På väg genom New Mexico och Medelpad

Roadmovies som samhällsspegel

Abstract

Road movies comprise a film genre with a growing European audience. European film-makers such as Wim Wenders in Germany, Aki Kaurismäki in Finland and Ulf Malmroos and Jon Lindström in Sweden have experimented with what we consider an idea deeply rooted in American culture, as a symbol of freedom and mobility; the road as a metaphor for life itself, implying risk as well as opportunity. Through an analysis of a range of road movies, the article identifies a number of categories as well as destinations "along the road": Badland, Wasteland, Dreamland and Heartland around which to further classify the genre. All these are linked to specifically American themes, as well as to the changing context of political and social criticism in the United States. We conclude that given the "Americanness" of this film genre, it suffers in its translation to cultures, like the Swedish, which have very different notions of freedom and mobility.