Page 146 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 146
from walter benjamin to the end of cinema
ther questionable whether they had known what they have been doing at all
or not. However, there was one exception, represented by the voice of the
former Securitate agent on the phone, who leaves no doubt about his repu-
tation at the time and after seventeen years, when he speaks as a respecta-
ble citizen and a venture capitalist.
This narrative, which establishes the whole film metaphor, of course,
crosses the border of Romania and indicates relationships of political con-
siderations in most transition countries. No matter how clear it is that in
the years of social disruptions something decisive happened, it should also
be noticeable that in all countries there are on-going never-ending strug-
gles for interpretation of those events. In this new social space, designat-
ed by such co-ordinates, films, starting with the Porumboiu‘s film do not
interfere with definite direct statements – like films in the era of nation-
al cinematographies did albeit in many metonymic ways – but rather with
visual descriptions, ambiguous gestures, often poetic visual “discourse”
and, above all, with a universally comprehensible genre or artistic cinemat-
ic reflections on social realities.
Political Epistemological Break
Porumboiu‘s film, therefore, delivers a readable epistemological break ef-
fect considering the role of political signification in films, which were pro-
duced in the Balkans, especially those shot in former communist countries
in the area. The film marks a point at which a space of political signification
opens to deconstructive re-structuring: a troubling opposition “democracy
versus dictatorship” is now rendered to the past, considering that the whole
framework of political culture becomes unclear as opposed to the times of
one Party rule. Porumboiu’s film could unmistakably be taken as an alle-
gory of the dubious comprehending of the happenings of 1989 as a revolu-
tion, which brought about the fall of communism. However, taking into
account the film’s interrogatory ironic vision, the very significance of this
so-called revolution could be read in retrospect in view of Badiou‘s criti-
cism and its central notion as the “non-event” (Badiou, 2003: 129).2 The film
therefore re-configured the whole field, in which historical meanings of the
times after the World War II are being disputed, reflected upon and, final-
2 As Badiou noted in his reflection of the end of communism, what was mistakenly
apprehended as a social change remained a matter of the State. The reorganization
of the State alone is, according to his theory of event, hardly something that would
bring with it an emancipatory breakthrough, the invention of something radically
new.
144
ther questionable whether they had known what they have been doing at all
or not. However, there was one exception, represented by the voice of the
former Securitate agent on the phone, who leaves no doubt about his repu-
tation at the time and after seventeen years, when he speaks as a respecta-
ble citizen and a venture capitalist.
This narrative, which establishes the whole film metaphor, of course,
crosses the border of Romania and indicates relationships of political con-
siderations in most transition countries. No matter how clear it is that in
the years of social disruptions something decisive happened, it should also
be noticeable that in all countries there are on-going never-ending strug-
gles for interpretation of those events. In this new social space, designat-
ed by such co-ordinates, films, starting with the Porumboiu‘s film do not
interfere with definite direct statements – like films in the era of nation-
al cinematographies did albeit in many metonymic ways – but rather with
visual descriptions, ambiguous gestures, often poetic visual “discourse”
and, above all, with a universally comprehensible genre or artistic cinemat-
ic reflections on social realities.
Political Epistemological Break
Porumboiu‘s film, therefore, delivers a readable epistemological break ef-
fect considering the role of political signification in films, which were pro-
duced in the Balkans, especially those shot in former communist countries
in the area. The film marks a point at which a space of political signification
opens to deconstructive re-structuring: a troubling opposition “democracy
versus dictatorship” is now rendered to the past, considering that the whole
framework of political culture becomes unclear as opposed to the times of
one Party rule. Porumboiu’s film could unmistakably be taken as an alle-
gory of the dubious comprehending of the happenings of 1989 as a revolu-
tion, which brought about the fall of communism. However, taking into
account the film’s interrogatory ironic vision, the very significance of this
so-called revolution could be read in retrospect in view of Badiou‘s criti-
cism and its central notion as the “non-event” (Badiou, 2003: 129).2 The film
therefore re-configured the whole field, in which historical meanings of the
times after the World War II are being disputed, reflected upon and, final-
2 As Badiou noted in his reflection of the end of communism, what was mistakenly
apprehended as a social change remained a matter of the State. The reorganization
of the State alone is, according to his theory of event, hardly something that would
bring with it an emancipatory breakthrough, the invention of something radically
new.
144
