Cinema of crisis: film and contemporary Europe

Cinema of Crisis: Film and Contemporary Europe came out two years after the symposium upon which it was based, and which took place at the University of Leeds in 2018. By the time of the book’s release, then, the financial crisis that had most likely motivated this initiative, even if its effects were still being felt, had been overcome in most European countries – only for a very different crisis to hit Europe, as well as the rest of the world. Indeed, 2020 will certainly be remembered as one of the most difficult years in recent decades, with the pandemic caused by the Covid-19 virus having permanent implications for the globe’s political, social and cultural life. While it may seem irrelevant to read this collection of essays through the lens of Covid-19, since no one could foresee what was to come during the period of the book’s production, many of the issues raised by Cinema of Crisis are not only tied to, but have also been exacerbated by the pandemic. And this connection to the pandemic contributes to the volume’s ongoing relevance. A timely contribution to important debates arising in Europe and contemporary film about intersectional forms of marginality and discrimination, Austin and Koutsourakis nonetheless face a key challenge when writing about Europe, namely to present a comprehensive rather than a merely comparative approach. Although the volume’s case studies are clearly focused on different European countries, the European dimension is, however, not foregrounded by the editors – and the reader is not told how many pieces from or about which countries are included in the book, with many of the chapters addressing films and national contexts covered elsewhere in the volume. If the European dimension is not clearly addressed, the crisis also appears as too vague a signifier for the volume’s main title to emerge as particularly meaningful. The introduction collates a series of statements about the state of the world without telling the reader what the potential implications are of the facts described, or how contemporary European cinema can help us to rethink these topics beyond an illustrative character. A telling paragraph of the vagueness that characterises the introduction’s writing, could, until its very last words, be about any film style, period or grouping. As follows: