Nikhil Sathe, Ohio University

Family Ties?: Images of Eastern Europeans in Recent Austrian Film

External and internal events since 1989 have led to reassessments and re-positionings of Austrian national identity specifically with regard to Eastern Europe. Not only the fall of the Iron Curtain, the ensuing wars in the former Yugoslavia, and the waves of migrants and refugees from Eastern Europe in Austria, but also Austria’s entry to the European Union, and the electoral success of the xenophobic, and at times anti-Europe and anti-EU expansion Freedom Party have prompted shifts in Austria’s often-touted roles as a bridge between East and West, as the heart of a vaguely defined notion of “Mitteleuropa,” or as a special “relative” of the East through its Habsburg past.

These shifts have been a focus in a number of recent Austrian films. This paper will examine how Barbara Albert’s Nordrand (1999), Barbara Gräftner’s Mein Russland (2002), Andrea Maria Dusl’s Blue Moon (2002), and Susanne Zanke’s Bauernprinzessin (2003) reflect on the Austria’s changing status through their representations of Eastern European characters. Nordrand focuses on four characters struggling with their family pasts in Vienna’s northern skirts, in the Balkans, and in Romania, implicitly questioning notions of home and belonging. The Viennese protagonist of Mein Russland contends with her threatened role as a matriarch as well as her preconceptions of others when the Ukrainian family of her son’s fiancée comes for a visit. In the road movie Blue Moon, the central character travels from Vienna to Odessa in search of his mysterious lover, forcing him to confront his notions of Eastern Europe. Like Nordrand, Bauernprinzessin turns to issues of otherness and belonging, but shifts from metropolitan Vienna to a rural, alpine farm in the Pinzgau where the female protagonist unsettles her family’s inheritance plans when she opts to take control of the farm with her Bosnian Muslim lover.

This paper will examine how these films address the relationship with Eastern Europe and will specifically focus on the prevalent motif of familial relationships. This emphasis reveals the filmmakers’ concern less with a Habsburg legacy than with a more direct engagement in present conflicts centering on globalization and multiculturalism.

Examining four debut films, this paper aims to highlight a vital and promising film culture in Austria.