Identifying the unknown girl: the spaces and inequalities of the noir tradition in 'La fille inconnue'

This article critically analyses 'La fille inconnue/The Unknown Girl' (Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, 2016) as a genre film that operates through a transnational mix of references to French noir and neo-noir traditions. It argues that these borrowings and references emerge from two key features in the Dardenne’s film, (1) the spatial dynamics of the postmodern city and its anonymous “lower depths”, and (2) through the articulation of so-called “ethnic hierarchies” (Vincendeau 2009, 111) of the French neo-noir tradition. It is precisely these transnational connections that draw attention to the evocation of key issues and debates within 'La fille inconnue', such as the ‘migrant and refugee crisis’ in Western Europe.