Frances

Abstract

Science fiction has always been closely linked to utopia and shows distant planets, strange creatures and unknown technology in order to make the viewer think about a very familiar reality, our life on Earth and its future. This is why cities, a central element of our life and utopia alike, play such an important role in the works of science fiction. An excellent example is Luc Besson’s film Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017), on which our article focuses. We analyze how the film’s different cities (the Pearls’ idyllic villages, the invisible city in the desert representing a relentless capitalism and above all the gigantic interplanetary metropolis Alpha) serve as a starting point for reflections about the organization of our future society. The remarkable presence of the grotesque in the film will be of special interest for our observations. One central characteristic of the grotesque, the transgression of all borders, will finally lead us to the work’s transnational dimension, which is of capital importance for Besson’s film.