SEC 8 (1) pp. 21-30 ti lntellect Ltd 2011 Studies in European Cinema Vol u me 8 Number 1 © lntellect Ltd 2011. Article. English language. dor 10.1386/seci.8.1.2l_l VICENTE ROORIGUEZ ORTEGA Universidad Carlos 111 de Madrid Surgical passportsl the EU and Dirty Pretty Things: Rethinking European identity through popular cinema ABSTRACT In the last decadc anda half, many cultural and social commentators have thcorized thc reconfis,ruration of thr geopolitical space of the Eumpran Union (EU) through the increasing prescnce of a wide variety of ethnicitics and nationalities. Tñis essay takes Dirty Prctty Things (Stcphen Frears, 2002) as a point of dcparture in ordcr to anal- ysc how conternporary cinema captures thr ambivalent status of íllcgal ímmigrants inside thc Eumpcan global cityscape. First, it cxplains how the film rcprcscnts thc imrni::,rrants' subjcctivity in tenns of their split consciousncss between thcir homeland and their country of adoption. Second, it scrutinizes how the ímmigrant social body mayor may not function asan effective actor in the social fiel d. Thírd, it studies how Frrars utilizes a widc rangc of grneric dcviccs to situatc his film into the rcalm of popular culture. Fourth, it defines the concrpt of popular cinema and evaluatcs its role as a fonn of política! agrncy in the contcrnporary historical milieu. To conclude, this essay qucstions European cinrma asan all-encompassing concept that Jails to capture thc cultural and lini-,tUistic divrrsity of the Europear1 films that it is supposcd to define. Film scholarship is now attempting to explore the cffects on thc ways in which cinema is produced, cxhibited and consumed today in thc European KEVWORDS Frcars popular cinema European cinema immigrati(m política! film-making citizcnship 21