J’ai pas sommeil/[I Can’t Sleep] (1993) takes the viewer to places rarely visited by cinema. It incorporates a number of very personal and intimate moments within which the film’s main characters seem to transgress existing boundaries and classifications. Powerful close-ups, intriguing camera work and subtle dialogue create an atmosphere of mystique and tenderness. The aesthetic framework of Denis’s film produces an almost sensual experience of the underworld of Paris in which despair mixes with obsession, desire turns into violence and the limits of subjectivity become hazy and constantly repositioned. There are a few moments in this film when one witnesses something almost incomprehensible. It might be a touch of hands, the smile of a little boy, or a close-up of a small part of the naked male body. In these instances, the boundaries between the interior and external worlds of the characters who partake of these moments seem to disappear, and we are left to experience something extraordinarily personal. It is in these moments of petite gestures and unobtrusive interactions that Denis places the intellectual weight of the film; namely its problematisation of the questions of migration, identity and belonging.
In J’ai pas sommeil the problem of belonging is explored in the context of the migrant and post-migrant identities of the socalled ‘Others.’ The film focuses on the way in which the presence of the Others influences and shifts the social dynamics of the Western
European urban space.
i As such, it links the problem of belonging with notions of migrancy, transnationalism and social otherness. In this sense, the title can be seen as an introduction to the film’s intellectual trajectory. By relating to the problem of sleeplessness, the title suggests a narrative partially focused on the notions of distress and anxiety. Arguably, in the wider context, the title introduces the question of the problematic position of the migrant Other within the contemporary European urban space.
In this sense, sleeplessness refers to the Others’ reappearing experiences of exclusion and otherness. Consequently, Denis presents us with the vision of early 1990s Paris as a city full of poignant and acute stories concerning those who remain at the margins of society and whose belonging within the Western European paradigm remains limited and problematic. This article will investigate the film’s representation of the migrant Others and their fragile experiences of belonging, intertwined with a sense of exclusion and social separation.
Drawing on that, this article will then explore how the film indicates a possibility of a new form of belonging, located outside the binaries dividing the contemporary European urban landscape, somewhere in the space shared by the Others. Therefore, I will argue that the film
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In J’ai pas sommeil, Denis manages to capture the uncanny moment of interaction between individuals with strangely ambiguous and fluid identities. That is to say, Denis focuses on characters whose experiences seem difficult; almost impossible to categorise or fully comprehend. Throughout the narrative, the film’s main characters seem to be negotiating their
‘place’ within the urban space of Paris. They appear to be unable fully to become a part of any of the social milieus or communities that surround them. Daïga (Katerina Golubeva) is a
Lithuanian ‘illegal immigrant,’ whose first experiences of Paris turn out to be disappointing and distressing. When her greataunt (Irina Grejbina) introduces her to a small community of Slav migrants, Daïga ignores them, as if symbolically refusing to position herself as one of them. She is hoping to become an actress, but this desire proves futile when the theatre director who promised Daïga a job sends her away empty-handed. Unwilling to integrate with the community of Eastern-
European migrants, and unable to become a part of the mainstream, middle-class milieu (in this context, symbolically represented by the successful theatre director) Daïga takes a job as a cleaner at a hotel. The hotel belongs to her aunt’s friend Ninon (Line Renaud), who agrees to help Daïga. Daïga becomes an invisible
‘illegal immigrant’: she is positioned in a no man’s land—in between the social spaces and categories that surround her, as if she were a phantom floating within the alienating and complex world of Paris.
Furthermore, Daïga does not speak
French, as a result of which she is always
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positioned at a certain distance from the
Parisian urban landscape.
z In this context,
Corinne Oster argues that, ‘[…]Daïga’s inability to speak French is not a problem preventing her from understanding what is going on around her; rather, it gives her the opportunity to distance herself from it.’ I agree with Oster that the inability to speak the language allows Daïga to distance herself from Parisian reality, however, I think that it is worth emphasising that it also limits her ability to experience her surroundings and engage with the people who surround her. As such, she remains outside the possibility of belonging, on the outskirts of the space shared by the mainstream, unable to truly comprehend and communicate with those who surround her.
Moreover, Daïga’s position as a distant observer is gracefully underlined by the film’s aesthetics. In numerous medium shots, we see
Daïga strolling around the Parisian boulevards, always somehow disengaged from her background, as if she were unavailable to those who surround her. Images of the Parisian landscape featuring Daïga bring to mind the works of the
Impressionists, as they seem comprehensible only when perceived from a certain distance.
The camera refuses to capture the rest of the neighbourhood or the close proximity of Daïga’s surroundings. As a result we perceive Daïga as a discrete part of the Parisian metropolis.
Moreover, the vastness of the urban landscape conveys an atmosphere of alienation, dislocation and exclusion. Daïga is surrounded by people, yet she seems distanced from them, separated by her invisibility, ‘illegality,’ and inability to speak their language. These images of distantiation and alienation signify Daïga’s non-belonging within the urban landscape that surrounds her. She becomes caught in-between spaces of belonging, unable to be a part of any of them. Consequently, we could argue that she belongs to the spaces of dislocation—the streets she wanders through at night, and the hotel at which she works as a cleaner. In this context, it

K AMIL Z APASNIK | O UTSIDE THE M AINSTREAM is worth considering the significance of the hotel. It symbolises a place to which no one truly belongs, a place where no one stays permanently; it is an allegory of constant change. Thus, Daïga lives in the place of transition.
The cinematic spaces of dislocation and alienation (such as hotels, wide roads or highways), which reappear throughout Denis’s film, bring to mind the notion of ‘accented cinema.’ This term, created by Hamid Naficy, relates to the type of filmmaking, which focuses on the experiences of exile, migration and ambiguous identities. Moreover, in his analysis of ‘accented cinema,’ Naficy lists the type of places that ‘accented filmmakers’ employ in order to convey the sense of dislocation, such as hotels, airports and trains (222-69). In her films,
Denis uses these types of locations in order to express a sense of emotional and communal dislocation. Her works cannot, however, be regarded as a typical example of ‘accented cinema’ as she herself is not a migrant Other, and consequently she cannot be regarded as an
‘accented filmmaker,’ according to Naficy’s concept. Nevertheless, the type of aesthetics which Naficy associates with the concept of
‘accented filmmaking’ continuously reappear in
J’ai pas sommeil. Significantly, it is the space of the hotel that connects Daïga with Camille
(Richard Courcet), one of the other two main characters of the film.
Camille is the film’s most intriguing and, at the same time, most dramatic and disturbing character. His plotline is based on the infamous case of Thierry Paulin.
ii Camille is a black, nonheterosexual and uneducated serial killer of immigrant origin. Significantly, his migratory status itself is quite problematic and needs further unpacking. Camille’s mother is from
Martinique, a French overseas territory, and as such all of his family (Camille, his brother Théo and their mother), are French citizens.
iii
Nevertheless, an important part of their cultural heritage is Caribbean and therefore different to mainstream French culture. This creates a complex situation: Camille could be considered a post-migrant, a person born in a given country of immigrant parents. However, the fact that
Camille’s mother is from Martinique problematises this definition some-what and points to the limits and inadequacy of such concepts and categories altogether.
Camille’s ambiguous social status corresponds with the experiences of the socalled ‘second-generation migrants’ explored by
Mireille Rosello. In her analysis of the social situation of the children of North African immigrants, Rosello elaborates on the ways in which the definition of ‘second-generation’ migrants is being used and points to the absurdity of such labels. As Rosello observes, ‘It would be foolish to assume that all the Italian,
Polish, or Spanish immigrants who came to
France at the beginning of the twentieth century have gone back “home,” and yet no
Polish or Italian “second generation” seems to have materialized in the French cultural unconscious’ (90). Despite Camille’s non-
Maghreb origin, his partially ‘post-migratory’ status seems to be intertwined with what
Rosello problematises as the ‘second-generation’ phenomena. Camille is placed in between different social categories. He is a French citizen, but his post-migratory identity stops him from becoming part of the mainstream. At the same time, he has no real connection with his migrant roots. Consequently, the film portrays him as someone who does not belong anywhere, as he moves between different social spaces, always located on the outskirts, only occasionally part of a milieu.
Denis depicts Camille as a complex character, whose alluring beauty and occasional gentleness intertwine with his taste for violence.
The film juxtaposes, for example, the scenes in which Camille visits his mother (for whom he seems to have a deep affection and respect), with the scenes which show him violently abusing his boyfriend. This type of juxtaposition reappears throughout the film, establishing
Camille as an internally complex character.
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Moreover, the hotel, as his place of residence, emphasises his permanent status of nonbelonging. Like Daïga, Camille wanders around the boulevards, caught in a constant transition between the different parts of the urban landscape. He seems lost among the crowds as the camera captures him in numerous mediumshots (which stress the limits of his access to the city that surrounds him). Nickolaj Lübecker describes the essence of Camille’s fluid identity by observing that, ‘Camille, in particular, strolls around in what resembles a state of existential jet lag: a condition where you are no longer sure about the limits of your subjectivity but seem to be floating between a position as subject and object’ (25). As this suggests, the question of
Camille’s location in-between different possibilities of belonging relates to his ambiguous and fragmented subjectivity. The film exposes the interplay between these two concepts in a powerful and unusual scene depicting Camille’s performance in a drag show.
The scene uses limited lighting in its portrayal of the interior of a bare and modestlooking nightclub, which seems to be located underground. The space is filled with men who are standing in very close proximity to the centre of the corridor. Camille appears dressed in his drag outfit—a dark, velvet dress and an elastic band over his head. His make-up is rather plain, and instead of wearing high-heeled shoes, he performs barefoot.
iv Slowly and rhythmically, Camille walks down the corridor—he is seducing the audience, which surrounds him from every angle, positioned literally inches from where he performs. The audience consists solely of men who seem mesmerised and fascinated by Camille’s show, during which he lip-syncs to a song Le temps du
lien défait.
v At this moment of the film, he becomes, le lien défait [the broken link], a person caught in-between the categories and communities—simultaneously a non-heterosexual, part of the family of migrants, a serial killer, a tender lover and an uneducated victim of HIV. Camille belongs and does not belong; he shifts from the position as the Other to being an insider, and back again. He is surrounded by a group of men, who stand literally an inch away from him, but he seems distant and unavailable.
His masculinity intertwines with his delicate femininity, while his artistic nature vibrates through his muscular body. The scene captures the contradictory nature of Camille’s fragmented personality, which allows us to see how he wants to be a part of the community and yet seems distant from it, disconnected, not truly present.
This sense of detachment reappears in the sequences focused on Camille committing murder, or spending time with his family. One such scene centres on Camille and his brother,
Théo, visiting their mother on her birthday.
While Camille smiles and brings a generous amount of provisions for the party, he nevertheless appears absent and distant. This becomes particularly noticeable when the camera focuses on the dance between Théo and his mother. Their dance seems to represent a genuine expression of emotional closeness.
They embrace closely and visibly enjoy this moment of intimate, familial connection. When a moment later the film moves on to Camille dancing with his mother, the atmosphere changes abruptly. Camille’s behaviour, namely his peculiar smile and reserved way of dancing signifies emotional distance, a strange coping mechanism, perhaps. Even in this moment of physical interaction with his closest family,
Camille seems reluctant to expose himself emotionally.
Importantly, a similar conclusion can be drawn from the way in which the film portrays the moments showing Camille committing murders. Notably, Camille does not seem to enjoy committing crimes. Moreover, even though he shares these moments with his boyfriend, he does not emotionally connect with him. He simply performs his task as if the murders were just another part of their
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K AMIL Z APASNIK | O UTSIDE THE M AINSTREAM mundane lives. By choosing to depict Camille’s murders in such a low-key fashion, Denis emphasises the profound sadness of his predicament. In this context, Todd McGowan contrasts Camille’s persona with other serial killers portrayed in cinema (such as Hannibal
Lecter for instance), to underline Camille’s lack of pleasure in killing, something which once again points to the complexity and unconventionality of his character (McGowan).
Thus, the film shows him as an unusually intricate person who is never truly present, always somehow absent, whilst his life seems to be dominated by the ceaseless desire to belong.
Indeed, Camille seems obsessed with the need to become a part of the wealthy middleclass milieu. The film shows him out to dinner with his white and middle class friends, where he pays for the meal, desperate to earn the privilege of being accepted as a part of the group. At the same time, Denis skilfully points to the limits of his potential to belong to this mainstream milieu.
vi Among other characters, the scene in the restaurant features a man to whom the group refers as ‘the doctor.’ In the setting of the restaurant, Camille and ‘the doctor’ appear to be friends and equals.
However, only a moment later we see Camille siting in the waiting area of the hospital, while the ‘the doctor’ walks by. Camille makes a gesture of salutation to which the doctor’s response is almost impossible to discern. Here, within the doctor’s professional environment,
Camille becomes brutally ‘othered,’ and his non-mainstream characteristics, his lack of education, his blackness and queerness, suddenly reappear as if erecting a painful barrier, symbolically dividing the two worlds and positioning Camille, once again, as the Other.
Thus, Camille’s belonging to the mainstream is shown as conditional and always, to a certain degree, limited. His desire to escape his ‘otherness’ and to symbolically erase its social and cultural marks correlate with his extreme longing to belong.
vii In her description of the psycho-killer of contemporary French cinema, Martine Beugnet argues that ‘[…] behind a presence that evokes a lack, the representation of an absence, lurk disturbing forms of “hyperconformity”’ (Negotiating
Conformity 204). The term ‘hyperconformity’ fits the discussion perfectly here, as it points to
Camille’s desperate and extreme level of conformism and his obsession with belonging to the milieu which offers him only a limited and conditional inclusion. In this context, the film relates to the ideas developed and discussed by
French Martinique-born psychiatrist and theoretician, Frantz Fanon. In his writings, especially in Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon discusses the neurosis of the black man experiencing post-colonial trauma and its social and psychological consequences. One of the important notions that Fanon discusses is the relationship between cultural alienation and the ambivalence of psychic identification. This concept seems particularly applicable to
Camille’s psychotic identity and his hyperconformist tendencies. Fanon argues that for a black person positioned in the ‘white world,’ ‘The goal of his behaviour will be the
Other (in the guise of the white man), for the
Other alone can give him worth’ (154).
Considered in this sense, Camille’s obsession with belonging symbolises his personal fight for being considered worthy of the mainstream.
One could argue that he desperately wishes to erase his blackness and gain the acceptance and approval of his white, mainstream friends.
This self-destructive psychotic drive leads Camille to the murders, which he commits solely in order to gain money. He is consumed with the need to ‘buy’ himself into the mainstream and the crimes appear to be a relatively easy way of achieving it. Thus, we could interpret Camille’s murderous acts as directly intertwined with his need to gain access to the world of the mainstream, his desire to belong and blend in. Martine Beugnet points to
Camille’s crimes as related to his desire to have money in order to be able to live a lavish and outgoing life within the Parisian middle class, nightclub milieu. Beugnet further emphasises
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Camille’s materialistic desires and argues that the murders appear to him as a logical part of the consumption-driven life (Claire Denis 97).
In this sense, we can read Camille’s desire to become a part of the mainstream as intertwined with a wish to cease being black. The need to make money derives from and simultaneously reinforces the longing to be acknowledged as a part of the group, but Camille’s dream never leaves the realm of impossibility.
In its portrayal of the stories concerning
Daïga and Camille, J’ai pas sommeil confronts us with a vision of the Parisian urban landscape as a place of alienation and social exclusion experienced by the migrant Others, whose different experiences of otherness (such as being an ‘illegal immigrant,’ or a black nonheterosexual) create barriers and divisions symbolically separating them from the mainstream. In this sense, both Daïga and
Camille are constantly negotiating their belonging while they remain on the outskirts of the Parisian urban landscape. However, the film also includes a very peculiar and powerful scene, which could be interpreted as a suggestion that a different type of belonging is possible.
N EW F ORMS OF B ELONGING
This scene occurs towards the end of the film. It is a strange sequence which has attracted a lot of attention from various critics engaging with the works of Denis. Nikolaj Lübecker, for instance, notes that ‘[t]he remarkable thing about this scene is that there seems to be a real complicity between the two characters; but at the same time there is no relation between them’ (22). Andrew Asibong takes this notion a bit further by arguing that ‘[t]his brief moment of slightly dazed touching at the bar of the café is the one time in the film when Daïga and
Camille are permitted to share something approaching a conscious form of intimacy’ (154).
While Beugnet describes the scene by pointing out that, ‘[c]aptured in close-up, a fleeting moment of contact, two hands brushing against each other with an almost imperceptible slowmotion effect, suffices to create an ambiguous feeling, where threat, unspoken desire, and closeness mingle’ (Claire Denis 90).
I wish to explore this unusual sequence here, because I believe that it indicates a potential for a new understanding, a new way of conceptualising the idea of belonging. As the film progresses, Camille and Daïga’s stories share certain similarities, but their paths never cross. Daïga is fascinated by Camille’s personal artefacts, which she admires while cleaning his hotel room, but, until almost the end of the film, the two do not meet. Towards the end of the film, Daïga notices Camille leaving the hotel and she decides to follow him. He walks through the Parisian boulevards. The evening is about to begin, the city skyline gets darker, the lamps and nightlights slowly come to life. The wide anonymous streets of Paris are portrayed as Camille’s natural territory, something that he unknowingly shares with Daïga. The urban spaces of alienation, which symbolise the fragmented nature of life in a metropolis, are what connects the two characters.
After a while, Camille enters a small café.
Daïga follows him inside. The camera work is exceptional in this sequence, as the scene unfolds in what feels like slow-motion. Camille sits by the bar and orders a glass of wine. Daïga asks for a coffee. A close-up catches Camille’s smile and we realise that the two are aware of each other’s presence. Although they do not talk, the scene captures a moment of very intimate interaction. In a slow, unhurried manner, the scene establishes a sense of separating and protecting these two Others from the brutality of the outside world. Camille and Daïga connect, in an almost mystical, phantasmic way. Through this moment of interaction they become separated from everybody else and intimately connected. This intimate connection allows them to transcend otherness and, for a moment
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K AMIL Z APASNIK | O UTSIDE THE M AINSTREAM only, they become free of their categories, exempted from their otherness. When Camille passes Daïga a sachet of sugar, the camera goes into an extreme close-up, and we see their hands touching, for a very brief moment, maybe just for a second. A moment later Camille stands up, and as he walks out, utters a quiet
‘Salut,’ to which Daïga replies faintly, with an enchanted smile on her face, as if she has just experienced something truly exceptional.
This intimate moment of the caféinteraction seems distant from the film’s complex and poignant narrative. For a very brief moment, the two characters whose otherness positioned them on the outskirts of the urban landscape seem to share a protective space of connection; a space within which a new type of belonging could perhaps begin. In this sense, their migrant and ‘post-migrant’ identities, their otherness, Daïga’s ‘illegality,’ and Camille’s numerous stigmas (non-heterosexuality, blackness, and migrant background) cease to exist. Within the moment that the two of them share, all of these categories of stigma and exclusion disappear as they experience each other outside of any such category. Separated from the space of the mainstream, Daïga and
Camille are able to break free from the chains of social categorisation. This allows them to experience a completely different type of interaction, a connection of a sort. In this sense, they negotiate, between themselves, an entirely new type of belonging: unconditional, extremely non-normative, as if completely detached from the mainstream forms of labelling and categorisation. By deconstructing these various forms of otherness, the film captures the moment and space where the new sense and form of belonging can begin.
As such, we need to see the moment of the interaction between these two Others, freed from their otherness, as the starting point of a new type of community. This moment of interaction produces a momentary space of unconditional belonging and mutual appreciation. Asibong argues that these type of spaces (which reappear also in Denis’s other films), ‘[…]simultaneously fragment and swallow up the class-, gender-, and (especially) “race”marked subject, precisely because s/he is forced to maintain an unnatural distance from others symbolically constituted as “Other,” whilst intermittently pressing up unbearably close to these “Others” at key moments’ (155). Therefore, by shifting the boundaries of all of these exclusionary categories, Denis opens up the space of extreme stigmatisation for a dramatic reconceptualisation. Such reconceptualisation necessarily begins within the space of extreme otherness, precisely because only then can it truly thwart and shift all of the limiting forms of categorisation. The matter of belonging needs to be debated from the standpoint of such reconceptualisation, as only then can it truly reflect the complexity and changeability of the urban social space.
In this context, this new form of belonging stems from the interaction between two individuals who are constantly located on the outskirts of the social. The migrant Other symbolically becomes the person who represents the unconditional and inclusive form of belonging. Moreover, the film indicates that the boundaries of the social space need to be constantly re-shaped and re-conceptualised in a way which incorporates the perspective of the
Other. Only then can it become truly inclusive.
However, Denis does not investigate this space of a ‘new form of belonging’ any further than that, nor does she show us how the potential for a new type of community could be used or explored. A number of questions arise in this context. Namely: how could this type of belonging be transferred or shared by society in general? Is this sense of unconditional acceptance and mutual recognition a form of an interaction that could change the inferior and problematic position of the migrant Others? J’ai
pas sommeil does not suggest any answers to these questions.
We could, therefore, argue that the film implies that the re-construction of the spaces of
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2 | T HE B ELONGING I SSUE belonging needs to begin within the sphere shared by the Others. Thus, at first, the boundaries shaped by the various social categories and labels would be undone amongst those whose lives are constrained by them. Only then could we re-shape the mainstream and begin constructing an unconditional and powerfully inclusive idea of community.
Interestingly, as the film focuses on the 1990s
Parisian urban space, it seems to relate to a number of European issues: French postcolonialism (Camille) mixes with the aftermath of the collapse of communism in Eastern
Europe (Daïga). Hence, we could read the film’s depiction of Paris symbolically, as an example of the Western-European urban space, which needs to change by recognising the importance of the Others who are already a significant part of it. This change can lead to a new understanding of the urban social space as a type of community which incorporates multiple belongings of multiple individuals.
Consequently, within this new type of community, otherness would be ‘swallowed up’ by the complex and intricate interactions between everyone who shares it. Yet, as Denis ends J’ai pas sommeil with scenes of Camille’s arrest and Daïga’s escape from Paris, we are left to ponder whether this new type of community is truly a possibility, or whether the scene in the café was just an illusion, a phantasmic vision of an interaction that can never actually occur.
Importantly, the film does not elaborate on this feeble possibility of a new community.
Perhaps, in 1993, such a possibility was only an illusion and could not turn into something real, something socially substantial. In this sense, it is worth re-emphasising that the film is set in
1993 and as such it relates to the social circumstances of that period specifically. While it would be difficult to argue that since then the situation has changed dramatically and that social alienation can no longer be seen as a relevant social problem, it is nevertheless important to note that within the last twenty years, the problem of migrant and ‘post-migrant’ identities in Europe has shifted and evolved in a number of ways. This essay will not focus more comprehensively on this matter, predominately because of the lack of space. However, it is worth pointing out that certain positive aspects of the evolution of migrant and ‘post-migrant’ identities within European social space have been recurrently explored in a number of recent
European films. These include some of Denis’s later works, most notably her 2008 feature 35
rhums [35 Shots of Rum]. Asibong observes that this film explores the possibility of a new type of
‘hospitality,’ of a post-colonial space of hybridised identities. He argues that ‘[i]n 35
rhums, Claire Denis offers us, for once, postcolonial spaces through which it seems possible to move with relative safety, in which it seems possible to touch others, and to be touched by them in return, and without anyone’s being killed or eaten’ (164). As the socio-cultural aspects of French society shift and reform, the chances for new forms of belonging do, perhaps, become greater and more accommodating of the Others. In relation to J’ai pas sommeil,
Denis’s 35 rhums shows the beginning of a shift in the situation of the European Other. The problems of social otherness and exclusion have most certainly not disappeared, but it is, nevertheless, also worth exploring and highlighting those shifts and changes that suggest a more positive outlook for the future.
In conclusion, the powerfulness of
Denis’s film derives from its emphasis on the idea that the sense of belonging can be renegotiated and that the process of its reconceptualisation needs to begin through an encounter among Others. In this context, the
Others’ shared sense of otherness and their mutual experiences of exclusion and marginalisation allow them to forge a personal and momentary form of a peculiar and mystical alliance. This connection is so powerful because it derives from the characters’ ultimate otherness. It does not, however, become
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K AMIL Z APASNIK | O UTSIDE THE M AINSTREAM anything more than a moment, a potential for new forms of belonging. It vanishes as quickly as it appeared, leaving the two characters with not much to build with. In this sense, the film shows that in 1993, shortly after the collapse of the Iron Curtain, in the era of post-colonial reconsiderations, the Others remained entrapped in the social spaces in between belonging, marginality and exclusion.
Perhaps, at this point, it is worth referring to Harry—Théo and Mona’s child. It is
Harry who, in the moments of conflicts and emotional confusion between Théo and Mona, seems to somehow ease the situation and allow the couple a peaceful reconciliation. His childish kindness and cheerfulness seem to emphasise a possibility of a new type of postcolonial existence, perhaps a truly post-postcolonial one. This suggestion, like many others in the film, remains unexplored. However,
Harry’s gleeful persona can be considered an early incarnation of the next generation of
Others who one day may succeed at establishing new ways of belonging, based on cherishing their hybridised identities, instead of suffering because of their presumed otherness.
NS
Kamil Zapasnik is a PhD candidate at the
Department of European Cultures and
Languages at Birkbeck, University of London.
N OTES i The film takes place in Paris, which, as one of the biggest and most important Western
European cities, is arguably intended to represent the Western European urban space. ii Thierry Paulin was a young, black, HIV positive non-heterosexual who lived in the
1980’s in the eighteenth district of Paris, where he repeatedly murdered old women. He was arrested in 1987 and charged with the murder or attempted murder of twenty-one women. He died in prison, before going on trial. His case became extremely well-known and was featured in fait divers (this term is used to describe newsbriefs usually related to the daily life of ordinary people). For a more detailed study of fait divers and the case of Thierry Paulin see Reisinger. iii The film also includes a third, main character,
Camille’s brother, Théo (Alex Descas). I have not focused on his character in this essay because of lack of space. Théo is worth mentioning even briefly, however, as his character problematises the question of social otherness even further. In comparison with
Camille, Théo deals with his experiences of social otherness and racism by dreaming of escaping the urban landscape of Paris and
‘returning’ to Martinique. Moreover, he envisions Martinique as the ultimate paradise.
Instead of trying to integrate with the
‘mainstream,’ he becomes obsessed with the need to leave and disconnect from the Parisian world altogether. Notably, J’ai pas sommeil includes also number of scenes featuring Théo’s
‘white,’ French wife, Mona (Béatrice Dalle) and their son, little Harry (Ira Mandella-Paul).
While Théo and Mona’s marriage is full of conflicts, Harry, their child, somehow connects the two of them and allows them to have a closer interaction. His benign and gleeful presence seems to ease the conflicts that surround him. iv In this context, in comparison with the boisterous and over-the-top aesthetics applied to the majority of the films depicting drag queen shows (such as the representation in
Stephan Elliott’s The Adventures of Priscilla,
Queen of the Desert, for instance) Camille’s modest outfit and subtle performance might appear as rather unusual. v Janet Bergstrom translates this phrase as, ‘the broken link, the tie that has come undone’ (79).
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N EW S CHOLAR | V OL .
2 N O .
2 | T HE B ELONGING I SSUE vi It is worth noting that Camille’s friends represent the mainstream, in the sense of being white and middle-class, however, they are nonheterosexual, which partially problematises their potential ‘mainstream’ normativity. vii Significantly, for Camille, the Caribbean part of his identity is not important. When his brother Théo tells him about his plans to move back to Martinique, Camille simply replies
‘[t]here’s nothing there.’ It seems that Camille’s ultimate goal is to become a part of the Parisian inner circle, the mainstream Paris, because to him that symbolises an act of final liberation from the category of foreigner/Other.
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New Scholar: An International Journal of the Humanities, Creative Arts and Social Sciences
Volume 2 Number 2, 2013 | ISSN 1839-5333 | www.newscholar.org.au