• Home
• Study
• Study Information
• Modules
• Module Information

French-language Road Movies: Space, Place and Identity

Module description

Road movies have become an increasingly popular vehicle in French-language filmmaking for exploring the position of France vis-à-vis its own shifting identity, its former colonies, and the rest of the (francophone) world. This module closely examines a genre often associated with ‘outsider’ status and considers how and why it is employed within the context of contemporary French identity debates. You will explore the genre’s obsession with border crossing, and the nature of borders, both physical and metaphorical, crossed in contemporary French-language road narratives that travel across France, Europe and the Maghreb. No prior experience of film study is needed.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module aims to enable you to develop a critical understanding and informed appreciation of French-language road movies and the complex debates concerning issues of geography, mobility, and identity that they illuminate. As well as studying individual films in depth, you will investigate links between various films and between films and their social and cultural contexts, tracing major themes such as gender, sexuality, religion, ethnicity, nation, region and language through motifs specific to the road movie genre. The module will enable you to become familiar with the aesthetic and narrative conventions of the French-language road movie, and to understand how it is both engaged with and distinct from its North American counterpart, and French filmmaking more broadly. You will be trained to perform close readings of sequences in films using the tools of film analysis and to speak and write about the texts in the style of film criticism.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate an informed understanding and detailed knowledge of the works studied on the module, their treatment of geography, mobility and identity and related key themes
• 2. Demonstrate detailed knowledge of the narrative and aesthetic conventions of the road movie within the context of French-language filmmaking

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. With some guidance from the course tutor, evaluate and apply a range of critical approaches to the material covered
• 4. Mount a detailed argument in the appropriate register and style of English, mustering a range of textual or other evidence in its support

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Adopt a critical approach to the selection and organisation of material in order to produce, to a deadline, a written argument
• 6. Undertake defined learning activities with a measure of autonomy, asking for guidance where necessary

Syllabus plan

Through a combination of lectures and seminars we shall explore a selection of the following films (6 will be studied in-depth):

• Le grand voyage (Ismaël Ferroukhi, 2004)
• Exils (Tony Gatlif, 2004)
• La fille de Keltoum (Mehdi Charef, 2001)
• Sans toit ni loi (Agnès Varda, 1986)
• L’emploi du temps (Laurent Cantet, 2001)
• Plein sud (Sebastien Lifshitz, 2009)
• Drôle de Félix (Jacques Martineau and Oliver Ducastel, 2000)
• Western (Manuel Poirier, 1997)
• Quand la mer monte (Yolande Moreau and Gilles Porte, 2004)
• La Marche (Ben Nabil Yadir, 2013)
• Eldorado (Bouli Lanners, 2008)

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

A full reading list will be provided, however, you should expect to consult the following core texts:

• Archer, Neil. The French Road Movie: Space, Mobility, Identity, 1st edn (New York: Berghahn Books, 2012)
• Gott, Michael and Thibaut Schilt (eds.). Open Roads, Closed Borders: The Contemporary French-Language Road Movie, 1st edn (Bristol: NBN International, 2013)
• Gott, Michael. French-Language Road Cinema?: Borders, Diasporas, Migration and “New Europe” (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016)
• Laderman, David. Driving Visions: Exploring the Road Movie, 1st edn (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002)
• Mazierska, Ewa and Laura Rascaroli. Crossing New Europe?: Postmodern Travel and the European Road Movie (London: Wallflower Press, 2006)

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• A helpful bibliography and further resources will be provided on the ELE page.

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

Indicative viewing:

• Le grand voyage (Ismaël Ferroukhi, 2004)
• Exils (Tony Gatlif, 2004)
• La fille de Keltoum (Mehdi Charef, 2001)
• Sans toit ni loi (Agnès Varda, 1986)
• L’emploi du temps (Laurent Cantet, 2001)
• Plein sud (Sebastien Lifshitz, 2009)
• Drôle de Félix (Jacques Martineau and Oliver Ducastel, 2000)
• Western (Manuel Poirier, 1997)
• Quand la mer monte (Yolande Moreau and Gilles Porte, 2004)
• La Marche (Ben Nabil Yadir, 2013)
• Eldorado (Bouli Lanners, 2008)

Key words search

French cinema, francophone cinema, road movie, film studies, border crossing, European cinema