Xenophobia producing the symptom of the uncanny in immigrants reflections from the film "Exile"

Abstract

Taking as a basis the plot of the German-Kosovar film “Exile” (Visa Morina, 2020), we seek to understand how the experience of foreignly can indicate the “feeling of strangeness” that refers to the notion of “Unheimliche” developed by Freud. The premise is that xenophobia, precisely because it represents forms of real - and symbolic - attacks on the person considered foreign, can produce persecutory ideas in those who suffer the injury, with the function of defense against repressions related to their own cultural inscriptions or with what may refer to them. The film, classified as a horror movie, presents an atmosphere of horror, exposed in the images and transposed to the soundtrack, in which the violence experienced by the protagonist actualizes primary fantasies and the confusion about which enemy to fight and from which to defend against. The article will address the path of the main character's 'discomforts', in order to locate the position of "uncanniness" in his relationship with others around him, whether those who place him in the position of a foreigner, or those who are unbearably familiar to him.