British cinema has traditionally looked to Europe for heroines who are sexually freer than their British counterparts while British politics is marked by a deep ambivalence about what it means to be European. This paper looks at the crossover between sexuality and politics by examining three British films made when the boundaries of the Cold War were being literally and symbolically drawn. It suggests that the power of the European woman depends on the way she combines sexual experience with a tragic knowledge of the Second World War, a knowledge which enables her to understand emotionally the post-war realities which escape the Anglo-Saxon protagonist. The paper argues that, while much film theory focuses on the repression of sexuality, in these films it is politics which is repressed while sexual relations are brought to the fore. British/European political relations are thus figured in sexual encounters but remain unresolved and Britain’s ambivalent position on the fringes of Europe is confirmed.
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