By his own admission, French studies Professor Marc Olivier concedes that horror films are rarely considered high art. French horror films, which lack the excessive gore and violence often found in their blockbuster American counterparts, have done little to draw international attention to themselves. Nonetheless, Olivier has a passion for these films and argues that this "seemingly frivolous" art form deserves academic attention-but not because of outstanding cinematic quality.
"My reasons for studying recent French horror," Olivier said, "have much more to do with social commentary than with ... cinematic critique."
In a lecture titled "Border Horror: Identity Anxiety in recent French Cinema" given in the Kennedy Center Wednesday, Olivier argued that recent French horror films give insight to the national identity issues that France faces today
"I believe," Olivier said, "we can learn a lot about current social problems in France by understanding what the French fear. For while fear may be universal, the objects of our fear are certainly not."
Olivier named this new film sub-genre "Border Horror," because of its tendency to express French identity anxiety through geographical displacement and conflict. Each film has some sort of border symbol and contains other symbols representing French identity issues. Olivier said the symbolically represented issues, or fears, are security and immigration, the expansion of the European Union and the growth of the extreme right Front National Party- all of which affect the French national identity crisis.
One example Olivier cited was the film "High Tension" by Alexander Aja. In the film, the protagonist, Marie, also turns out to be the antagonist when it is revealed after car chases and many bloody battles that she is actually a killer.
"How better to represent the conflicted identity of France than by staging a Jekyll and Hyde duel between a young law student and a brutish country thug," Olivier said. "Both of whom share an unhealthy fixation on a young immigrant."
Olivier said the cosmopolitan diversity versus rural racism model has become a staple of French Border Horror.
