Representing Sanctuary On Flatness and Aki Kaurism äki’s Le Havre

Abstract

This article takes sanctuary as a problematizing challenge to the state, coming into eff ect when political asylum fails or is denied. Sanctuary, it argues, off ers a form of protection that does not take legality as its basis or reference point, and in fact oft en subverts such legality. Th inking with Aki Kaurismäki’s Le Havre (2011), this article seeks to understand the kinds of “individual” protection that sanctuary makes possible, and what they illuminate about conceptions of refuge that do not require sovereign authorization, but instead fi nd their foundations in interpersonal relationality, solidarity, and community formations. Th rough a “fl at migrant aesthetics”—deadpan, anti-realism, and unarticulated motivation—Kaurismäki’s fi lm dislodges automated perceptions and clichéd narrative expectations to redirect attention to human solidarities and the building of sanctuary, on and off screen.