The Deterritorialised Muslim Convert in Post-Communist Eastern European Cinema

BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE Article The Deterritorialised Muslim Convert in Post-Communist Eastern European Cinema

EWA MAZIERSKA, University of Central Lancashire, United Kingdom; email: [email protected] LARS KRISTENSEN, University of Skövde, Sweden; email: [email protected] EVA NÄRIPEA, Estonian Academy of Arts, Film Archives of The National Archives; email: [email protected] 54 DOI: 10.1515/bsmr-2015-0015 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE ABSTRACT This article analyses the Muslim convert as portrayed in three post-communist Eastern European fi lms: Vladimir Khotinenko’s A Moslem (Мусульманин, Russia, 1996), Jerzy Skolimowski’s Essential Killing (Poland/Norway/ Ireland/Hungary/France, 2010), and Sulev Keedus’s Letters to Angel (Kirjad Inglile, Estonia, 2011). Although set in diff erent periods, the fi lms have their origins in Afghanistan and then move to European countries. The conversion to Islam happens in connection to, or as a consequence of, diff erent military confl icts that the country has seen. The authors examine the consequences the characters have on their environment, using Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s concept of deterritorialisation, under- stood as an opportunity to produce political and cultural change. Resettling from one religion and place into another means breaking up structures that need to be reassembled diff erently. However, these three fi lms seem to desire deterritorialisation and resettlement for diff erent reasons. In A Moslem, national structures need to be reset since foreign Western values have corrupted the post-communist Russian rural society. In Essential Killing, it is the Western military system of oppression that cannot uphold the convert and his values. Lastly, in Letters to Angel, the convert exposes the hollowness of post-communist capitalism. The Muslim converts in these fi lms are subtle reminders that we can all reinvent ourselves.

INTRODUCTION studies – A Moslem (Мусульманин, Russia, To date, the screen representations of 1996) by Vladimir Khotinenko, Essential Islamic identity in Eastern European cin- Killing (Poland/Norway/Ireland/Hungary/ ema have drawn relatively little academic France, 2010) by Jerzy Skolimowski, and interest (exceptions being, e.g., Ostrowska Letters to Angel (Kirjad Inglile, Estonia, 2011) 2011, Ladegaard 2013, Mazierska 2014, by Sulev Keedus. For the purpose of build- Ludewig forthcoming). This article is an ing a context for these post-Soviet works, we attempt to address this gap to a certain will provide a brief overview of the migration extent by investigating representations of discourses within which Muslim characters Muslim converts in Eastern European cin- have played a role, as well as a short survey ema. Our study focuses on three case of the earlier appearances of Muslim

55 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE characters on the (mainly) Soviet screen.1 However, it is with Yosefa Loshitzky’s Our analysis of Muslim identities in these Screening Strangers (2010) that the idea of post-communist and, on two occasions also “Fortress Europe” is most clearly demar- clearly transnational, fi lms is framed by cated; an idea that relates closely to Mus- Deleuzo-Guattarian concepts of “becom- lim identities, which are of specifi c inter- ing-minor” (Deleuze, Guattari [1975] 1986) est here. According to Loshitzky (2010: 2), and deterritorialisation (Deleuze, Guattari “European countries have tended to view [1972] 1983). migration as challenging and threatening One of the dominant themes that have to their territory, identity, and ways of imag- preoccupied fi lm studies in the post-com- ining themselves and others. [---] Fortress munist era has been that of migration. A Europe increasingly erects racial, ethnic, variety of publications have dealt with the and religious boundaries.” Given that “For- representation of migrants and diasporic tress Europe” negates internal European subjects, as well as with the increased tran- migration as being at the heart of the Euro- snational mobility of fi lms and fi lmmakers, pean idea, it also negates a particular Euro- in an effort to capture a particular Euro- pean Muslim identity. pean identity. While we will limit ourselves Historically, Europe has always been to looking at representations and not the made up of different religious identities, mobility of the fi lmmakers in this study, the where Christianity has provided the major- literature in the fi eld often includes both ity of Europeans with an identity and Jew- approaches to migration. One of the fi rst ish and Muslim identities have been con- accounts of these journeys across national signed to minorities. In this regard, repre- borders was Ewa Mazierska and Laura Ras- sentations of cinematic migration can be caroli’s Crossing New Europe (2006), where viewed as confrontations of minor versus the genre of the road movie was examined major languages, as was highlighted by as a starting point for capturing increased Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in relation cinematic mobility in Europe. An edited to Franz Kafka’s writing. “Becoming-minor”, volume by Daniela Berghahn and Clau- they argued, was in itself an issue of ques- dia Sternberg, European Cinema in Motion tioning essential concepts of national iden- (2010), discusses diasporic fi lmmak- tity (Deleuze, Guattari 1986 [1975]: 16–27). ers and the portrayals of migration jour- Deleuze and Guattari’s use of a “minor lan- neys, and also offers comparative studies guage” versus dominating languages has of national fi lm industries. More recently, sparked similar accounts within the rich European Cinema after the Wall (2014), a fi eld of “Deleuzian” fi lm studies, where the volume edited by Leen Engelen and Kris notion of a “minor cinema”, fi rst coined in Van Heuckelom, takes this perspective fur- English by D. N. Rodowick (1997), has come ther by focusing on East-West on-screen to signify “attempts made by marginalised mobility and migration. These studies take or minority groups to create a new sense issue with visible and invisible borders and of identity” (Martin-Jones 2006: 6). This barriers within Europe, as well as between concept has gained particular traction in Europe and other places, in order to decon- Hamid Nafi cy’s (2001) approach to exilic struct national, regional, and global identity and diasporic cinema and Alison Butler’s formations. (2002) to women’s cinema. In shifting the analytical material from a minor language 1 Since the presence of Islam has always been relatively to cinematic representations of migration, limited in Poland and Estonia (less than 1% of the we can show how the processes of transna- population in 2011, compared to 14% in Russia), Muslim characters have made rare appearances in tional migration, forced displacement, and these national cinemas. In socialist Poland, Muslims diaspora building make the essential con- were featured only in relation to the distant past (and usually distant countries), as in Pan Wołodyjowski stellation of a nation unstable. To account (Poland, 1969, Jerzy Hoffmann), a signifi cant box-offi ce for this instability, we fi nd it useful to success featuring the 1672 rebellion of the Lipka Tatars. employ another Deleuzo-Guattarian term,

56 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE deterritorialisation. Typically of their oeuvre, MUSLIMS IN EASTERN Deleuze and Guattari describe this concept EUROPEAN, SOVIET, AND and the processes related to it in different RUSSIAN CINEMA: THE AFGHAN ways and in various contexts (e.g. [1972] WAR AND THE WAR ON TERROR 1983: 322; [1980] 1987: 88; [1975] 1986: The Soviet Union had the largest popula- 86; [1991] 1994: 68), but it has been briefl y tion of Muslims in the socialist world, espe- summarised “as a movement producing cially due to the autonomous republics of change” (Parr 2010: 69); “[t]he breaking up Chechnya and Dagestan where Muslims of order, boundaries and form to produce constituted the majority of the population, movement and growth, especially where and Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, where this involves … the disturbance of arbitrary they were a dominant minority. Thus, it is no or social rules employed in repression” (Sut- wonder that Soviet cinema also dealt exten- ton, Martin-Jones 2008: 142). Along these sively with this issue. Dziga Vertov’s fi lm, lines, we use it to describe the detachment Three Songs about Lenin (Три песни о Ленине, of particular national signs, symbols, etc., Russia, 1934), is a good example of how from their established and fi xed vertical Soviet cinema rose to the task of narrating hierarchy of meanings, identities, and con- the new socialist space – with the unveiling texts. In this sense, the term deterritoriali- of Muslim women as the crowning exam- sation embraces issues of minority, iden- ple of the ability of Soviet power to liberate tity, and political power, and has the ability the periphery of its patriarchal feudalism. In to break down cultural racism, which, as other words, more than his or her religion, it Loshitzky (2010: 4–5) rightly points out, is is the marginal position within the Empire behind such dogmas as the “war on crime” that determines the role of the Muslim or the “war on terror”. character in Soviet cinema. Our task is not to see the Muslim as For example, in Ivan Pyryev’s The the Other, but rather to view Muslim iden- Swineherd and the Shepherd (aka They tities as internal and minor in relation to Met in Moscow/Свинарка и пастух, Rus- the (pan-)European identity. While this can sia, 1941), the handsome (Muslim) shep- create a differentiation between European herd from Dagestan travels to the All-Un- Muslims and non-European Muslims, it is ion Agricultural Exhibition, a celebration of important to highlight a European identity the Soviet multicultural melting pot, where that is encompassing different faiths. Kafka he meets and falls in love with a kolkhoz was European and his family had lived in woman, who is also a stranger in Moscow. Europe for generations, but Kafka’s Jewish- Leonid Gaidai’s Kidnapping, Caucasian Style, ness and his German language made him or, The New Adventures of Shurik (Кавказская “minor” in relation to the political power (cf. пленница, или Новые приключения Шурика, Deleuze, Guattari [1975] 1986: 16ff). Simi- Russia, 1967) continues the theme of the larly, the Islamic belief of our characters small nations of Soviet Union and the tra- makes them minor in relation to the estab- dition of Russian literature cultivated by lished ideas about national affi liation, ter- authors such as Alexander Pushkin and rorism, and moral values. Our examples Mikhail Lermontov. In this fi lm, Shurik, a draw on the idea that Muslims in Europe famous Soviet comic character, travels to should not be classifi ed as estranged the Caucasus as an anthropologist to study (Orgad 2012: 87–88), and even less as ene- the local customs. Not only does he save a mies, merely because they are Muslim. Our local girl kidnapped for marriage, he also point is that the Muslim characters in the wins her heart in the end. Both fi lms show discussed fi lms reveal, question, and desta- the Chechen Muslim character as someone bilise the perceived, and often dominant, who can either spellbind or infl ame his/her concept of Eastern European and European co-star. In these fi lms, a melodrama and a identity as Christian. romantic comedy respectively, the Muslim protagonists are somewhat peripheral while

57 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE the centre is represented by the non-Mus- port provided by the American government lim Soviet (wo)man. These are early narra- to the Mujahedeen in their fi ght against the tives in which the imperial centre strives to Soviets (Shaikh 2013). project itself as the triumphant eradicator The Afghan war also affected the cin- of backwardness in the land of the colo- ematic representations of Muslim char- nised natives. The postcolonial approach acters in Soviet cinema. Once the Soviet is perhaps best illustrated by Andrei Kon- armed forces entered Afghanistan in 1979, chalovsky’s First Teacher (Первый учитель, the images of confl ict between Muslims Russia, 1965) where the Soviet liberation and non-Muslims replaced that of col- project of the Islamic periphery is called laboration. The Mujahedeen and Soviet into question (see Coxe 2003; on postcolo- soldiers are portrayed as warriors of faith nialism, see Mazierska et al. 2014), when a and warriors of socialism, respectively. Fur- Red Army teacher comes in direct confl ict thermore, as the censorship eased in the with a stubborn settlement that refuses to 1980s, the Mujahedeen are increasingly see the light of education and breaks down portrayed as noble savages with a pure, the teacher’s communist belief system. It is although irrational, will to sacrifi ce them- in this climate that the Soviet army enters selves, their family and, ultimately, the Afghanistan in December 1979. whole community in order to win their free- The Soviet war in Afghanistan, dom. For the fi rst time, the fi lms showed prompted by a confl ict within the Afghan that the Soviet soldiers were facing Islamic Communist Party, which took power in 1978, forces abroad that had anti-colonial rea- and a revolt in the Afghan military (Shaikh sons for refusing Soviet ideological domi- 2013), did not fulfi l its main objective. The nation. It is within this context that Soviet Soviets failed to conquer the rebel forces cinema, with great diffi culty, approached and take control of the country and even- the topic, for instance, several years into tually had to withdraw, experiencing the the war, in Juris Podnieks’s documentary Is greatest Soviet humiliation in the twentieth It Easy to Be Young? (Vai viegli būt jaunam, century. Due to the sheer cost of keeping a Latvia, 1986). This fi lm outlines the ideo- large army on foreign soil, the war proved logical, social, national, and personal com- very costly, driving the Soviet Union into plexities of the situation where, instead deep economic crisis, which was a major of the coloniser and the colonised in the factor in the Soviet Union losing its posi- classical sense, two minorities are pitted tion as a superpower, the subsequent dis- against one another, doomed to lose-lose solution of the Soviet bloc and the end of consequences. The Soviet TV miniseries All state socialism. The human cost was also Costs Paid (За всё заплачено, Russia, 1988) high. It is estimated that during the ten by Aleksei Saltykov, one of the fi rst Soviet years of the confl ict over 14,000 Soviet sol- feature fi lms to show the war in Afghani- diers died, over 50,000 were wounded, and stan, addressed the subject in a far more over 400,000 fell ill from hepatitis, typhoid straightforward manner than Podnieks’ fi lm, fever, and other diseases. The material and with the main characters seeking to raise human losses on the Afghan side were even money for a monument in honour of their higher. During the ten years of the confl ict, fallen comrades. With Vladimir Bortko’s the Afghan economy and infrastructure Afghan Breakdown (Афганский излом, Rus- crumbled and the country disintegrated, sia/Italy, 1990) and Timur Bekmabetov making it effectively impossible to gov- and Gennadi Gayumov’s Peshavar Waltz ern; which to a large extent is still the case. (Пешаварский вальс, Russia, 1994) we see It is estimated that 1.3 million Afghans, the topic developed into a full-blown action mainly civilians, died during this period and fi lm with a trauma at its core on a par with many were wounded and incapacitated. It Hollywood’s representations of the Vietnam is argued that the war gave rise to radical War. While the disintegration of the Soviet Islamism, in a large part due to the sup- Union spread the trauma of the Afghan War

58 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE unevenly among the former republics, other to Deleuze and Guattari, there are always wars and traumas soon took the upper three separate but intertwined movements hand in Eastern European and Russian cin- involved in such a process: territory, deter- ema, such as the violent breakup of Yugo- ritorialisation, and reterritorialisation. “Per- slavia (1991–1992) and the wars in Chech- haps every territory presupposes a priori nya (1994–1996 and 1999–2000). With deterritorialisation, or everything happens these depictions, the image of the Muslim at the same time”, but to disentangle the characters became grounded in post-im- knot, “we need to diagnose real types or perial nationalism, i.e., Bosnian Muslim or personae” to whom these processes are Chechen Muslim, but this situation changed assigned (Deleuze, Guattari [1991] 1994: with the War on Terror. 68; emphasis in the original). Examples that After the events of 9/11, the “Muslim” Deleuze and Guattari give are the merchant characters in many cinemas around the who deterritorialises products from the ter- world (including Eastern European cinema) ritory into commodities that are reterrito- turned into al-Qaeda fi ghters who have no rialised on the market; the exiled who are particular national affi liation. Except for a deterritorialised from their homeland (terri- few black widows, the prototypical fi ghter tory) to a host-land (reterritorialisation); or is a bearded male and an antagonist who the capitalist who deterriorialises capital/ resembles the Mujahedeen soldiers in spirit property from its connection with the land and determination. Furthermore, this Jihad- and reterritorialises it as a means of produc- ist fi ghter stands in confrontation with tion, and “labour [which] becomes “abstract” European Christianity, which needs to be labour, reterritorialised in wages” (Deleuze, defeated (hence the formation of “fortress Guattari [1991] 1994: 68). We propose that Europe”, which in the post-communist era the convert is such a “conceptual persona” includes both Eastern and Western Europe, that sheds light on the inherent instability of although retaining some critical inter- ethnic, national, and religious identities. The nal lines of struggle). The converted Mus- convert challenges such identities, because lim, conceived within this context, begins of her/his deterritorialisation from one reli- to destabilise the homogenous concepts gion and reterritorialisation into another. of belonging, whether they are religious The three fi lms highlighted in this or national constructs. In a very particular analysis present the convert to Islam as sense, the convert is “Othered” twice as s/ the trigger of the narrative. In each fi lm the he is separated from a non-Muslim identity, main character travels either voluntarily, as well as from other Muslims. This other- to answer a religious calling, or by force. In ness resembles exilic and diasporic iden- Letters to Angel and A Muslim, his destina- tities, which can open up narrative angles tion is “home”, a place where he once lived; from their interstitial positions between the in Essential Killing, by contrast, the original two homelands: narratives that are impos- home of the protagonist remains unknown, sible from purely national and mainstream or at least ambiguous, to the viewer, even perspectives (Nafi cy 2001). This is what if his own projections of a true “home” are Deleuze and Guattari see as deterritoriali- fi rmly established in a Middle Eastern con- sation: the possibility of other dimensions text. Our point is that these deterritorialised opened up by “becoming-minor” and it is in Muslims are creating friction in the homog- this sense that we will consider the Muslim enous image of self in terms of national con- convert in Eastern European and Russian stellations, religious beliefs, and communal cinema. The convert becomes the “impure belonging. Are they still themselves? This one” that can morph himself, but also oth- is the question these characters are asked ers, into new shapes. This transmutability is when returning to their (former) homes. viewed as dangerous, because it can radi- These Western converts to Islam all have dif- cally open eyes and ears to other narratives ferent trajectories and objectives, but the besides the established ones. According main reason for the fi lmmakers to evoke their

59 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE deterritorialising exploits is the effect they Essential Killing can be seen as a tran- have on their surroundings. Thus the home- snational fi lm, since it was made by fi lm coming in these narratives is far from the companies from fi ve different countries style of the migrant homecomings as rep- – Poland, Norway, Ireland, Hungary, and resented in traffi cking stories (Brown et al. France. This ensured some distribution, 2010) or of the positive narratives of West- although the fi lm was in danger of being erners returning to Eastern Europe in search categorised as Euro-pudding, i.e. a fi lm of their roots (see Gott 2014: 6–14). Neither that is driven by European integration poli- are the Muslim converts “the other within” in cies rather than the depth of the narrative a traditional, historical sense, like the Jews (Jäckel 1997). Moreover, it screened at all and Roma in Europe (Loshitzky 2010: 4). the major festivals – Venice3 and Toronto, Before we move to the analysis, we for example – and was distributed in many need to briefl y describe the production and European countries, but failed to get a gen- distribution of the fi lms, because such fac- eral release in the United States, which tors inevitably affect the ideology of the somewhat diminished its political potential. fi lms, including the ways the Muslim char- It also did rather well among domestic view- acters are represented, which are of para- ers with nearly 75,000 tickets sold. Of the mount importance to us. three fi lms discussed here, Essential Kill- ing sold the most tickets in Europe – nearly DIRECTOR-AUTEURS AND 150,000 with about 45,000 tickets sold in CO-PRODUCTIONS: IMPACT France. AND FUNDING Letters to Angel sold nearly 5,000 tick- When accounting for the production and ets in Estonia and fewer than 100 cinema- reception of fi lms, we are often faced with goers saw the fi lm in Latvia. It was only co- divergent opinions, concerning issues such fi nanced by Finland, but not co-produced, as whether a fi lm is still a national prod- i.e., Keedus and his Estonian producer uct when co-produced by two companies in F-Seitse retained total control over the two different countries and whether festival content. The issue of artistic control over screenings function as evidence of signifi - the production leads us to the concept of cant impact on audiences. A Moslem is most the auteur as the ultimate author of a fi lm. clearly a national product; with backing from Keedus and Skolimowski can be perceived the Russian state at a time when very few as auteurs, as the fi lms they directed were grants were given to fi lm production. A Mos- based on their scripts (in case of Letters lem received $115,000 from Roskomkino, to Angel co-written with Madis Kõiv), and which was the state agency for fi lm funding, they exerted signifi cant control over their while the director’s own studio contributed production. Skolimowski’s artistic freedom less than 20% of that amount (Beumers was largely due to generous support from 1999: 880), which created “heated discus- the Polish Film Institute, in recognition of sions” about state-fi nanced fi lmmaking at the fact that along with Andrzej Wajda, he the International Film Festival in Sochi the is the most important Polish director cur- following year (Johnson 1997: 281–282). rently working in Poland. The fact that after However, it had a rather limited domestic the fall of the Berlin Wall he decided to audience, partly due to the fact that the dis- leave the United States, where he had lived tribution system in Russia had not recuper- and worked for many years, and resume his ated after the collapse of the Soviet Union. career in Poland, affords him extra prestige A Moslem was screened at the Toronto Film in his native country. Vladimir Khotinenko’s Festival and had a general release in France where over 8,000 viewers saw the fi lm.2 3 Essential Killing opened at the 67th edition of the Venice International Film Festival in 2010 where it won 2 All attendance fi gures are taken from the Lumiere two major awards, the Special Jury Prize and the Coppa database on admissions of fi lms released in Europe: Volpi for the Best Actor (Vincent Gallo as Mohammed), http://lumiere.obs.coe.int/web/search/. an unprecedented exception to the rules of the festival.

60 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE relationship with authorship remains dif- the trauma of the Afghan War lingers on but ferent from Skolimowski’s. Khotinenko only in the background. For example, Fedor emerged during the post-communist era Bondarchuk’s The 9th Company (9 рота, as one of the fi lmmakers building their own Finland/Russia/Ukraine, 2005), partly set in studios in Russia and has continued mak- Afghanistan, reveals little about the confl ict ing goszakaz (госзаказ) fi lms – fi lms made itself, resorting instead to a nostalgic cel- on order from the government (Norris 2012: ebration of the Soviet system. Bondarchuk’s 259–262). With strongly nationalistic pro- fi lm includes a Chechen soldier in the fi ght ductions about mostly historical events, against the religious Islamists, and as men- Khotinenko has become synonymous with tioned above, underlines the values of the anti-auteurist and conformist fi lmmak- periphery of the Empire as more important ing, enjoying the full backing of the Rus- than the religious values (van Gorp 2012: sian political authorities. This is in striking 20). However, A Moslem is different in this contrast with Sulev Keedus, whose auteur- regard. ist practices bring a particular style to his In the mid 1990s, everything was still works, thereby branding his oeuvre simi- up in the air and Russia was in a sort of larly to other European directors, for exam- transitional fl ux, where any national dis- ple, Lars von Trier, the Dardenne brothers, course could still achieve hegemony over and Pedro Almodóvar. Since he is working the others. In other words, a particular nar- in the cinema of small country, the budg- rative within which the national question ets at Keedus’s disposal are far smaller could be addressed was yet to be estab- than Skolimowski’s or Khotinenko’s, but he lished. A reformed monarchy, secular has used this to his advantage by imple- democracy, post-Soviet imperialism, Rus- menting stylistic and authorial control over sian isolationism, national socialism, eth- his productions. In addition to directing, nic multiculturalism, centralised federacy Keedus typically contributes extensively – all these were part of the mix in the early to the scripts of his fi lms (alongside Madis to mid-1990s. Perceived as members of the Kõiv, his usual screenwriting partner). We new post-Soviet intelligentsia, Khotinenko will now turn to the individual case studies and his peers had a clearly anti-modern- structured in chronological order. ist agenda (Beumers 1999: 892) and were highly critical of Yeltsin’s politics and the A MOSLEM: A (MUSLIM) decline in moral values. Also called quasi- ALIEN IN AN (ORTHODOX) HOME intellectuals (raznochinets, разночинец; A Moslem can be seen as a precursor to Дондурей 2000), these fi lmmakers, from Putin-style blockbuster cinema. The fi lm Nikita Mikhalkov to Aleksei Balabanov, deals with the trauma of war, but in a far wanted to teach audiences to love the subtler way than later post-Soviet Russian motherland, which they believed had been fi lms, such as Janick Faiziev’s The Turkish corrupted by Western-like behaviour and Gambit (Турецкий гамбит, Russia/Bulgaria, values. Cinema, in their hands, could, and 2005) and Khotinenko’s own epic history should, instil moral values in the audiences drama 1612 (Russia, 2007). The deterritori- and effectively provide guidance during the alising factor in A Moslem is manifested by treacherous post-communist transition the fact that the national context is ques- period (Beumers 1999: 892). A Moslem is a tioned, which allows for other narratives to good example of this kind of fi lmmaking. emerge. It is no wonder that the converted Khoteninko’s fi lm appeared in a period Muslim causes problems in a climate of before terrorism in Russia and elsewhere post-imperial nationalism, because, in such was being attributed to Islamists and a context, the spectre of old imperial con- Jihadists, that is, before the 1999 bomb- stellations persists, while new lines are ings of the apartment blocks in several Rus- being drawn in the sand between us and sian cities, killing nearly 300 people, and them, self and the Other. In Russian cinema, the 2002 Nord-Ost siege in Moscow, which

61 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE resulted in 170 hostages and hostage tak- less mythical landscapes in many other ers being killed. With both these incidents, fi lms of the era, arguing that this “compen- the adjective “Muslim” was attached to sates for the absence or death” of an identi- the word terrorism in connection with the fi able hero (Johnson 1997: 283–284). event, which was, in particular, attributed The fact that the fi lm opens with a to Chechen separatists. However, these priest tells us that, despite the title, the fi lm attacks are predominantly associated is actually not about Islam or particular with the Second War in Chechnya (1999– Islamic values. Once we have left the priest 2009), while A Moslem deals with the First and the fi lm credits, we are introduced to Chechen War (1994–1996), which had dif- Sonya (Nina Usatova) sitting in her living ferent connotations. The First Chechen War room, working at her spinning wheel and was deeply unpopular in Russia as dem- watching TV – again emphasising that the onstrated by the fact that mothers of sol- focus is on traditional Russian values. From diers travelled to the region to fi ght for the the TV, we hear an announcement that a release of their ill-prepared sons from the Russian soldier has been located in Afghan- army or, worse, from Chechen captivity. The istan and will be returning home after all Chechen combatants were not depicted as these years in “captivity”. Nikolai (Kolya, barbaric and their claim to independence Evgenii Mironov), Sonya’s son, is revealed to was regarded as legitimate, as seen in the be the soldier. Watching this news, Sonya fi lm Prisoner of the Mountains (Кавказский faints, breaking her spinning wheel. The пленник, Russia/Kazakhstan, 1996) by Ser- broken spinning wheel will emerge as the gei Bodrov. Similarly, A Moslem refuses to fi lm’s subplot, as we keep seeing Kolya try- demonise the Islamic other, and instead ing to fi x it by cutting and carving a new leg supports the continuation of the Soviet for it. Kolya is presented as a mending force Empire, where all nations are equal, even if – a repairman who has returned home to fi x best served by Russian patronage (Graffy the country.4 Based on Deleuze and Guat- 1996: 24). Despite its straightforward tari’s sense of deterritorialisation, we can imagery of a Muslim at home, it is also the argue that Kolya’s constant repair efforts beginning of the end of Russia’s overbearing – efforts of reterritorialisation – force the attitude toward the nationalist separatists. community to look for their own territory It is not long after that we see Chechen comprised of religious and national signs nationals in Russian cinema being targeted and symbols. as alien foreigners that do not belong in Upon his arrival, Kolya is told that his Russia (Hashamova 2007: 47–48). father hanged himself and that his brother, In the opening image of the fi lm, we Fedya (Aleksandr Baluev), who cut down his fi rst hear and then see a singing priest father’s body, has been drinking heavily ever walking up a lush green hill. The birds are since. Moreover, as a converted Muslim, singing in the sky. As he walks toward the adopting Islamic values and dress, Kolya camera, the camera pans to reveal rural greatest physical and psychological strug- Russia drenched in sunshine, with rivers, gle is with Fedya. Devoted to his faith, refus- embankments, and thick forests as far as ing to consume alcohol and silently devoted the eye can see. The song of the priest is to his work, Kolya is everything Fedya is not. accentuated by an echo that makes the Even though Fedya does not practice reli- landscape feel like an eternal cathedral. gion and is asked by the priest to attend The holy place, or sacred village, will be church services, he tries to force Kolya to evoked later in the fi lm through allusions kiss the family icon. Somehow, Fedya is to the legend of Kitezh, according to which provoked by Kolya’s purity to change his the holy city was submerged into a lake since it refused to surrender to the Mongo- 4 The repairman, or the fi xer, was a common character lian forces at its gates. Vida T. Johnson has in the fi lms of the mid-1990s, e.g. in Prisoner of the Mountains by Sergei Bodrov and in Brother (Брат, noticed similar extreme long shots of time- Russia, 1997) by Aleksei Balabanov.

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FIGURE 1–2. A Moslem (Мусульманин) by Vladimir Khotinenko (Russia, 1996).

63 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE ways and to reterritorialise to the religious distant background (Gillespie 2003: 141– icon. The bottom line is that Kolya is not the 142; Lawton 2004: 183–184; Beumers 2009: unsettled one – his mother Sonya, Fedya, 237). We argue against this interpretation, and the rest of the villagers are the ones since Kolya’s religious vows of chastity, not who are deterritorialised by Kolya. Kolya’s his invisible conversion to Islam, are at the silence, his non-condemning demean- centre of the fi lm’s narrative. It is salvation our, and his forgiving character disturb the through religious belief that lies at the heart equilibrium of the post-communist society. of the fi lm, as opposed to adherence to a Kolya disrupts the road taken by Russian particular religion. towards Western-style secularism and dec- Kolya’s actions when he saves his adence with his religious belief in only one brother from hanging himself as his father God. By becoming-minor, he opens up the did are expressive in this sense. Kolya, the possibility that everybody can change. Thus, saviour, tells the villagers that it is time suddenly everybody can avoid the slippery to “stop these suicides”. It is a sin to com- slope into the hedonism of late capitalism. mit suicide, says Kolya, but “it is easy to In this sense, Kolya’s presence can be com- sin” – as easy as to drink water. Kolya’s pared to that of the characters in Essential point is that God loves them nonetheless Killing and Letters to Angel. Between them, – “he loves you even if you do not love him”. these converts might have a common rea- Hence, belief is what matters. Jolyon Mitch- son for embracing Islam, but the raison ell examines the entire history of Russian d’être of each fi lm diverges. In A Moslem, and Soviet cinema for signs of religion and Khotinenko uses the deterritorialisation peace and, not surprisingly, it is “Orthodox effect of the Muslim convert to further his priests and monks” who come out on top anti-modernist agenda. “as guides or models for those searching In A Moslem, the idea of salvation for peace” (Mitchell 2008: 151). However, is located in religious belief – Kolya is a according to Mitchell, A Moslem is part of a Christ-like fi gure. For example, when an old post-communist embrace of religious faith army comrade (who thinks Kolya betrayed (Mitchell 2008: 149). So despite the fact his company during the war) shoots him in that Kolya is not a monk or a priest his faith the stomach, Kolya, with his wound and red is meant to territorialise, in the Lacanian blood on his white shirt, resembles Christ sense, the corrupt post-communist sub- (Swaffar 2000: 109). Kolya’s sacrifi cial death jects into once again embracing Orthodoxy is portrayed with the same biblical iconog- as their saviour. In the eyes of the fi lmmak- raphy. This suggests that Kolya’s conver- ers, the post-communist moral degradation sion is shorthand for purity and innocence, needs to be reversed and Kolya’s homecom- rather than Islamic literacy or Russian Mus- ing opens the way for Orthodox Christian- limhood. In this sense, Kolya resembles the ity to regain its foothold in Russian society. pure, childlike protagonist of the Dostoyevs- Thus A Moslem is ultimately framed within kian mode, uncontaminated by vices, seen local Russian objectives and concerns. most clearly in Prince Myshkin and Alyosha Karamazov. These heroes’ beliefs unsettle ESSENTIAL KILLING: the balance of the narrative and their ulti- TERRORISM mate destruction is part of the sinful liturgy DETERRITORIALISED of Christianity. Both Myshkin and Alyosha While Huntington’s “clash of civilisations” leave at the end of the novels and, in the thesis, according to which cultural and reli- same vein, Kolya cannot be present in the gious identities are seen as the primary fi nal images of the narrative. This denial of sources of confl ict in the post-commu- Kolya’s presence runs contrary to previous nist era (Huntington 1996), became fi rmly interpretations, which juxtapose the image established as the dominant discourse in of Kolya-the-Muslim-Other praying in the the aftermath of 9/11, and a shadow of the fi elds against the Orthodox Church in the “War on Terror” was cast onto practically all

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Muslims, Jerzy Skolimowski’s Essential Kill- sation, which “programs desire to valorize ing performs a set of minimalist and sub- certain organs and objects at the expense tle, yet compelling, subversions in order to of others”, Deleuzo-Guattarian deterritorial- question such battlefronts and arguablly isation “designates … the process of freeing “natural” alliances. Reduced to the “essen- desire from established organs and objects” tial” in narrative and visual form, the fi lm is (Holland 1999: 19). It is important to note based on an idea that came to the director that Deleuze and Guattari’s refusal to fi x the when he nearly crashed his car on a wintry meaning of the concepts they use can be road two kilometres from the Szczytno-Szy- compared to Skolimowski’s predilection for many airport in north-eastern Poland, close vagueness, or “poetic” expression. In Essen- to his house in Masuria (Franklin 2010). He tial Killing, he mobilises a number of dis- knew of the (later confi rmed) rumours that courses and identities, without reterritorial- the airport was used to service a nearby ising them, i.e. without necessarily providing CIA “black site” where terrorist suspects, defi nitive judgments or unequivocal stand- including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the points of his own, and often rejecting binary “principal architect of the 9/11 attacks” frames of reference. The only exception (Kean et al. s.a.: 145), were covertly inter- seems to be his obvious distaste towards rogated and tortured. After the incident, the American “superpower”, represented by Skolimowski started to wonder what would almost stereotypically idiotic, pot-smoking happen if one of these terrorist suspects soldiers, cracking offensive, patronising escaped, barefoot and in shackles, wearing jokes at the expense of the miseries of the a prisoner’s uniform (Franklin 2010). Would “Third World”, and their disturbingly cruel he return “to the state of a wild animal, superiors who imagine themselves as the who has to kill in order to survive” (Dawson ultimate rulers of the world. In the opening 2011)? sequence of Essential Killing, the protago- The majority of Polish critics read the nist, Mohammed (Vincent Gallo), is cap- fi lm “universally” rather than “politically”, tured by the US soldiers and subjected to encouraged by Skolimowski himself, who unsettlingly violent and humiliating inter- argued that “[t]he political aspects of the rogation. (Figure 3) Importantly, we never situation didn’t interest me: to me politics learn if he is guilty of any intentional assault is a dirty game and I don’t want to voice my beyond self-defence (true, he does blow up opinions” (Dawson 2011).5 By contrast, we a couple of American GIs after being cor- argue that since the fi lm clearly problema- nered on a barren, labyrinthine battlefi eld). tises the dominant discourse on Muslims On the contrary, his heavy breathing signals as mad and violent terrorists and the West- a rather genuine sense of terror, untypi- ern allies as a united front of heroic warriors cal of a cold-blooded killer. At the same against “terror(ism)”, its political potential time, the fi lm does not explain how and why cannot be disregarded. In order to illumi- he ended up in this combat zone, which nate the fi lm’s social and political polemics, appears to be in a remote desert, signalling we can again turn to the Deluzo-Guattarian that he is most likely a mercenary, rather concept of deterritorialisation. Drawing on than a civilian bystander. Even so, the audi- Lacan’s psychoanalytic idea of territoriali- ence is still unaware of the circumstances of his choices. Furthermore, his identity is also ambiguous – although he has long 5 Such statements are almost obligatory in the Polish context. While in the Russian case, Khotinenko is happy hair, a beard, and wears Pashtun dress, the to be associated with the political powers, it is more fact that the American actor Vincent Gallo diffi cult for a Polish fi lmmaker to declare his/her political allegiances. Moreover, a director admitting was cast in Mohammed’s role has led many to being interested in politics or supporting any political commentators to speculate that he might programme would simply alienate audiences. Finally, Skolimowski denies such a claim since it can be seen be a Muslim convert of American origin. The as pre-empting the accusation of supporting a confusion is intensifi ed by the character terrorist – which in fact was an accusation directed at this fi lm by some critics. never uttering a word – at fi rst, this is

65 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE motivated by his (temporary) deafness symbol of Christ in early Christianity6; the caused by the explosion of a missile shot shots of Mohammed drinking breast milk at him by the American soldiers; later, bringing to mind images of the Nursing escaping from his pursuers on a wintry Madonna (Madonna Lactans) breastfeed- landscape, he is forced to remain silent in ing the infant Jesus – a symbol of Coptic order to avoid being recaptured. His voice and Palestinian origin, and later especially deprivation can be interpreted “as a met- favoured in the Eastern Orthodox Church aphor of discursive cleansing of all the (Tradigo 2006: 183); the white horse invok- voices of those who disagree with Ameri- ing the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse can policy” (Mazierska 2014: 114). All in all, in Revelation 6:1–8, the fi rst of whom rides the dislocation of Mohammed’s identity on a white horse and is usually interpreted and status betrays Skolimowski’s desire as the Messianic King Jesus Christ; fi nally, to evade, deterritorialise the dominant Mohammed’s fatal chest wound resem- discourse on, and understanding of, both bling the last of the “Five Holy Wounds”, Muslim people, and especially Muslim in the side of Jesus’ chest. Yet by attach- fi ghters, as presenting a clear and present ing these symbols to a character identifi ed danger to Western civilization and its as Muslim, Skolimowski deterritorialises notion of “humanity”. Despite Mohammed’s them from their established frame of refer- acts of aggression, which are, as noted, ence. Hence, despite the obvious similari- shown as motivated by a primal survival ties, it is diffi cult to read Mohammed as a instinct (Ladegaard 2013: 182), he comes martyr whose death could redeem the sins across as a much more sympathetic char- of (Western? Muslim?) humankind (and acter than the American “warriors on ter- perhaps reconcile the “clashing civilisa- ror” whose massive, systematic, and mech- tions”). Rather, as observed earlier, he can anised violence is portrayed as grossly dis- be described as a homo sacer (Mazierska proportionate. 2014: 115), an enigmatic and contradictory Once the narrative moves from the fi gure of archaic Roman law, a convicted initial arid Middle Eastern setting to the criminal whose specifi city is constituted by frosty, apparently Polish, woodland where “the unpunishability of his killing and the the crash of the transport vehicle provides ban on his sacrifi ce” (Agamben 1998: 48). Mohammed with a chance to fl ee, Skoli- According to Giorgio Agamben, an inmate mowski activates a series of Christian sym- of a Nazi concentration camp that is exter- bols, similarly to Khotinenko in A Moslem, minated as “a louse” is a “fl agrant case” of which, in combination with Mohammed’s this “bare life”, standing simultaneously Muslim affi liations and Skolimowski’s own both inside and outside the law (Agamben known distaste for institutionalised reli- 1998: 68). Mohammad’s plight, and the sta- gion (see Mazierska 2010: 37), produce tus of Muslims (especially, but not only, the a perplexing constellation of images and fundamentalists) in the West, is indeed not meanings. On his excruciating “journey to very far removed from the Nazi discourse nowhere” (Nawój 2014) through the win- on Jews. But fi rst and foremost, both Agam- try forest, Mohammed spends a night in ben and Skolimowski seem to suggest that a manger fi lled with hay, eats raw fi sh (in “we are all virtually homines sacri”, potential addition to ants, tree bark, and halluci- victims of political manipulations, irrespec- nogenic wild berries), sucks the breast tive of our particular religious and cultural milk of a new mother (Figure 4), rides on backgrounds. a white horse, and is fatally wounded in Another aspect of deterritorialisation the chest. The iconography of these Bibli- in Essential Killing relates to the interwoven cal symbols refers unmistakably to Christ – the manger paralleling Jesus’s Holy Cra- 6 The Greek word for “fi sh” (ἰχθύς, ichthys) is formed dle in Bethlehem; the fi sh being a popular of the initial letters of the phrase Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς Θεοῦ Υἱὸς Σωτήρ (Iēsous Christos Theou Hyios Sōtēr), meaning, “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour”.

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5 6

FIGURE 3–6. Essential Killing by Jerzy Skolimowski (Poland/Norway/Ireland/Hungary/France, 2010).

67 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE discourses of colonialism and Orientalism. independent capitalist Estonia and Afghan- On the one hand, there appears to be polar- istan, scarred by never-ending confl icts. isation between the global “South” and The fi lm takes issue with the Soviet “North”, the fi rst represented by the parched invasion of Afghanistan and its aftermath. Arabic battlefront (Figure 5), as well as by The confl ict with Afghanistan has a particu- Mohammed’s dream sequences featuring larly strong infl uence on the history of the radiant visions of a peaceful Oriental exist- Soviet Baltic Republics, because a dispro- ence. On the other hand, although at fi rst portionally large number of the Soviet sol- glance, the global “North” appears to be at diers fi ghting in Afghanistan came from this the other extreme, glistening with beautiful region. This was a refl ection of an unoffi cial but ultimately deadly frost (Figure 6), these Soviet policy of favouring the Russian popu- two apparently opposing environments actu- lation over the inhabitants of other repub- ally share a number of similarities. Both lics, in this case ensuring that the Russians come across as magnifi cent and “virgin”, yet had a better chance of being spared the also barren and hostile, not unlike the land- war experience than, for example, Latvians scapes in Westerns (Ladegaard 2013: 183), or Estonians. Such a policy confi rms a rule, but equally exoticised. Both are portrayed as identifi ed by Michael Hardt and Antonio zones of war where “normal” laws are sus- Negri, that in contemporary wars the sol- pended, yet both contain enclaves of com- diers who run the greatest risk on the front passion and homeliness, whether real (the lines are not the US troops, but the “allied Polish woman who takes care of Moham- forces” (2006: 46–47). Hardt and Negri base med) or imaginary (the woman in a blue this idea on an analysis of the wars con- burka in his dreams). But most importantly, ducted by the United States, but the behav- both territories are ultimately governed, or iour of the Soviet Union during its wars also colonised, by the American “counter-ter- confi rms this point. By and large, the behav- rorist Empire”, not unlike in Letters to Angel, iour of the two superpowers point to their which we will analyse next. American high- imperial attitudes towards both their allies tech weaponry and sophisticated military and their enemies. strategies (even if unsuccessful in capturing Prior to Letters to Angel, the signifi - Mohammed), their “rationalised”, “urbane” cance of the Afghan war for the history and violence is contrasted with Mohammed’s self-image of the Baltic region was proven beastly, instinctual behaviour, as well as with by the production of the aforementioned the Polish rural environs and traditional, Is It Easy to Be Young?. Another fi lm which nature-conscious existence (cf. Said 1978: takes issue with the Afghan war is Baltic 300; Loomba 1997: 47). In other words, in Love Stories (Balti armastuslood, Finland/ relation to the Americans, both the soldiers Estonia, 1992) by Peeter Urbla. In one part shown in the fi lm and the American domina- of this tripartite fi lm, which is set in Latvia, tion in general, Skolimowski’s narrative “Ori- we encounter Sergei (Sergei Varchuk), a entalises” both the “south” and the “north”, Russian man who is prevented from mar- thus deterritorialising the offi cial Eastern rying his Latvian fi ancée Regina (Liana European alliance with the United States Upeniece) by his two Russian friends who and demonstrating that this alliance is far fought with him and saved his life in the from balanced. Afghan war. The Afghan war is seen by them as a kind of litmus test of one’s Russian- LETTERS TO ANGEL: ness, and by the same token, as distanc- A RETURN OF A “TRUE MAN” ing them from their former “brothers”, the TO HIS OLD HOMELAND inhabitants of other Soviet republics, now Similar aspirations can be detected in the seen as Russia’s arch-enemies. It is worth intentions of Sulev Keedus, the author of adding that this Russianness is presented Letters to Angel who draws intriguing par- as aggressively masculine, while Latvian- allels between two peripheries – the newly ness (and the Baltic region generally) is

68 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE viewed as feminine. Needless to say, Urbla, to discuss the Soviet war in Afghanistan being Estonian, criticises such a construc- than to draw comparisons between Afghan- tion of the Russian identity, seeing it as istan and Estonia, as seen through the damaging for both Russians and their Bal- veteran’s eyes. It is important to note that tic brothers. Taking a cue from this fi lm, we his eyes are injured a result of the bomb might expect that Letters to Angel would blasts during combat. (Figure 7) It could likewise criticise Russian/Soviet national- be argued that he sees everything more ism and macho masculinity. sharply because of his over-sensitive eyes. Letters to Angel broaches a subject In particular, what he sees comes across that would have been off-limits for fi lm- as strange, enlarged, and grotesque: apart- makers during Soviet times: desertion by ment interiors look like churches, offi ces Soviet soldiers and their joining the enemy like abandoned military quarters. Moreo- – the Afghan Muslim forces or Mujahe- ver, Kirotaja sees the world as being largely deen. According to the Islamist.com web- empty of people. This might be a conse- site, there are a signifi cant number of (ex-) quence of his moving in such sparsely pop- Soviet men with Muslim names in Afghani- ulated places (Estonia has low population stan (Coghlan 2013). These “deterritorial- density) or him seeing fewer objects more ised” men, both in the geographic and sym- intensely. Here, one can draw a comparison bolic sense, appear to be well-integrated with the silence of Skolimowski’s protago- into the local communities, often married nist. In both cases the characters’ impaired to local women. Even though Afghanistan senses both limit their interaction with the is one of the poorest and most dangerous environment, but also, in a way, make them countries in the world, and the majority of more perceptive than the people around the countries reborn from the ashes of the them. This renders the protagonists as Soviet Union are democracies with con- strangers, but also important presences, in sumer culture and some degree of the wel- the places they appear, almost prophets. fare system, they are unwilling to return to By and large, Letters to Angel is poign- them. antly anti-realist. It consists of a series of Letters to Angel attempts to explain, or loose episodes rather than a linear narra- rather imagine, why a Soviet Estonian sol- tive. Multiple viewings are needed to recon- dier would desert his army and decide to struct the plot. Frequently a clash between stay in Afghanistan and how he perceives the behaviour of the characters and their his homeland more than twenty years after surroundings occurs, for example, we see the end of the war. The fi lm’s protagonist, the naked women covered in clay near a Jeremia Juunas Kirotaja (Tõnu Oja), vis- lake, or the female cellist performing on the its Estonia to attend his father’s funeral. grass near a beach in a scene reminiscent It is also possible that he is looking for his of René Magritte’s paintings or Jerzy Skoli- daughter, who was very young when he left mowski’s fi lms from the 1960s, which were for the war, or because he has recently lost inspired by surrealist art. Even the washed- contact with his Afghan stepdaughter. The out colours are not realistic, but suggest a motifs of absent fathers and fathers or sons deeply subjective vision of someone who is trying to make contact with their children disillusioned, for whom the world has lost or parents resonate in two of the discussed its colour. (Figure 8) This style is typical of fi lms. It can be linked to a crisis of mascu- Keedus, who has used it before in Georgica linity and the need to overcome it by return- (Estonia, 1998) and Somnambulance (Som- ing to one’s country. nambuul, Estonia, 2003), but in the context All these reasons are alluded to, rather of representing Muslims, it might signify the than spelt out clearly, perhaps indicating director’s refusal to succumb to the alleg- the fact, mentioned by Kirotaja, that our edly “realistic” representations of Muslims actions are never entirely rational. Kirotaja’s offered in American mainstream media, return, however, is used by the director less pointing to the fact that each image of a

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Muslim is ultimately subjective, depending people being carried on stretchers. When on the place and the person who is looking he asks what is going on, he is told that this at it. By the same token, it can be seen as is a special military exercise. The building an attempt to provide the Muslim character that houses the archives of property deeds with the “power of the gaze”. and other documents about land rights in Kirotaja says that he decided to stay Estonia is located in the vicinity of an anti- in Afghanistan and become a Muslim when terrorist training base. The fact that these he saved the life of a little girl, Safi ja, during two institutions are so close to each other an attack by Russian troops on the Afghan is symbolic, as it suggests that the War on enemy. Subsequently she saved his life in Terror could affect property rights in Esto- what was more of a series of coincidences nia. Although nobody mentions the United and impromptu decisions than any con- States, we can conjecture that this anti- scious and premeditated actions result- terrorist activity serves the US rather than ing from a rejection of Soviet politics. The Estonia. In Kirotaja’s eyes, which can also be accidental nature of these events make him seen as the eyes of Keedus and the script- believe that it was Allah’s will that he and writer Madis Kõiv, the Afghan-Soviet War the little girl were saved. Following his cap- and the Afghan-American War constitute ture by the Mujahedeen troops, he converts a continuum. This fact is also underscored to Islam and becomes devout, as demon- by the stories about various people told or strated by his Muslim dress, his refusal to alluded to in the fi lm. One is the story of drink alcohol, and his prayers. Kirotaja’s foster daughter, Safi ja, who as a In many ways, the Estonia to which the child ran away from the Soviet aggressors veteran returns reminds him of Afghanistan, who had killed her parents and siblings, and in other ways, provides a poignant con- only to turn some twenty years later into trast with his adopted country. The common a terrorist, a “suicide bomber”, attacking features are that they are both sparsely American targets, as Kirotaja learns from populated, almost wild, countries with huge watching television in Estonia. Another is stretches of uninhabited land (or, at least, his absent male relative, who has left his this is how Kirotaja sees it). However, we pregnant wife in rural Estonia, not unlike learn early in the fi lm, that this seemingly Kirotaja who left his own wife many years empty land is an object of land speculation, ago to fi ght in a war. It is worth mentioning with foreigners wanting to buy it for invest- that Keedus’s representation of the war as ment. One of the female characters, Senta a never-ending confl ict, in which the poor (Ragne Pekarev), living in Kirotaja’s former and dispossessed have to pay over and hometown, marries a Dane, Lars (Kaido Kel- over again for the greed and power hun- der), who is eager to invest in real estate ger of the mighty, coincides with Hardt and there. (Figure 9) Again, this renders Estonia Negri’s diagnosis of the contemporary stage similar to Afghanistan, whose recent his- of capitalism, as marked by continuous war tory can be seen as a series of occupation and with David Harvey’s claim that war is a and various forms of land grabbing, fi rst means to speed up capitalist accumulation by the communist Soviet Russia, then by (Harvey 2006: 445). Such an opinion, as we the Western powers, most importantly the already indicated, also pertains to Essential United States. Wherever Kirotaja turns, he Killing. witnesses signs of the preparation for war Most of the people the war veteran – the (in)famous War on Terror, conducted encounters are women. The few remaining by the United States with the assistance of men are seriously debilitated. One group are its provincial allies, such as some ex-Soviet the inmates of a mental asylum, who amuse republics and satellite states, as shown themselves all day by hitting a ball with a in Skolimowski’s fi lm. For example, on his racket. Another man, Elvis (Rain Simmul), a way to his hometown, the traffi c has been chemist, composer, video artist, and hus- stopped and Kirotaja sees burnt cars and band of a cellist named Merily (Mirtel Pohla),

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7 8

9 10

FIGURE 7–11. Letters to Angel (Kirjad inglile) by Sulev Keedus (Estonia, 2011).

71 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE is claimed by her to have homicidal tenden- of her husband. Such a plot can be seen as cies towards her and when approached by a metaphor of the use of Muslims as scape- Kirotaja, he behaves as if he were under the goats, made responsible for any crimes per- infl uence of drugs or suffering from a stroke. petuated by the West. These men have completely lost contact with The defi cit and emasculation of men the real world. The women who have taken in Estonia might be an allusion to the fact their place superfi cially enjoy the privileges that this country has lost much of its men- of emancipation. They are loud and not afraid folk in military confl icts; as a consequence to express their erotic desires and show their of being a small nation, squeezed between bodies. By contrast, they shun the traditional larger countries, such as Russia, Germany, paths taken by women. One of them describes and Poland that have used it as an arena the female expectations related to a new rela- to play out their imperial ambitions or, as in tionship: “the honeymoon, the romance, and the case of the war in Afghanistan, as can- the sex, but not getting married”. However, non fodder in confl icts taking place else- ultimately the lack of men does not empower where. It can also be seen as a statement the women, but makes them hungry for male about a more general crisis of masculinity, company, and even predatory in their relation- which affected men in both the East and in ships with men, as well as neurotic, disorien- the West following deindustrialisation, but tated, and unhappy. By and large, the country has an especially strong effect on men from visited by Kirotaja is permeated by emotional the ex-Soviet Union, as is proven by their low coldness and verging on madness. life expectancy caused by high rates of acci- For the numerous single women, Kiro- dents, alcoholism, and suicide. Against this taja appears to be a gift from heaven and background, Afghanistan, despite its repu- the fi lm’s narrative consists largely of the tation as one of the most dangerous coun- recurring motif of this Muslim man reluc- tries in the world, turns out to be a place tantly rescuing various “damsels in dis- where a man can remain a man: preserve his tress”. First he prevents a woman named life, virility, and dignity. Perhaps Kirotaja ulti- Edda (Tiina Tauraite) who is apparently suf- mately chooses Afghanistan because sub- fering from deep depression due to the lack consciously he knows that his manhood is of male attention from committing suicide “safer” in his new country than in his old one. by shooting herself. Later he has sex with By the same token, it is argued that the fi lm a horny psychiatrist Hildegard (Katariina has an anti-modernist agenda, most appar- Lauk), who is working at the asylum and ent in Keedus’s critiques of contemporary unceremoniously asks him to inspect her art (see Oja 2011: 90), although conveyed in genitals. For his sexual service, he is paid a subtler way than in A Moslem. with striped socks, maybe a sign that he is While Afghanistan is one of the most being treated like a drone – good only for religious countries in the world, Estonia is providing sperm. (Figure 10) As if to con- described as the most secular and Keedus’s fi rm this diagnosis, Hildegard later tells fi lm corroborates this fact. The only person him on the phone that his sperm proved seen praying in Letters to Angel is Kirotaja. to be of good quality and can be used for The spaces and times devoted to religious insemination. Even the army that the vet- rites have been occupied by art. Almost eran encounters during his journey includes every person is involved with art – singing, women. While the women that Kirotaja playing a musical instrument, acting. The meets tend to be armed and eager to use most conspicuous case of engagement with their weapons, Kirotaja is hostile to guns. art is the preparations for a performance He does not use guns nor does he like oth- in which naked women play angels; this ers to use guns, despite being a trained appears to be a feminist spectacle prepared sniper. It is also suggested that one of the by a well-known lesbian artist Lovely Laa- women that he meets plants a gun in his bus (Katrin Saukas). The second time this suitcase, most likely to frame him as a killer performance takes place in a church, dur-

72 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE ing the funeral of Kirotaja’s father, clearly Muslims, both on their own territory and in annoying the mourner, who regards such foreign lands. an intervention as completely unsuitable to the sombre occasion. (Figure 11) Although CONCLUSION many people engage in artistic endeavours, These fi lms deal with the problems inher- these seem solely directed at the artists, ent in their local societies, with the tensions rather than the audiences. Signifi cantly, all explicitly expressed as a confl ict between the performances Kirotaja witnesses have local and global structures. This confl ict is no viewers except himself who appears to triggered, or made more visible, by the pres- be merely an accidental spectator.7 ence of the Muslim convert. In other words, Although in Estonia, Kirotaja is greeted the converts ignite a process, in which the with sympathy or even enthusiasm, he does local identities are deterritorialised, val- not strike up any friendships, but instead ues questioned, traditional and/or contem- remains a solitary fi gure, emotionally dis- porary frames of references are unsettled. engaged from everybody and everything Furthermore, these fi lms also deterritori- he experiences. His loneliness and self- alise – unhinge, problematise – the stere- containment is epitomised by the “letters otypes that have become associated with to angel” that he writes in Afghanistan and Muslims in the Western world, especially Estonia. Ostensibly the addressee of these after 9/11. They offer alternative images of letters is his daughter whom he has never Muslims to the negative and stereotypi- met, and only spoken to once over the tele- cal images in the Western media, as well phone, but they fulfi l the function of a diary, as those in the mainstream media in the allowing the veteran to fi ll the void resulting countries that belonged to the Soviet bloc, from his inability or unwillingness to com- but which, after the fall of communism, municate with other people. His reticence became allies of the United States. In the can be regarded as symptomatic of Islam’s renditions by Khotinenko, Skolimowski, and distrust of the Western world, resulting Keedus, Muslims are not aggressive; if they from the conviction that the words of Mus- fi ght, they do so in self-defence. They are lims will be misrepresented, therefore it is not mad; it is rather the world around them better to keep silent than to engage in a dia- that has lost its way and is subsequently logue on the enemy’s terms; not unlike what deterritorialised by the heroes’ return. They we witness in Essential Killing. However, the also come across as dignifi ed and char- women that Kirotaja meets are interested in ismatic, attracting the interest and pity of his letters and some even want him to write the local population, most importantly the letters to them as opposed to the absent or women, literally or metaphorically aban- immaterial angel, which might symbolise a doned by their menfolk. They even offer desire to break the impasse between Islam them a chance of renewal. The fi lmmakers and the Western world and overcome what also represent the post-communist coun- Samuel Huntington describes as the “clash tries as being forced to fi ght the American of civilisation” (Huntington 1996). The fi lm War on Terror against their will, not unlike in fi nishes with the image of Kirotaja walking the past when they had to fi ght in the wars in a deserted landscape, in fog or a cloud serving the interest of Russia. created by sand. The image is more optimis- tic than the one offered by Skolimowski, in which the Muslim fi ghter is wounded and sentenced to death, but both signify the unknown future and continuous isolation of

7 This lack of audience can be seen as an ironic commentary of Keedus’s own position as an author of art house ﬁ lms that fail to attract a wider audience.

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