social traits). This article analyses two underrated titles of the post-2005 wave of Basque-language cinema: Pikadero (Sharrock 2015) and Oreina (The Deer) (Almandoz 2018). In both films, certain liminal third spaces – the ‘non-places’ coined by Augé and the ‘in-between’ spaces formulated by Bhabha – seem to interact with the misfit characters, who live between rootedness and lack of belonging within a new social context created by the influx of migrants and the economic crisis in the Basque Country. The article argues that these on-screen third spaces (mainly the railway station and the peripheral marshlands in Pikadero and The Deer, respectively) become a kind of resilient deuteragonist in their own right, i.e. witnesses or accomplices to the protagonists’ wanderings and their shallow and fleeting relationships. There is, however, a difference between the non-places featured in Pikadero, which mainly evoke solitude and similarity, and those in-between spaces present in The Deer. The latter appear as metaphorical hybrid places that can harbour otherness and foster collective solidarity, thus playing a role in shaping the new centrality of Basque identity.