ACTA ACADEMIAE ARTIUM VILNENSIS / 56 2010 FROM NATION‑SCAPE TO NATION‑STATE: RECONFIGURING FILMIC SPACE IN POST‑SOVIET ESTONIAN CINEMA Eva Näripea Estonian AcademY of Arts / Estonian LiterarY Museum Tartu mnt 1, 10145 Tallinn, Estonia [email protected] This essay is concerned with the shifting modalities of spatial representations in (Soviet) Estonian cine‑ ma in the transitional period between the late 1980s and early 1990s, as well as with the changing proce‑ dures of narrating the nation, negotiating its identities and histories. By taking a closer look at two films – Peeter Urbla’s I’m Not a Tourist, I Live Here (Ma pole turist, ma elan siin, 1988) and Ilkka Järvilaturi’s Darkness in Tallinn (Tallinn pimeduses, 1993) – this paper attempts to offer some insights into the dyna‑ mic process of reshaping the cinematic imaginary of urban environments, as well as the psyches, histo‑ ries and experiences of their inhabitants, both individual and collective. KEYwords: Estonian cinema, representations of space, representations of history, national identities. Introduction and I’m Not a Tourist, I Live Here (Ma pole turist, ma elan siin, directed by Peeter Urbla, 1988). All of Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost (openness them revealed a marked break with previous stra‑ and freedom of speech) and perestroika (restruc‑ tegies and patterns of representation of built envi‑ turing), as well as the subsequent abolishment of ronments and communal identities, intertwined film censorship in the second half of the 1980s re‑ with gradually growing national sentiments and sulted in an entirely new take on representations of ever‑increasing distaste with Soviet realities. After (urban) spaces in Soviet Estonian cinema, which the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, these was closely associated with the dynamic (re)surfacing so‑called nation‑scapes lost relevance, step by step, of national narratives, local identities, and sharp as the nation‑state ceased being merely a distant criticism towards Soviet protocols, strategies and dream and desire, becoming an immediate, and administration; this was witnessed, for instance, by sometimes rather laborious, prosaic and quotidian films like Please, Smile (or Games for Teenagers, fact of life. In the 1990s and 2000s, the overtly pa‑ Naerata ometi, directed by Arvo Iho and Leida triotic sentiments and mawkish national icons be‑ Laius, 1985), Flamingo, the Bird of Fortune (Õnne- came limited, on the one hand, to the vocabularies lind flamingo, directed by Tõnis Kask, 1986), Circular of exoticising productions shot on location in Es‑ Courtyard (Ringhoov, directed by Tõnu Virve, 1987) tonia by film‑makers from abroad, such as Darkness 65 in Tallinn aka City Unplugged (Tallinn pimeduses, di‑ completely state‑subsidised and state‑controlled rected by Ilkka Järvilaturi, 1993; theatrically released system of film production and distribution, which, in Estonia in 2008), Candles in the Dark (directed by naturally, entailed a hitherto alien set of ideological Maximilian Schell, 1993) or Letters from the East (di‑ instructions, thematic regulations, representational rected by Andrew Grieve, 1996); and later, on the devices and spatial discourses.2 The local cinematic other hand, to the few locally‑initiated (and often scene of the 1940s and 1950s was dominated by governmentally commissioned) films, such asNames Russian directors who were sent to cine‑indoctri‑ in Marble (Nimed marmortahvlil, directed by Elmo nate the Soviet periphery and who imported to the Nüganen, 2002) or December Heat (Detsembrikuumus, screens of the newly constituted Estonian SSR an Asko Kase, 2008). At the same time, the greater part imagery intensely imbued with the formulas of Sta‑ of Estonian post‑Soviet films tend to lean towards linist socialist realism. The thematic plans, concei‑ trans‑national imaginary, demonstrating the prefe‑ ved and monitored by the Muscovite ideologists rence of “neutered” spaces and universal(ised) sto‑ and (cinema) administrators, and intended for un‑ ries/identities (as suggested by Ewa Mazierska1), deviating implementation throughout the Soviet thus raising questions about the interrelationship Union, prescribed contemporary subjects and epi‑ and continuous negotiations between national and sodes from the Sovietised model of historical nar‑ trans‑national (spatial) narratives. This essay inves‑ rative; typical master plots3 based on the codes of tigates the notable shifts in filmic space, the repre‑ the Bildungsroman were enforced, concentrating on sentation of (national) identities and (re)construction the ideological amending of older (heretofore bour‑ of historical narrative(s) in Estonian films of the geois) generations and raising and rearing the youn‑ perestroika period on the one hand and the imme‑ ger ranks of the “working people” in the communist diate years upon the re‑established state sovereign‑ spirit; thus favouring either the environments of ty on the other hand, illustrating these shifts with newly established collective farms or urban settings a comparative analysis of Urbla’s I’m Not a Tourist, invested with progressive socialist spirit. All in all, I Live Here and Järvilaturi’s Darkness in Tallinn. these filmic city‑, land‑ and mindscapes constitute However, in order to understand the true scope a domain of the so‑called Soviet‑scape, i.e. Sovie‑ and significance of the critical turn in spatial rep‑ tised space. resentations that completely changed the face of By contrast, in the 1960s, as the first ethnically Estonian cinema in the middle of the 1980s, it is Estonian film‑makers graduated from the All‑Union crucial to first map the general outlines of spatial State Institute of Cinematography (Всесоюзный matrixes dominating the Estonian film‑scape prior государственный институт кинематографии, to these cataclysmic changes. VGIK) in Moscow, a refreshing artistic breeze rushed through the Estonian filmic arena, giving Negotiating space: the contemporary critics and latter‑day commenta‑ Soviet‑scape and nation‑scape tors an occasion to talk about the (re)naissance of As in other Baltic countries, in the aftermath of 2 For more detail see Eva Näripea, “A View from the Pe‑ the Second World War the Soviet authorities estab‑ riphery. Spatial Discourse of the Soviet Estonian Featu‑ lished in (or, rather, expanded to) Estonia a new, re Film: The 1940s and 1950s”, in: Koht ja paik / Place and Location: Studies in Environmental Aesthetics and 1 Ewa Mazierska, “Postcommunist Estonian Cinema as Semiotics, Nr. VII, Special Issue: Via Transversa: Lost Transnational Cinema”, in: Kinokultura: New Russian Ci- Cinema of the Former Eastern Bloc, 2008. nema, Special Issue: Estonian Cinema, Toim Eva Näripea, 3 Katerina Clark, The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual, Ewa Mazierska, Mari Laaniste (eds), 2010, http://www. 3rd ed., Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University kinokultura.com/specials/10/mazierska.shtml. Press, 2000. 66 Estonian national cinema. Although many of the a firmer ideological grip in terms of acceptable sub‑ ideological instructions did not lose too much of ject matters, practices and procedures. Interesting‑ their relevance, a noticeable break on both narra‑ ly enough, the cine‑scapes were again dominated tive and spatial level was clearly discernible. First by urban locations. During the course of the period, of all, with considerable consistency the film‑mak‑ however, rural environments gained prominence ers of the local lineage (whether Estonian or Rus‑ once more, and 1977 saw the emergence of an “Es‑ sian by ethnicity, and whether theatre‑ or film‑re‑ tonian new wave,” as a group of young directors lated in training and background) attempted to decisively begun to revamp the local filmic scenery, avoid contemporary subject matters, kolkhoz set‑ delving into the painful chapters of Estonian his‑ tings, and the “nodal points” of the Sovietised his‑ tory and rethinking these events rather boldly from torical timeline. Instead, they sought to construct an unprecedented angle of native observers. In gen‑ what I would call a “nation‑scape” or “nation‑space”, eral, it seems that the films most often sympathetic often realised in the narrative framework of the Es‑ to the local audiences and critics alike were yet again tonian literary classics, such as The Misadventures those that (at least apparently) separated themselves of the New Satan (Põrgupõhja uus Vanapagan, di‑ from the current socialist realities, sought cathartic rected by Jüri Müür and Grigori Kromanov, 1964; contacts with historical traumas of the nation, rep‑ based on Anton Hansen Tammsaare’s novel), The resenting them from a local point of view, and took Dairyman of Mäeküla (Mäeküla piimamees, directed place in relatively “closed,” and often also (semi)ru‑ by Leida Laius, 1965; based on Eduard Vilde’s work), ral or peripheral, spatial arrangements – be it an or Werewolf (Libahunt, directed by Leida Laius, 1968; island, a provincial town, a village community, a adapted from August Kitzberg’s play). Even if pre‑ house or even a single room, probing the deepest senting a contemporary chronotope, most films of layers of the characters’ inner universes. These the period lack accentuated socialist didactics, choices of confined settings perhaps functioned as concentrating rather on the subjectivity of the reflections of the state of mind characteristic to the character(s). This “nation‑scape” consciously disso‑ late socialist mentality: the quiet, if reluctant, ac‑ ciates itself from the immediate Soviet surround‑ ceptance