From Dusk Till “DAU”: the Rise of Heterotopic Cinema in the Times of Pandemic
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In Focus From Dusk till “DAU”: the Rise of Heterotopic Cinema in the Times of Pandemic ALEXANDRE ZAEZJEV, University of Geneva, Switzerland; email: [email protected] 68 10.2478/bsmr-2020-0007 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2020 / VOLUME 8 / IN FOCUS ABSTRACT The release of Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s megalomaniacal cinematic project DAU coincided with the global Covid-19 pandemic. With festivals postponed and public screen- ings no longer possible, Khrzhanovsky moved his project online, integrating the unprecedented experience of the global lockdown and quarantine into the cinematic uni- verse of DAU. Using the concept of heterotopia devised by French philosopher Michel Foucault, this paper examines the ways in which self-isolation altered the conditions of spatio-temporal engagement with DAU. Ultimately, the paper presents an original theoretical model of heterotopic cinema to demonstrate that confinement is precisely what allows Khrzhanovskiy’s artistic method to fully function. INTRO “The project’s release on the internet is tak- With film productions shut down, festivals ing place now,” explained the filmmaker in postponed, and movie theatres operating Summer 2020, “in the era of the pandemic, well below full capacity, the short-term when the whole world is under house arrest, effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the film like behind the Iron Curtain, but in an even industry is akin to a near-death experi- smaller space, in people’s own apartments, ence. While the industry as a whole strives in complete isolation, which in itself looks for survival, some filmmakers were able like a hellish, total performance.” (Cronk to approach the global crisis creatively 2020) On the official website, Khrzhanovsky and explore the experience of confine- further defines DAU as “The first cinematic ment through artistic means. Such is the project about isolation, filmed in isolation, case of Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovsky for people in isolation” (Dau Cinema 2020). and his recent project DAU – an ambitious The notion of isolation thus emerges as an cinematic endeavour, comprised of “over important aspect of DAU production and a dozen feature films, several dramatic reception alike. Using the theoretical con- series, documentaries, and an innovative cept of heterotopia formulated by French digital platform” (Phenomen Trust 2019). philosopher Michel Foucault, the present Before the pandemic hit Europe, Khrzh- paper examines the implications of the anovky had a chance to premiere DAU in pandemic and the condition of confinement Paris and Berlin, receiving an award “for for the release of DAU online. Furthermore, Outstanding Artistic Contribution” at the it devises an original theoretical model of Berlinale 2020. As it became obvious that heterotopic cinema to demonstrate that no other public screenings will take place confinement is actually what allows for Khr- in the near future, the filmmaker decided to zhanovskiy’s artistic method to fully func- move DAU online. tion; in other words, that an enhanced expe- rience of DAU is predicated upon the viewing conditions dictated by the pandemic. 69 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2020 / VOLUME 8 / IN FOCUS THEORETICAL CONTEXT in critical thought on spatiality” (Knight AND LITERATURE REVIEW 2014: 8). In a lecture entitled Of Other Spaces (1967), The concept of heterotopia has been Foucault developed the concept of “hetero- widely deployed in media studies. Hye-jin topia” describing it as a place that physi- Chung (2018) explored the Foucauldian cally exists within a known world but that idea to devise his own concept of a “media is also phenomenologically different from heterotopia” – “a digitally enhanced it, a place that disrupts the continuity and audio-visual realm of representation that regularity of our spatio-temporal percep- superimposes layers of diverse spatiali- tion. Literally meaning “sites of otherness,” ties and temporalities” (ibid. 37). A film and heterotopias can be understood as places television theorist Francesco Casetti (2015) of “culturally recognized and codified ‘non- adapted the concept of heterotopia to the reality’” (Groys 2008: 31) that “inject alterity digitally-mediated condition of contempo- into the sameness, the commonplace, the rary cinema. Casetti introduced the term topicality of everyday society” (Dehaene, “hypertopia” to describe the spatial struc- De Cauter 2008: 4). In contrast with the ture of cinema consumed via a multitude dualistic “utopian/dystopian formula preva- of portable screens, a kind of extraverted lent in the ‘modernist’ era” (Näripea 2014: heterotopia, a space of otherness that “no 121), heterotopia is “a kind of postmodern longer asks to go to it; [but] comes to me, spatial alterity” (Knight 2017: 5), a theo- reaching me wherever I am” (ibid. 144). The retical model that focuses on a hybridised, notion of heterotopia has also been mobi- fragmented and oscillating nature of a lized in the study of “database cinema” particular spatial structure or experience. conceptualising the “database” as a virtual Examples of heterotopias provided by heterotopia that replaces the chronological Foucault include cemeteries, theatres, cin- linearity of time with the non-linear logic of emas, museums, fairs, brothels, as well as space. Arpin-Simonetti (2014), for instance, retirement homes, psychiatric institutions, used the Foucauldian model to build his and prisons, to name just a few. analysis of Peter Greenaway’s Tulse Luper Foucault (1967) uses these examples Suitcases (2003) – the most ambitious to formulate the six principles of hetero- example of the “database cinema” before topology, “a sort of systematic descrip- DAU, as Lev Manovich, who coined the term, tion” of heterotopias: (1) heterotopias are has recently pointed out himself (Dau Haus omnipresent but not universal and can take 2020c). varied forms, such as crisis heterotopias While both Greenaway’s and Khrzh- and heterotopias of deviation; (2) hetero- anovsky’s works are examples of independ- topias’ functions are not ontologically pre- ent experimental cinema, a heterotopic determined and can be subject to change; reading also finds its way into the studies (3) heterotopias juxtapose in a single real of popular film. Eva Näripea (2014), for place two or more spaces that might be in instance, examined several Polish-Estonian and of themselves incompatible; (4) hetero- coproductions directed by Marek Piestrak topias create an absolute break with the (1979, 1987, 1992). Emphasizing the “other- everyday time; (5) access to heterotopias ness” of places depicted by Polish director, is restricted and requires rites of passage; the author demonstrated how cinematic and (6) heterotopias are physically isolated heterotopias provided a voice to subversive from but functionally related to the remain- cultural discourses silenced in the Soviet ing outside space. While Foucault does Union and its satellite states. Soviet cin- list these six principles of heterotopology, ematic legacy is further examined through the concept itself remains subject to schol- a heterotopic lens in several other works arly debates, attracting various interpreta- (Mazierska 2012, Näripea, Cederlöf 2015) tions and adaptations, making the hetero- with Andrey Tarkovsky’s oeuvres (1972, topia “a familiar, albeit an ambiguous trope 1979) often being the focus of such studies 70 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2020 / VOLUME 8 / IN FOCUS FIGURE 1. DAU film set – the Institute (photo: Olympia Orlova, DAU press kit, Phenomen IP 2019). FIGURE 2. DAU film set – the Institute (photo: Jörg Gruber, DAU press kit, Phenomen IP 2019). 71 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2020 / VOLUME 8 / IN FOCUS (Ivakhiv 2011, Näripea 2013, Burlacu 2015). independent filmmaker to transform DAU More recent examples of films investigated into an unprecedented folie des grandeurs. using the concept of heterotopia include In 2009, a gargantuan ensemble of George Miller’s Mad Max franchise (Corbett pseudo-Stalinist architecture – the so- 2017), Stephen Daldry’s The Hours (Zhao, called “Institute” – was built in Kharkiv, Öner 2018), Todd Haynes’s Carol (Smith 2018), Ukraine, specifically for Khrzhanovsky’s and Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise (Klein 2019). DAU. Occupying an area comparable to an It is important to emphasize, however, average university campus, the Institute that this extensive body of scholarship was modelled after a typical Soviet “sci- focuses on cinematic heterotopias, rather ence city” of the mid-twentieth century – an than on heterotopic cinema – a distinc- area of secret research facilities and living tion that is crucial for our understanding of quarters for scientists closed off from the DAU. While research on cinematic hetero- outside world (Lappo, Polian 2007: 1229). topias engages primarily with “heterotopias Designed as an architectural extravaganza, generated by the spatially and temporally a postmodernist pastiche of neoclassicism, multilayered on-screen cinescapes and constructivism, and expressionism, the DAU constructed plots” (Näripea 2014: 123, ital- film set included fully operational labora- ics added), a study on heterotopic cinema tories, two apartment blocks, interrogation explores how heterotopias generate spa- cells, as well as a diner, a press office, and tially and temporally multilayered condi- an administrative building (Figures 1 and 2). tions of both film production and reception. Having constructed the largest film Beginning with Foucault’s (1967) own set in the history of European cinema, Khr- account of movie theatres, heterotopias