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Viewing Sergei Loznica's rich video material is a gateway to the cinematic world of Ukraine, Poland, Russia and other Eastern European countries, all of which are closely related to the heritage of the Warsaw Pact.
Footage footage from the historical documentary Central Square.
Ukrainian film director Sergei Loznitsa (1964) once said that his films were about "the decline and disintegration of the former Russian Empire". To date, he has created a total of 29 works, from fictional films to observational documentaries and historical archival documentaries, and Loznica has shown a keen interest in form, especially the use of fictional installations in documentaries. He also objected to a tendency in Eastern Europe in recent years to use the language of heroism or optimism to depict the history of war and authoritarianism.
Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948, Soviet director, film theorist, and one of the founders of montage theory in filmology) said that the political arena, like cinematic drama, has a certain special charm. Loznica's latest historical documentary, State Funeral (2019), analyzes how this political drama was staged. It brings together footage from all over the Soviet Union during Stalin's death and the holding of grand funerals. On March 5, 1953, when the news of Stalin's death from heart failure was announced, the word "heart" was repeated in the hypnotic overlapping sentences of the movie. This is reminiscent of Dziga Vertov's (1896-1954, Soviet documentary pioneer, documentary filmmaker, and film theorist) silent documentary A Sixth Part of the World (1926), and the ambition of the young Soviet Union to aspire to great power. And Loznica's rhetoric contradicts Vertov's —the average citizen in the film tends to appear stunned and silent rather than fanatical and restless. In a shot of many people pouring into the building to pay their respects to Stalin's body, some mourners are staring at news cameras. The "fourth wall" (theatrical term) refers to a fictitious "wall" in a traditional three-walled mirror-frame stage. It is the gap between the actors and the audience, through this "wall" the audience can see the plot development in the world of the drama setting. Through the lens, and through direct speech or greetings to the audience in games, films, plays, or TV shows, called "breaking the fourth wall") is broken at this moment, and all the outpouring of sadness is presented as a carefully planned spectacle.
Historical documentary State Funeral (2019), length: 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Many of Loznica's films have tried to avoid public comment on historical events. The documentary "The Trial" (2018) shows a video of a group of intellectuals accused of treason during stalinist purges in 1930. But unlike the similar events in Czechoslovakia described in Zuzana Justman 's (1931, Czech-American documentary filmmaker and writer) A Trial in Prague (2000), Loznica doesn't present specific details of the events, but immerses us in the atmosphere of the trial itself. The director encouraged the audience to see the trial not only as a tragedy, but also as a farce. Similarly, this subtle black humor pervades the historical documentary The Event (2015), in which the director shows footage of an attempted coup attempted to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) in 1991. As the crowd poured into the streets, a photograph showed the young Vladimir Putin (1952) standing on the steps of a government building.
The Event (2015) historical documentary, length: 1 hour and 14 minutes.
Movie poster for the documentary The Trial (2018), length: 2 hours and 8 minutes.
Loznica has some similarities with the experimental documentary tradition of Eastern Europe, including filmmakers such as Bogdan Dziworski (1941) and Wojciech Wiszniewski (1946–81) in Poland. Like them, Loznica often added additional sound effects to the film to enhance the film's emotional and visual rhythms. In the documentary Blockade (2005), he selected footage taken during the Siege of Leningrad in the historical archives, and to add effect, he carefully and precisely added startling sounds (e.g., screams at fires, cries of children). Jan Komasa 's Warsaw Uprising (2014), directed by Jan Komasa (1981), also depicts a besieged city, but the tone of the film forces its archival material to inevitably fit into the narrative trajectory of the story. Loznica, by contrast, tends to avoid spectacular scenes. He portrays the siege as a multifaceted, sometimes surprisingly bland, non-dramatic scene. Leningrad is a vibrant city whose streets are daily filled with bustling crowd activity (which, coincidentally, is also a collectivist effort to survive). In this way, Loznica's films avoid any sense of military chauvinism. At the same time, Loznica also made the fictional war film In the Fog (2012), which was similar to other Eastern European films that glorified military might, such as Alexander Sokurov (1951, one of the most important russian directors of contemporary Time) Moloch (1999) and Taurus (2001). Natural Light (2021), the young Denes Nagy (1980, Hungarian director); and Beanpole (2019), by Kantemir Balagov (1991, Russian director, screenwriter and director of photography).
Documentary Blockade (2005), length: 52 minutes.
War/Drama Film In the Fog (2012) Footage, Length: 2 hours and 10 minutes.
There are also films depicting a comical perspective on Soviet life, such as the 2017 feature film A Gentle Creature, which also put Loznica on a par with absurd Russian filmmakers such as Andrei Zvyagintsev (1964) and Yuri Bykov (1981). In the observational documentary Victory Day (2018), Loznica dissects the use of contemporary false populism in nationalist symbolism and war memorials, in which Russians in military uniform parade in front of Soviet World War II monuments in Berlin's Treptower Park. The documentary Austerlitz (2016), shot in Sachsenhausen and Dachau, is an urgent critique of the way of life that was gradually secular and mediocre in the most horrific regions of the past that could also be commercialized.
Movie poster for the feature film A Gentle Creature (2017), length: 2 hours and 40 minutes.
Footage from the observational documentary Victory Day (2018), length: 1 hour and 34 minutes.
Movie poster for the observational documentary Austerlitz (2016), length: 1 hour and 34 minutes.
In addition, Loznica is concerned with what the film itself cannot express. In an online documentary class, he proposed how to portray a mass famine, showing that suffering was slowly and relentlessly expanding. In the documentary Maidan (2014), he portrays the concept of hope as waiting. In the film, large-scale street protests against Russian military provocations erupt in Kiev. Static cameras showed the fanatical mood of demonstrators on the streets, but also showed protesters sleeping in public shelters. Revolutions are happening in many ways, even in a bunch of bland cardboard boxes filled with donated bananas or a bunch of honey jars. Static representation reminds the viewer that cameras can't be ubiquitous. We are still far from the idealistic and utter ecstatic revolution of Giga Vertov's silent documentary Kino-eye (1924). Loznica focused on the capture of moments, as he captured protesters moving in and out of the crowd. The slogans on the demonstration boards are integrated into many corners of daily life in the city. The scene of a giant soup pot prepared on the street is reminiscent of a similar image from the movie "Blockade" – it reminds people that resistance can still go on like life.
Trailer for the historical documentary Maidan (2014), length: 2 hours and 14 minutes.
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This article is originally created by the public account [ABAGo] manager Happy Big Fat
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