Transcending 'Cold Intimacies' in Veiko Õunpuu's Works

BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2016 / VOLUME 4 / ARTICLE Article Transcending ‘Cold Intimacies’ in Veiko Õunpuu’s Works EVA NÄRIPEA, National Archives of Estonia, Estonian Academy of Arts; email: [email protected] EWA MAZIERSKA, University of Central Lancashire, United Kingdom; email: [email protected] 60 DOI: 10.1515/bsmr-2017-0004 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2016 / VOLUME 4 / ARTICLE ABSTRACT This article examines five films by Veiko Õunpuu, Estonia’s most renowned contemporary director – Empty (Tühirand, Estonia, 2006), Autumn Ball (Sügis- ball, Estonia, 2007), Temptations of St Tony (Püha Tõnu kiusamine, Estonia/Finland/Sweden, 2009), Free Range: Ballad on Approving of the World (Free Range: ballaad maailma heakskiitmisest, Estonia, 2013) and Roukli (Estonia, 2015), focusing on his representations of neoliberalism and especially its effect on the emotional and intimate lives of the characters. We argue that the characters of his films typically reject the conventional romance promoted by neoliberal discourses, including Hollywood cinema, yet this does not make them happy, but disoriented and restless. The repudiation of ‘emotional capitalism’ also pertains to the way Õunpuu’s films are conceived and executed. Most importantly, he resists the conventions of Hollywood cinema, including a classical script and happy ending, and also sets and shoots his films in peripheral places. Our main theoretical framework is the concept of ‘emotional capitalism’ as elaborated by Eva Illouz. INTRODUCTION heakskiitmisest, Estonia, 2013) and Roukli Veiko Õunpuu has been directing films (Estonia, 2015). To our knowledge, this is for a decade, rising from an unknown the first attempt to discuss Õunpuu’s filmic ‘amateur’ to become an internationally oeuvre in its entirety. Aside from attempting renowned auteur. This article looks at his to shed some light on his approach to film- five cinematic works1 – Empty (Tühirand, making in general, we will analyse Õunpuu’s Estonia, 2006), Autumn Ball (Sügisball, works individually, by concentrating on Estonia, 2007), Temptations of St Tony (Püha representations of intimate relationships. Tõnu kiusamine, Estonia/Finland/Sweden, More often than not, the private affairs in 2009), Free Range: Ballad on Approving of these films tend to come across as lacking the World (Free Range: ballaad maailma affection. We suggest that this could be seen as Õunpuu’s critique of the political 1 True, for the sake of the comprehensiveness of and economic circumstances under which Õunpuu’s journey as an auteur one should not discard the characters of the films operate, most his version of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s play Garbage, the City and Death, produced in Estonian at the NO99 importantly, the rampant neoliberalism that theatre in 2010. However, we decided to concentrate on dominates post-Soviet Estonian society. his screen works, not least because their reproducibility makes them accessible to wider audiences. Indeed, Õunpuu has never made a secret of 61 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2016 / VOLUME 4 / ARTICLE his intense dissatisfaction with the neolib- into exchange value, and in place eral regime, a discontent that is rooted in of the numberless indefeasible his strongly leftist worldview. A theoretical chartered freedoms, has set framework that aims to highlight the pitfalls up that single, unconscionable of the capitalist social formation from the freedom – free trade. [---] The leftist perspective also informs the follow- bourgeoisie has torn away from ing discussion. In particular, our starting the family its sentimental veil, point lies in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ and has reduced family relation observations concerning the influence of to a mere money relation. (Marx, capitalism on family and emotional life, Engels 1988: 211–212) developed and modified by authors such as Catherine Hakim (2011) and especially This fragment declares that there is Eva Illouz (2007, 2012). To very briefly sum- no escape from the power of capitalism, marise the latter’s complex sociological even in the privacy of one’s home and body. study regarding the notable shifts in the The production of commodities affects the structure of intimate relationships over the production of subjectivities; the (macro) past century, Illouz proposes that capitalist ideology conditions individual (micro) institutions, technologies and discourses worldviews. Marx had a negative attitude have rationalised and commodified emo- to this situation, as he regarded capitalism tions and selfhood, which, in turn, has ‘con- as a deeply immoral system. tributed to creating a suffering self’ (Illouz Many authors have agreed with Marx’s 2007: 108–109). It is precisely these ‘suf- views that the capitalist economy and ide- fering selves’ that inhabit the very centre of ology influences the way people behave in Õunpuu’s cinematic universes, craving for their intimate relationships. However, not true emotional intimacy that keeps slipping everybody sees this as being a negative. In out of their reach. Honey Money, Catherine Hakim takes the capitalist status quo as given. Drawing on EROTIC CAPITAL, Pierre Bourdieu’s argument that the con- EMOTIONAL CAPITALISM cept of capital should be used to account AND THERAPEUTIC CULTURE for other human assets besides strictly In The Communist Manifesto Marx and economic ones, i.e. also the cultural and Engels observed that capital transforms social ones, Hakim introduces the concept every aspect of human life, including the of ‘erotic capital’. This is understood as ‘a most intimate one. combination of aesthetic, visual, physical, social and sexual attractiveness to other The bourgeoisie, wherever it has members of your society, and especially to got the upper hand, has put an members of the opposite sex, in all social end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyl- contexts’ (Hakim 2011: 17). Thus, erotic lic relations. It has pitilessly torn capital can be monetised and exchanged asunder the motley feudal ties for more tangible goods, such as money and that bound man to his ‘natural power. This commercialisation of the erotic superiors,’ and has left remaining has profound consequences for all strata no other nexus between man and of society. The rich can multiply their mon- man than naked self-interest, etary capital by using their erotic capital, than callous ‘cash payment.’ It for example, by wooing their clients, while has drowned the most heavenly the poor are sometimes in such a precari- ecstasies of religious fervor, of ous position that they have no other option chivalrous enthusiasm, of Phil- than to engage in sex work, often risking istine sentimentalism in the icy their health or even lives. Hakim’s theory is water of egotistical calculation. closely linked to neoliberalism, because, as It has resolved personal worth David Harvey argues, under this system any 62 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2016 / VOLUME 4 / ARTICLE kind of good can be turned into an instru- of origin for the modern, post-Victorian, self; ment of economic speculation (Harvey the ‘uneventful’ everyday life as the locus of 2005: 160–162). Yet, rather than lamenting that self, which resulted in the boundaries that eroticism and sex have a market value, between ‘normality’ and ‘pathology’ being which Marxists do, regarding money as an blurred and a new kind of normality being instrument of violence, Hakim’s principal posited; and, perhaps most importantly for interest is to discover how to make them this argument, the centrality of sexuality work better for those living under capital- as ‘a chiefly linguistic affair, something to ism. In his films, Õunpuu also observes the be achieved after a considerable amount commodification of human relationships, of conceptual clarification and verbaliza- caused or facilitated by capitalism, but like tion’ (Illouz 2007: 9). The importance of Marx, he sees this trend as de-humanising. verbalised communication deserves special While Marx observed the marketisa- attention in relation to Õunpuu, in particular tion of personal life, Eva Illouz noticed a in regard to his approach to the filmmaking seemingly opposing, but in fact comple- process to which we return below, but also mentary trend, namely capitalism becoming because his films appear to prioritise non- ‘emotional’. In her Cold Intimacies: The Mak- verbal modes of expression, such as space. ing of Emotional Capitalism, she argues that This is also why the following pages sum- the year 1909 can be considered a turning marise Illouz’s ideas about the significance point in American emotional culture. In of the verbal aspect of emotional capitalism 1909, Sigmund Freud gave five lectures at some length. on psychoanalysis at Clark University. The According to Illouz, the new emphasis lectures had a major impact on the forma- on the verbalisation of emotions affected tion of the ‘therapeutic emotional style’, a not only domestic/intimate relationships. It dominant force on the American (and, we also reshaped the workplace when clinical suggest, on the Western) cultural landscape psychologists, ‘many of whom were inspired throughout the 20th century (Illouz 2007: by Freudian psychodynamic views ... were 5ff) which was spread widely by films and mobilized by the corporation to help for- advice literature (Illouz 2007: 9). Illouz uses mulate needed guidelines for the new task the term ‘therapeutic emotional style’ of management’ – to increase productivity and facilitate discipline (Illouz 2007: 12). for ways in which twentieth-cen- In particular, Illouz cites the importance

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