Madrid: Neo-colonial spacing in contemporary Spanish cinema?

This study argues that, despite numerous claims for major transnational and transcultural developments in European Cinema, Spanish Cinema is still very much governed by mono-cultural concepts, which are reflected in the cinematic landscape. Like in German Migrant Cinema (Rings 2008), this tendency is based on (neo-)colonial paradigms which continue to inform official discourse and can be found as re-inscriptions in the films, even if they fight patterns of neo-colonial exploitation and racial discrimination within the boundaries of what is supposed to be the official model for intercultural relations: Madrid (see Empresa Municipal 2008 below). The examples chosen for this exploration are Las cartas de Alou (Armendáriz 1990) and Taxi (Saura 1996), as they mark key periods in the development of Spanish Cinema about migration (see Santaolalla 2007), promise a deconstruction of separatist concepts, and include the Spanish capital in their focus. By drawing on post-colonial, transcultural, sociological and spatial theories, this study investigates the correlation between cinematic and official texts from a neo-colonial perspective largely ignored by contemporary film criticism. In its focus on the spatial framing of natives and migrants, the analysis will try to answer two key questions: 1) What are the main characteristics of neo-colonial urban imagery in the case of Madrid, and how are these represented in official and cinematic discourse? 2) What are the alternatives the films have to offer, and which are their limits?