ABSTRACT
While conventionally defined by its setting in the fringes of Paris, the banlieue film has become entrenched as a masculine genre dominated by male characters. This is perhaps owing to the prominence of Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine (1995), which has become the defining film of the category. Nonetheless, in recent years, there have been a number of significant examples of female-centred banlieue films, among which All that Glitters (Mimran and Nakache 2012) and Houda Benyamina’s Divines (2016). Whereas female characters in male-centred banlieue films were peripheral characters largely confined to the domestic space, these new representations show girls’ potential for mobility and portray these characters’ relationship between their identity and their use of space. In Bande de Filles, female characters are highly mobile, often venturing into central Paris, while their male counterparts are confined to Bagnolet. Sciamma positions these male characters as figures of surveillance and, given the girls’ evident precarity, calls into question the conventional alignment of mobility with freedom.
