Gluckauf!

The process of digitization made it easier for cultural artifacts such as film to cross national borders. As Daya Kishan Thussu states in the paper Cultural Practices and Media Production: The Case of Bollywood:

As we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century, the world of global media and communication offers exciting challenges and possibilities of rethinking intercultural exchanges at a transnational level. Time–space compression in the 24/7 digitized media economy, with its localization and multiple and multivocal flows, has created a dynamic transnational communication space.[1]

In this blogpost, however, we want to argue that intercultural exchange doesn't necessarily have to take place on an international level, but can also be observed on an intra-national level within a certain ethnic group. In this essay we will zoom in on the movie Gluckauf (in English titled Son of Mine) to show how interculturality and locality plays a role between a country’s borders.We think that this movie, in which the sense of locality is underlined by the use of the regional language, is an excellent case study for a discussion about the centrality or de-centrality of certain regions in the Netherlands. This is especially interesting since different media emphasize the differences between the province in regard to the rest of the country.

Gluckauf; most Dutch people don’t know what this word means. The word, in the official acknowledged regional language Limburgs, originated from the mining industry and was used as a salutation to workers who went down the mines to wish them a good return. Not only the word itself, but also the cultural-historical context is specific for the province of South Limburg. Since the closing of the mines, underemployment raised, and is, according to the director of the film still one of the causes of todays social problems such as criminality in the area. This movie, based on van Heugten's own experiences, uses the criminal, social traumatized context for a story about father and son.[2]

One first important remark is that the movie has Dutch subtitles. The regional language differs enough from official Dutch that it needs subtitles to be available for a national audience. Nevertheless, during the last edition of the Dutch Film festival; the Nederlands Film Festival (NFF) this film garnered the most awards. It won four gouden kalveren, for the categories Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography.[3] For his first big feature film, director Remy van Heugten turned back to his roots; the province of South Limburg.[4] Even though the majority of the cast and crew aren't from this region, the whole movie is recorded in the region and regional dialect.

Not only language implicates a certain locality to the film, but also the certain shared history and culture, something that is underlined by the director himself in different interviews. By saying that the characters might as well have been based on old friends or fathers of old friends, he shows that the movie is very much in line with his own history and background that strongly ties in with the culture of South Limburg.[5]

In national as well as in regional news media we see that the local aspect of the movie is highlighted. Not only the director himself in interviews draws a comparison between South Limburg and the Netherlands, also headlines of national news papers show the foreignness of the film. The Volkskrant, national newspaper, headlines: 'Gouden Kalf: beste speelfilm spreekt dialect. Het Limburgse mijnstreekdrama Gluckauf was vrijdagavond de grote winnaar bij de uitreiking van de Gouden Kalveren […]'.[6]

As Chua Beng Huat states in East Asian Pop Culture, audiences can take up different viewing positions, altering moments of distancing and identification.

where and when the on-screen characters are ‘like me/us’ or ‘unlike me/us’, are generated during real-time viewing. This identification/distancing process is complicated by the audience’s awareness of the foreignness of imported programs, which can raise hurdles to identification while facilitating distancing.[7]

We would like to state that however Gluckauf is a Dutch movie, people that are not from the province of South Limburg are aware of the foreignness first and foremost by the dialect that is used. The fact that the rest of the Dutch audience needs Dutch subtitles, show basically that the language is foreign enough to create a distance. Also the way in which the film is branded by different media, as Limburgs instead of Dutch, shows that the media relate to the movie more based on foreignness than on relatedness.

Daniela Berghahn and Claudia Sternberg, in their article Locating Migrant and Diasporic Cinema in Contemporary Europe, describe dynamics of center and periphery in the light of (post)colonization and argue that, in most media outings, we mainly see characters from a white, Western background. Still, the film Gluckauf shows a story of what happens in the periphery and not only because the province is located outside of the center of the Netherlands. Even though ethnic diversity doesn't play a role in the movie, we can argue that the Limburg in the film functions as a periphery in the Netherlands with its modern outlaws as characters, caught in a run-down working class area. We might argue that in this sense the film by van Heugten can be carefully compared with the Banlieu films in which the stories of the disadvantaged are foregrounded.[8]

In an item of 1Limburg, composer of Gluckauf Jorrit Kleinen acknowledges that Limburg is often seen as the underdog of the Netherlands, mostly because of its location and because Dutch people from other regions joke about the accent, but that this also had the consequence of people from Limburg adopting a fighter’s mentality. The reporter jokes about the rise of 'Lollywood', and states that a lot of talented filmmakers come from this region. Also van Heugten wants to return to South Limburg for his next film.[9]

Even though it is located outside of the center in the Netherlands, interestingly enough there are a lot of initiatives and organizations that try to put Limburg as an alternative center. Such as film fund LimburgCrossing Borders or film community Cine Sud that is located in Limburg but includes the Eu-region Meuse-Rhine (South Limburg and parts of Belgium and Germany). With mainly Dutch projects on their website, it is clear who takes the lead in this international initiative.

In this thought experiment we were interested in the way in which borders become clear on an intra-national in stead of an international level. The Film Gluckauf in our opinion not only shows a story of the social periphery of the Netherlands. By looking at the ways in which the film is perceived by different media, the differences between the province and the rest of the country become clear. By making locality specific films in area’s that are literally further away from the center, stories and histories that otherwise aren’t often heard can spread. Not only geography but also language plays a big role in the conception of distance to specific area’s within a country. While the province of South Limburg in the movie and conception of the movie can be regarded as positioned in the periphery of the Netherlands, it is maybe even more interesting to see that this region tries to put itself in an alternative center by crossing the national borders to the surrounding countries.

Statement: The way in which organizations as film community Cine Sud operate, convincingly put’s the province of Limburg in an alternative center.

A. vd B. V.M. & J.P.

[1] Thussu, D. K. (2012) ‘Cultural Practices and Media Production: The Case of Bollywood’, in: Isabelle Rigoni & Eugénie Saitta (eds.) Mediating Cultural Diversity in a Globalised Public Space. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan: 120.

[2] Sine Screen Magazine (2015) ‘WPFF Opening Night: Director Remy van Heugten’, in: Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTXD8WmVVng (06-12-2015).

[3] Remy van Heugten (2015) ‘Golden Calves and RE-RELEASE’, in: Remy van Heugten. http://www.remyvanheugten.nl (06-12-2015).

[4] Remy van Heugten (2015) ‘(Heerlen, The Netherlands, 1976) Film Director - Creative Producer’, in: Remy van Heugten. http://www.remyvanheugten.nl/html/about.html (06-12-2015).

[5] Sine Screen Magazine (2015).

[6] Beekman, B. (2015) ‘Gouden Kalf: beste speelfilm spreekt dialect’, in: Volkskrant. 02-10-2015.

[7] Huat, C. B. (2011) ‘East Asian Pop Culture’, in: Felicia Chan, Angelina Karpovich & Xin Zhang (eds.) Genre in Asian Film and Television: New Approaches. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan: 232.

[8]  Berghahn, D. & Sternberg, C. (2010), ‘Locating Migrant and Diasporic Cinema in Contemporary Europe’, in: Daniela Berghahn & Claudia Sternberg (eds.) European Cinema in Motion: Migrant and Diasporic Film in Contemporary Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan: 29.

[9] 1Limburg (2015) ‘Remy van Heugten blij met nominaties Gouden Kalveren Gluckauf (2 sept 2015)’, in: Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMxMi_QL0k8 (06-12-2015).

Sources:

• 1Limburg (2015) ‘Remy van Heugten blij met nominaties Gouden Kalveren Gluckauf (2 sept 2015)’, in: Youtube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMxMi_QL0k8 (06-12-2015).
• Beekman, B. (2015) ‘Gouden Kalf: beste speelfilm spreekt dialect’, in: Volkskrant. 02-10-2015.
• Berghahn, D. & Sternberg, C. (2010), ‘Locating Migrant and Diasporic Cinema in Contemporary Europe’, in: Daniela Berghahn & Claudia Sternberg (eds.) European Cinema in Motion: Migrant and Diasporic Film in Contemporary Europe. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan:12-49.
• Het Parool (2015) ‘Gluckauf grote winnaar filmfestival met vier Gouden Kalveren’, in: Het Parool.http://www.parool.nl/parool/nl/21/FILM/article/detail/4155147/2015/10/02/Gluckauf-grote-winnaar-filmfestival-met-vier-Gouden-Kalveren.dhtml (06-12-2015).
• Huat, C. B. (2011) ‘East Asian Pop Culture’, in: Felicia Chan, Angelina Karpovich & Xin Zhang (eds.) Genre in Asian Film and Television: New Approaches. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan: 222-245.
• Remy van Heugten (2015) ‘Golden Calves and RE-RELEASE’, in: Remy van Heugten. http://www.remyvanheugten.nl (06-12-2015).
• Remy van Heugten (2015) ‘(Heerlen, The Netherlands, 1976) Film Director - Creative Producer’, in: Remy van Heugten. http://www.remyvanheugten.nl/html/about.html (06-12-2015).
• Sine Screen Magazine (2015) ‘WPFF Opening Night: Director Remy van Heugten’, in: Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTXD8WmVVng (06-12-2015).
• Thussu, D. K. (2012) ‘Cultural Practices and Media Production: The Case of Bollywood’, in: Isabelle Rigoni & Eugénie Saitta (eds.)Mediating Cultural Diversity in a Globalised Public Space. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan: 119-134.