Precarity times: work and death. European´s dream crisis in Robin Campillo´s films

Abstract

The use of temporality in Campillo´s cinema shapes a kind of precarity build from an impasse condense in the figures of work and death. Campillo’s films crystallize situations that engender a deformation of the promise of social inclusion and raise awareness on the “crisis of the European dream”. This strategy rescues the subjectivity of migrants, old, sick, and homosexuals as enablers of an ideal, imaginary community while at the same time shedding light on rarely questioned issues in mainstream productions of contemporary capitalism. Along with the notion of “end of dream”, it generates symbolic escapes though the use of representations of a politic horizon in clear contrast with the threat posed by extreme right movements; it portrays Europe as a continent of migrants and generates political images as a wake-up call.