'Once upon a time there was a country': Nation and cynicism in the post 1990s Balkan cinema

This dissertation focuses on the post 1990s Balkan cinema and its role in the construction of Balkan nationalism. I explore how Balkan films released in the 1990s which gained visibility and international success have created in the West a sustained perception about the Balkans, and in the process have constructed a complex perspective on Balkan nationalism. The crux of my argument lies in what I contend is the figure of cynicism, which becomes a central device with which these film narratives construct ideas of a nation. As this project makes a specific case about a set of films and their dominant figurative representation of nationalism, it also opens up key questions about nationalism and cinema today, the new possibilities of their interaction, and the importance of the concept of cynicism as a figure of cinematic representation.; Chapter One begins by showing how Balkan films establish a formal link between Balkan cinema and national consciousness which always takes shape in the cultural and historical context of what is called "Balkanism," an ambiguous ideological construction of the Balkans. Arguing that Balkan national imagination has to be understood against the backdrop of the discourse of Balkanism, I therefore begin by deconstructing this discourse. Chapter Two explores the discursive shift that turns irony into cynicism, based mostly on the theories of Sloterdijk and Zizek, and a close analysis of Pretty Village, Pretty Flame (1996) and No Man's Land (2001). Here I argue that cynicism in Balkan films is not merely a matter of laughter but a carefully developed strategy that serves as a calculated response to both the discourse of Balkanism and internal calls for nationalism. Chapter Three, with a focus on Underground (1995), explores the spatial representation of the nation in Balkan films (such as tunnels, trenches, underground cellars) which represents a heterotopic manifestation of the discursive figure of cynicism. In Chapter Four I take up the role of cinematic form in Balkan film, which asserts the centrality of this form in its articulation of national imagination, and thus opens us crucial questions in the area of film and nationalism.