‘The shipyard is dead’: Ports, memory, and left melancholy in contemporary French cinema

Abstract

This article examines the representation of ports and shipyards within contemporary French cinema, addressing three works whose narratives centre around port towns on France’s Mediterranean coast: L’Atelier (2017), La Ville est tranquille (2000), and Les Neiges du Kilimandjaro (2011). The analysis places theories of left melancholy in dialogue with these films in order to explore their representation of the relationship between the Fordist past, neoliberal present, and any possible beyond. Consequently, it makes a case for the importance of the port as a site through which fundamental questions pertaining to cultural, social, and economic changes are explored within contemporary work-oriented film.

Keywords

• neoliberalism
• fordism
• deindustrialisation
• french cinema