Neighbors/enemies: encode the other as a threat. Exploring the film The man next door

Abstract

We will analyze the film The Man Next Door (Cohn y Duprat, 2009), which crudely exposes the impossibility of coexistence of two neighbors who territorially dispute an adjoining wall, in order to problematize the notion of border and think about the dense variables that order dissimilar imaginaries. We will work from the contributions of Bachelard (2000), Castoriadis (2004), Grimson (2005) and Trigo (1997) which give us to reflect on the borders that separate spaces and imaginary, and that are normalized as power tensions (Donda, 2003) devoid of negotiation and leading to violence.

The disputed window is a border and a nexus, this paradox is not alien to the liminal problem that faces nations, ethnic groups, and genders. Proximity becomes contradictory, bringing two parties closer together, but in that cohabitation irreconcilable differences are enhanced; the neighbor is coded as enemy.

The film stresses reciprocity, the absence of negotiation, the failure of politics as a mechanism of social organization and the suppression of the other as a response learned for centuries. Coding the other as a threat is a normalized response, but it is always possible to bet on new codifications, a communal and reciprocal political vision, which enables the opening of intercultural “windows” without implying an invasion or extermination.