Documentary cinema has always been interested in filming communities. By definition, communities emerge when groups of people share the same space or certain characteristics. Far-off lands were an early focus of European ethnographic and anthropological films, aimed at bringing images of these places and their inhabitants to the big screen. Gradually, documentary filmmakers and visual anthropology departments raised questions about the politics and ethics of cinema, leading to films that went beyond “our” exotic vision of “others.” For narrative purposes, fiction is also interested in communities. Although films often focus on a few individual characters, their connection to a particular community can serve as an anchor for broader themes. Communities can form in factories (class struggle), urban centers (social critique), schools (coming-of-age), and homes (family problems and traumas). In cinema, we see communities form, grow, and change, but also suffocate, collapse, and disappear.
In his closing address, Giona A. Nazzaro, artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival, evoked one of cinema’s social missions: to become a platform for unity and debate in the face of pressing political issues. The films of the International Competition at the festival’s 2024 edition ranged in style and form, their common feature being that most were European co-productions. Documentaries screened alongside conventional social dramas, genre films, and more experimental cinematic works. Many of the competing titles featured communities, filming real groups of people or fictional characters whose identity was in part determined by the place in which they grew up or currently live. In particular, many of the competing films built their narratives around the spatial layout of the filmed community. Cinematic space was thus used to explore how common living conditions can shape the experience and meaning of a community or, conversely, to envision its destruction.
“What makes a place feel so empty?” is the question Virgil Vernier asks in Cent Mille Milliards (100,000,000,000,000). The film is set in Monaco over Christmas. It follows Afine, an 18-year-old prostitute who spends his days with Julia, a 10-year-old girl from a wealthy engineering family. Despite his youth, professional success, and good looks, Afine, just entering adulthood, struggles to make sense of his life. Monaco appears to him as a city slowly dying, a dull place that drains the life from its inhabitants. Julia, on the other hand, spends her time imagining other lands full of possibilities; in her dreams, a great cataclysm drowns the city. These feelings of the two characters imbue the filmed urban landscape with a deep melancholy. Vernier uses pale blue colors to depict a cold Monaco, whose dim Christmas lights fail to dispel a pervasive sadness that contrasts with the promise of pleasure expected from one of Europe’s richest areas. Change, the film concludes, can only come from within, from a person’s willingness to resist the reality that surrounds them.
The possibility of change through a community’s destruction is further explored in Ramon Zürcher’s The Sparrow in the Chimney. The film draws on the idea of intergenerational trauma to tell the story of a family reunion that takes place in their ancestral house in the countryside. In this isolated place, Karen and her sister Jule grew up under their oppressive mother, now deceased, and their perpetually insecure father, who ultimately took his own life. The reunion becomes increasingly unsettling as the family members begin experiencing lucid visions of violence, sex, and torture. The boundaries between nightmare and reality begin to blur, as the family appears overtaken by a powerful force compelling them to harm one another, whether in reality or dream. Family is a most common expression of community, defined by the ties that bind its members to each other and to the place they all call home. Here, however, the family home proves to be the source of this violence. It carries painful memories of the previous generation, and its transparent windows and open doors form a domestic panopticon of constant surveillance that increases the emotional instability of the family members. The film ends with a sudden fire that swallows up the house, reducing it and its surroundings to ashes, while the family members watch from afar. Change thus comes as a sudden, destructive intervention which may, one can hope, free the family members from their cage of intergenerational violence.
Destruction reaches apocalyptic levels in Ala Eddine Slim’s Agora, winner of the Green Leopard award in recognition of the film’s environmental engagement. The film opens with a sleeping Blue Dog discussing with a Black Raven about an impending catastrophe they both dreamed of, which is rapidly approaching a local Tunisian fishing village. The first sign of disaster appears when three people, presumed dead, emerge from the sea and appear in the village. Although they should be dead, they are still alive, water dripping from their decomposing bodies. Fearing the village’s reaction, local officials—a policeman, a doctor, and an imam—conspire to keep the revenants a secret. Concealing the truth proves difficult, however, as dead fish wash ashore and a worm infestation kills the local harvest. The foretold disaster thus evolves into an apocalypse capable of altering the very laws of nature, and the village community finds itself at the center of what appears like divine retribution for mankind’s transgressions. Its origins remain unclear, yet destruction seems inevitable. This place will be destroyed, explain the Dog and the Raven, as they wake up from their slumber to flee the apocalypse. Life may go on, but only in a new place where animals—and perhaps humans—can make a fresh start after the known world ceases to exist.
Be it Monaco, Karen’s house or the Tunisian village, all three films envision the destruction of a certain space bringing about the end of a community that is harmful to its human and animal members. On a different note, Wang Bing’s Youth (Hard Times), winner of the FIPRESCI award, and Saulé Bliuvaité’s Toxic, winner of the Golden Leopard award, explore the spatial layout of their filmed communities to better understand them. In the second part of his Youth trilogy, Bing continues to document the lives of Chinese textile workers, recording their actions, hopes, and fears. His second film focuses in particular on their collective struggle for fair wages. Bing’s handheld camera becomes an extension of the workers, moving with them through corridors, dormitories and workstations filled with piles of cotton. This community of workers was formed precisely out of these harsh conditions, where people struggle together day and night, reminding viewers of the fundamental definition of the working class in a European Marxist context. Even though the clothes produced are intended for the Chinese domestic market, an international audience cannot ignore the film’s implicit message. Exploitation lies at the heart of capitalist production, even as a globalized economy has moved most production grounds to other countries. The filmed workers, however, come across as anything but victims. Conscious of their social conditions, they strive for happiness sometimes by resisting and other times by accepting each day as it comes. The filmed community thus appears rich and complete, thanks to Bing’s thorough exploration of the many layers that form it.
In contrast, the small community in Saulé Bliuvaité’s Toxic is defined by its simplicity. Without clear context about its location, viewers witness a poor suburban community “somewhere” in Eastern Europe, where the youth dream of escape. Marija and Kristina are two teenage girls trying to become models, drawn by promises of financial success and international travel. For them, it seems the only viable path in a place marked by poverty and desperation. However, as they come to witness the modeling industry’s violent realities, the girls ultimately abandon their quest for thinness and model looks and return to a lifestyle more fitting for their age.
A community can be defined in many ways. Its identity may emerge from a deep dive into its common spaces used daily by its members, through a poetic exploration of its key features, or by contrasting it with other communities. Toxic falls into the latter category, as its filmed community is primarily defined by its difference to the social and economic possibilities associated with a more prosperous (and possibly Western) community. The frustration driving the two girls is a recurring theme, as poverty and social suffering have long been central in Eastern European social dramas. Even if the film insists on the toxicity of the girls’ modeling dream, representative of a false prosperous life, this fictional community is solely defined by these two dimensions: domestic poverty and false Western promises. In addition, the few scenes showing the community as a place of joy feel forced. This, coupled with its geographical imprecision, situates the film within a familiar form of social criticism whose effectiveness can be called into question.
The main challenge when depicting a community—fictional or otherwise—is to go beyond the audience’s expectations. For films to have a social impact, they must unsettle, provoke, and challenge the viewers’ fundamental beliefs. This is arguably a shared objective for the five films discussed here, even if their style, approach, and effectiveness vary. To achieve this goal, however, what matters are the similarities and not the differences between viewers and the filmed communities. It might be convenient to think of places facing financial, socio-political, and environmental problems as simply being “elsewhere,” populated by “others.” Instead, cinema has the power to transform even the most unfamiliar and diverse communities into a paradigm—a microcosm reflecting human behaviors and social issues that can be just as relevant and personal to viewers as they are to the film’s protagonists. This link between the filmed community and the ephemeral community of spectators created during a screening—or a festival, for that matter—is essential if cinema is to become a platform for social change, as international festivals such as Locarno hope.
Antonis Lagarias
Edited by Robert Horton
© FIPRESCI 2024