A Retrospective on Retro: Introducing the European Eighties
The 1980s is a decade that’s been revisited, rebuilt and rewritten endlessly. A headache for anyone trying to recall its true essence. How might one retrospect on a decade that fuels our every conception of retro?
Crossing Europe’s 2026 Tribute starts in the capitalist West. Curated by Diskollektiv, European Eighties looks towards Western Europe to find films that aptly capture the decade’s zeitgeist but have been overlooked by the mainstream, nostalgic gaze. The festival’s tribute has traditionally been dedicated to an artist’s body of work, with previous editions focusing on contemporary filmmakers like Aliona van der Horst. Diskollektiv pushed the tribute in a different direction this year by showcasing the output of an era. With a creative vision for presenting cinema, the Vienna-based curators take on their most ambitious project yet with European Eighties and, as member Valerie Dirk announced during the festival, they hope to continue the programme in future editions that will cover Eastern and Southern European cinema. They previously hosted the long-running Trouble Features at Crossing Europe which screened thematically relevant movies together, encouraging discussion and analysis.
From shopping mall musicals to courtroom thrillers, the programme’s trip through the eighties shows pop comedy dressed in the era’s chic alongside weird and eerie arthouse cinema. Controversy-stirring fetish-laced horror Seduction: A Cruel Woman (1985) follows little known TV docufiction hybrid Traveling Warrior (1981), which caused barely a ripple; both movies are reviewed separately. Concise yet far-reaching, the line-up touches on issues of race, consumerism, the post-modern, sex, the fall of industry and the welfare state, and the rise of neo-liberalism — all from a primarily feminist perspective.
A hidden gem within the extensive oeuvre of acclaimed filmmaker Chantal Akerman, Golden Eighties (1986) sings of drama and romance at the centre of a shopping mall as retail employees pine over potential lovers. The Belgian director became the first woman to top Sight & Sounds’ ‘Greatest Films of All-Time’ in 2022 when her 1976 feature Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels claimed the top spot. Hailed as the centrepiece of the programme, Golden Eighties prompted Diskollektiv members to question “why have Akerman’s singing, dancing hairdressers from Golden Eighties not yet achieved cult status?”, as they write in the programme description. The comedy musical pokes fun at consumerism while containing a treasure trove of pop charm, but the persistence of eighties’ fashion and tropes in modern culture has unfortunately only diminished its footmark.
Dutch filmmaker Marleen Gorris’ A Question of Silence (1982), one of the two black-and-white films in the programme, was described as “inherently stupid”, “vile” and “entirely loathsome” upon its release, with Milton Shulman of The Evening Standard claiming, “genocide is a comparatively modest moral device compared to the ultimate logic of this film’s message”. Those reviews now only add to the allure of the Dutch filmmaker’s feminist cult classic. Worn as badges marking it as ahead of its time, they also mirror the belittling attitudes of men prevalent throughout the movie – attitudes still too present today. It follows a psychiatrist as she interviews three women to discern whether they’re mentally fit to stand trial after they’re accused of brutally murdering a shopkeeper. Using flashbacks, the story is revealed in a fragmented style. Without showing a drop of blood, violence is only alluded to, making for an ominously suggestive psychological thriller. It was revered for its creepy score by composers Lodewijk de Boer and Martijn Hasebos, whose maximalist employment of synthesisers is like Wendy Carlos’ A Clockwork Orange (1971) score updated for the new-wave movement. Gorris would later win an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Picture for Antonia’s Line (1995).
Burning an Illusion (1981) takes us to London to meet the children of the Windrush generation. Directed by Menelik Shabazz, it was only the second feature film funded by the BFI to have a black director. After Pat (Cassie McFarlane, who won the 1982 Evening Standard Award for Promising Young Actress for her performance), a British-born black woman, meets a Caribbean immigrant named Del (Victor Romero Evans, a reggae musician and prominent actor in other important films featuring West Indies’ migrant culture), she soon falls in love and their ensuing relationship leads her towards a higher black consciousness. The title comes from the lyrics of “Blood in a Babylon” by Culture. The movie is brimming with reggae, from fusion subgenres like lovers rock and UK roots to the groundbreaking experimental sounds of dub. It celebrates Black British culture with complexity; the characters are flawed but fluid and are given space to evolve throughout. It suggests optimism towards the realising of a Black British identity in spite of the oppressive forces.
Challenging the omnipresence of the American eighties in modern pop-culture, the programme finds in Europe a slew of alternative motifs, themes and aesthetics, the significance of which appears lost in time. It presents styles that have been cheapened by the homogenizing effect of consumer capitalism and confronts issues still hushed as their topics remain contentious. It avoids one prominent eighties motif: the future. Although glimpses are envisioned within the films’ music and progressive ideals, absent is the decade's affinity for sci-fi and its futuristic clichés that we now consider retrofuturism.
When trying to understand the past it’s easy to only reach for its most lasting tropes, but they can obscure the truth as their enduring eminence is as much a product of the present’s memory. The curators’ decision to focus on films set in what was then the present keeps the programme grounded in reality. It paints a vivid and nuanced picture of the eighties that puts into question how far we’ve actually come while still resisting the rose tint of nostalgia.