From the Casbah to P?re Jules?s cabin: theorising the exotic-abject in 1930s French cinema

This essay examines two oft-commented on films of 1930s France, P?p? le Moko (Julien Duvivier, 1937) and L?Atalante (Jean Vigo, 1934). The author argues that representations of the exotic in both films are best understood in conjunction with Julia Kristeva?s conceptualisation of abjection. Although both films are representative of different political discourses and cultural movements (colonialist for P?p? le Moko, Surrealist and therefore presumably anti-colonial for L?Atalante), they meet in their representation of the exotic Other, who is at once destabilising and structuring, undermining power and yet ultimately reinforcing its legitimacy. The author concludes that the exotic serves the same purpose as abjection in processes of (national) identity formations, processes which exclude, draw frontiers and help determine with certainty what one is, and what one is not.