Europe on the road. Journey, landscape, and territory in the road movie

Abstract

This study undertakes an interpretative exercise regarding works that reshape the European Road Movie genre (road films) with the aim of approaching a cartography of the categories: journey, landscape, and territory. Three European films from the early 21st century serve as the center of gravity for making this journey possible. Distinctive features include a new perspective on the landscape that goes beyond the idea of pre-human nature as an object of contemplation, and an interpretation of the concept of territory that confronts us with spatiality through narrative forms inevitably linked to the context of the road. Finally, the journey is not merely a baseline for the narrative; it becomes a channel for modifying the relationship between the characters and the space, ultimately transforming into a line of flight that undermines, in this case, the causality of classical cinema.