Laughing across Frontiers. L’Auberge espagnole (Klapisch, 2002) as Cultural Mediator of / for a Borderless Europe
Râzând dincolo de graniţe. L’Auberge espagnole (Klapisch, 2002) ca mediator cultural al unei Europe fără frontiere

Summary/Abstract: Released in the thick of ‘Europeanization’ processes like Maastricht (1992) or Bologna (1999), Cedric Klapish’s largely humorous film, L’Auberge espagnole (2002), which centres on the chaotic flat-share experiences of a group of European students on a university exchange in Barcelona, has invariably been classified or categorised as a comedy, and as such, exposed to the criticisms of scholars and reviewers who tend to see in it no more than an over optimistic, lighthearted, simplistic portrayal of current realities. Rather than add to the number of analysts who accuse the filmmaker of crafting a purely entertaining story, crammed full of clichés and stereotypes, my aim in this paper is to vindicate Klapisch’s use of the comic as an enticing coder or conveyor of cross-cultural meanings respecting ourselves and neighbouring others in a ‘united’ Europe.

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