Heimat, fremde Heimat: Renegotiating and Deterritorialising Heimat in New Austrian Film Rachel Louise Green Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of Languages, Cultures and Societies September 2016 i The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. The right of Rachel Louise Green to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. © 2016 The University of Leeds and Rachel Louise Green ii Acknowledgements I would firstly like to thank my supervisors, Dr Chris Homewood and Professor Paul Cooke, for their unending support over the last four years. Without their expertise, guidance and dedication this PhD would not have been possible. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding my project and for providing me with the additional financial support to conduct research at the Vienna Film Archive. Furthermore, I would like to thank the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies at the University of Leeds for providing me with a supportive and stimulating research environment in which to conduct my study. I would also like to extend my thanks to Esther Harper and the Educational Engagement team at Leeds for offering me invaluable part-time work as an Educational Outreach Fellow alongside my research. On a personal level, I wish to thank my family and friends for supporting me and encouraging me during the stressful, tedious and tiresome periods that can often accompany postgraduate study. Without their love and support I would never have been able to complete this thesis. In particular, I would like to thank Elizabeth Ward for her therapeutic and enlightening coffee-dates, my sisters for always offering me much-needed distractions, my parents for always believing in me during crises of confidence, and most importantly, my partner, Andrew Wild, for providing me with the love, patience, care and encouragement needed to complete this work. Last but not least, a big thank you goes out to my best pals, Naomi Green, Sukey James and Nicola Simcock, for ‘keeping the dream alive.’ iii Abstract This thesis explores the complex relationship between the concepts of Heimat and Fremde in a number of contemporary Austrian films. Firstly, by revisiting and re-examining a variety of Heimatfilme, from the genre’s inception in the 1920s up until the present day, I aim to draw on the ideas posed by scholars including Johannes von Moltke which challenge the common assumption that Heimat exists in direct opposition to Fremde, and argue that the two seemingly contradictory concepts are in fact mutually contingent on one another. Then, focussing on key works by the New Austrian Filmmakers, Houchang Allahyari (I Love Vienna, 1991), Florian Flicker (Suzie Washington, 1998) and Barbara Albert (Nordrand, 1999), I demonstrate the manner in which these filmmakers continue to draw on the semantics and syntax of the Heimatfilm genre in order to re-evaluate the complex relationship between Heimat and Fremde within the context of post-1990 Europe. These filmmakers, as this thesis demonstrates, return to the Heimatfilm genre as a means to probe issues of space, place, identity and belonging, which, I maintain, also undergo a series of renegotiations and redefinitions within their films. By drawing on contemporary globalisation and migrant and diasporic film studies, and by critically engaging with contemporary Heimat discourse, this thesis seeks to investigate the manner in which these New Austrian Filmmakers attempt to renegotiate and deterritorialise the concept of Heimat in response to the changing needs of an increasingly globalised and multicultural society. iv Contents Acknowledgements………………………………………..………............ii Abstract……………………………………………………………………iii Contents……………………………………………………………………iv List of Figures……………..………………………………………..……viii Introduction…………..……………………………………………………1 Setting the Scene………………………………………………..…...1 Recent Discourses……………………………………………….......3 Towards a Definition…………………………………….……..…...7 Locating the Fremde in Heimat……………………………..….….14 Renegotiating and Deterritorialising Heimat in New Austrian Film …………………………………………………………..……19 Frameworks…………………………………...…………………...26 Structure………………………………………………………...…32 Chapter 1: Retracing the Colourful History of the Heimatfilm……….38 Literary Beginnings………………………………………………..38 Heimat and Nazism: The Bergfilme of the 1920s………………….40 The Classical Heimatfilme of the 1950s………………...…………44 v Deconstructing Heimat in the New German Cinema…………...…62 Deconstructing Heimat (Later) in New Austrian Film……...……..75 Contemporary Engagements with Heimat in Post-Unification German Cinema…………………….……………………………...81 Filling the Void: Contemporary Engagements with Heimat in Post- 1990s New Austrian Film…………………….……………………87 Chapter 2: Constructing Heimat in the Works of Houchang Allahyari……………………………………………………….……….....90 Introduction……………………..…………………………………90 Subjectivity and Autobiography in the (Accented) Films of Allahyari…………………………………………………………...95 A Return to the Rural in Höhenangst (1994)……………..……....101 Impossible Homecomings in Geboren in Absurdistan (2002)……………………………………………………………..107 Constructing Heimat in I Love Vienna (1991)……….………..….114 Culture Clashes in I Love Vienna…………..…………….………116 Cross-Cultural Embracing in I Love Vienna…………..….………125 Vienna as Liminal Space………..……………………,………….134 Conclusion………………………………...……………………...137 vi Chapter 3: Desperately Seeking Heimat in the Works of Florian Flicker…..……………………………………………………………..…139 Introduction……………………………………………………....139 ‘Das ICH ist jener Punkt in ständiger bewegung’ – Mobility and the Search for Self in the Feature Films of Florian Flicker……..……141 Halbe Welt (1993) and the Hei-Sci-Fi………………...………….146 Grenzgänger (2012) and the Heimat-Western………………………156 Suzie Washington (1998) and the Heimat-Road-movie……..…....164 Socio-Political Context…………..……………………………….167 The Road to Nowhere: Closing Open Spaces in Suzie Washington……………………………………………………….172 Tourist Haven/Migrant Hell: Undoing the Austrian Heimat……………………………………………………………186 Conclusion…………………...…………………………………...195 Chapter 4: Deterritorialising Heimat in the Works of Barbara Albert….....................................................................................................198 Introduction……………………..……………………….……….198 Renegotiating Heimat in the Works of Barbara Albert…………..201 vii Homeless at Home: Böse Zellen (2003)………………...………..202 Heimat as Utopia: Fallen (2006)…………………...…………….204 Towards a Multicultural Heimat: Zur Lage: Österreich in sechs Kapiteln (2002)…………………………………………………...207 Deterritorialising Heimat in Nordrand (1999)………………...…210 Towards a Global Vienna…………………………………...……216 Transient Spaces, Transient People………………………………227 The Warzone at Home……………………………………………233 Conclusion………………..………………………………………241 Conclusion……………………………………………………………….245 Filmography………..……..……………………………………………..257 Bibliography………...…………………………………………………...262 viii List of Figures Figure 1: The beautiful untouched German alpine wilderness in Arnold Fanck’s Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü (1929) and Leni Riefenstahl climbing toward the high mystical goal in Das blaue Licht (1932)………………………………………………………………………43 Figure 2: While the Viennese artist Max remains an ‘outsider’ in the film, the Eastern expellee Hubert is able to rekindle a Heimat in the Austrian village of Hochmoos by proving an affinity with the natural landscape and marrying the Heimat girl in Alfons Stümmer’s Echo der Berge (1954)……………………………………………………………………....53 Figure 3: A return to black and white in the West German anti-Heimatfilme of the 1960s and 70s. Close-up shot to represent the cramped living conditions of the poor in Volker Schlöndorff’s Der plötzliche Reichtum der armen Leute von Kombach (1971) and the hunting of the outsider, Abram, in Peter Fleischmann’s Jagdszenen aus Niederbayern (1968)……………………………………………………………………...66 Figure 4: Fernweh: Paul leaves his Heimat of Schabbach for the USA in Edgar Reitz’s Heimat (1984)………………………………………………74 Figure 5: Undoing the majestic mountainous setting in Wolfram Paulus’ Heidenlöcher (1986)……………………………………………………….80 Figure 6: A multi-cultural, bacchanalian, urban Heimat that welcomes people of all walks of life in Fatih Akin’s Soul Kitchen (2009)…………............................................................................................87 Figure 7: New Austrian Film redeploys the critical Heimatfilm mode in Stefan Ruzowitzky’s Die Siebtelbauern (1998)……………………………………………………………………....88 ix Figure 8: Mario leaves the city to find a new life in the Austrian provinces in Houchang Allahyari’s Höhenangst (1994)……………………………………………………………………..103 Figure 9: The Dönmezs and the Strohmeyers eschew ethnic and cultural differences by rejecting a paternity test and choosing to embrace both children together in Houchang Allahyari’s Geboren in Absurdistan (2002)……………………………………………………………………..111 Figure 10: A three-day informal Islamic marriage ceremony allows Ali Mohammed and Marianne to meet in the middle in Houchang Allahyari’s I Love Vienna (1991)……………………………………………………….123 Figure 11: Karol Tarnovsky and Marjam marry in a ceremony that incorporates both cultures in Houchang