ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to identify and analyze the generic tropes of the Western in Agnieszka Holland’s 2017 film Spoor with respect to three key elements of its narrative development and construction of the world presented: the depiction of space, the portrayal of the characters, and the plot convention. The setting evoked in Spoor is a borderland in a double sense of the word: it is located near the national border and—in a way that triggers pastoral associations—it marks the line separating the settled urban area from the natural expanses. The main positive characters are liminal figures who, despite their functioning within the society, physically and psychologically remain on its fringes. Spoor ironically plays with the idea of lawlessness in portraying as outlaws those who cherish and defend the fundamental human values, and at the same time it offers a somber diagnosis of the contemporary forms of the corruption of law. The vehicle for the film’s presentation of violence is a revenge plot. It is the combination of the borderland setting, the unequivocal moral conflict, and the revenge plot that establishes the Western as a frame of reference for Spoor’s use of genre.
