I began this book with a meditation on Tati's Playtime, a film where London makes a minuscule appearance via a poster of a gray skyscraper intended to humorously suggest a generic turn overtaking cities the world over. I now begin my final conclusions with a consideration of Rachid Bouchareb's London River, a film that reverses the relation between the two cities as depicted in Playtime. In London River, Paris assumes a prominent and yet displaced position, its off-screen presence made palpable by the presence of characters and unfulfilled narrative activity that inadvertently places the two figures that are the subject of a search right onto the path of the 7 July 2005 London bombings. Playtime and London River, of course, operate as bookends for the decades covered by this book, taking us from the post-war, post-imperial period to the contemporary moment.

London River is a UK/France/Algerian co-production, solidifying the film's connection to the “world” at the level of funding and in terms of its content, as is the case with the case study films that comprise this book. In a further correlation, the film, initially made for Arte TV, received a commercial release after it won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival so that its European “start”, as a film made for a Franco-German television network, is then transformed into a global “finish” through its success on the festival circuit. What proves even more intriguing, as explained by Alison Smith, is that one of the film's co-producers is an independent British company called The Bureau, which brings together independent producers throughout Europe who are united in their aim to make unconventional British films. As Smith remarks, London River is hardly just a “British film” but this detail contributes to what I see as the film's presentation of London as a place that is significantly impacted by its French-African presence, both on and off-screen.