Trêve and the Nightmare of Alterity

Abstract

In this article, I present an interpretive proposal of the first season of the Belgian TV series La Trêve (2016), that suggests that said fiction portrays the issue of cultural perception of alterity in its different versions (racial, ethnic, class, etc.) and the possible violence attached to it. Drawing from this hypothesis, I propose to understand La Trêve’s denouement in terms of a narrative stand with political reaches that instead of answering the classic police question by the way of individual, and thus psychologizing, crime authorship terms, highlights the collective responsibility in the protection and loss of every life, as well as the current political need for work so we can mourn the losses, even of those who are considered different.