The Resonance of Dictatorship

When it comes to the use of the media by dictators, it becomes especially interesting to see how activist filmmakers criticise it using one of its own weapons: film.

When playing a chord, one hears not only the characteristic tone, not only the fingers or sticks that come into contact with the instrument, but also the resonance that follows. And if the first stroke gets lost and one can hear only the resonance, one loses the connection to the body that was originally set into vibration.

Most of the films that try to reach back to the impact set a different resonance against it. It’s all about counteraction.

So is the case in The Kingdom of Dead Mice by Victor Dashuk, which is about the use of media in repressing opponents of the Lukashenko regime in Belarus. The film starts with a disturbing sequence: a woman is shaking the head of a man who has abandoned himself to her and moves him around very quickly in order to push certain points on his body, as a shaman might do. The overture is followed by a staged performance by this very same witch. We are set into a space of resonance until the voice-over, a deep, prudent and resigned voice, tells us about the tricksters and con-men that appear in dark times. As soon as this scene is edited into confrontation with images of the Belarusian parliament, the intended analogy becomes quite clear: Lukashenko represents the lying black wizard who has bewitched not only his lackeys but also his audience. His most powerful spell is that he is able to sell resonance as original impact. The film turns into a grotesque fairytale in which most of the inhabitants have fallen into a deep sleep, like Sleeping Beauty.

In order to search for the impact of the curse that has befallen Belarus, the filmmaker turns against the media itself by accusing the state-supported Belarus TV of spreading lies and serving the interest of the regime. The most interesting mindset of the voice-over is that it implies the lost innocence of TV, pop music and even film. Consequently the film turns on a self-reflexive element that isn’t often found in activist cinema.

In the short film Stalin - why not? by Kirill Sakharnov, it is as if the resurrection of Stalin has turned against the long-dead dictator himself. The filmmaker uses a reopened underground station in Moscow that is dedicated to Stalin to examine the ongoing worship of his personality. Since its restoration in 2009, a Stalinist inscription has adorned the walls. Contemporary footage shows passers by looking up at the legend while an old silent horror film music is edited in, giving a grotesque side to these commonplace images. In the next sequence the same tension between image and sound is made through the use of propaganda music playing during a pro-Stalin meeting. As the music goes on, more and more pictures come and go in an accelerated rhythm that evokes vertigo. While the first part gives the resonance through the resurrection of Stalin, the second and last part shows mourning people commemorating victims of the regime. Here, the impact arrives after the resonance.

The film The Red Chapel by Danish director Mads Brügger explores the power of words in North Korea. The filmmaker is staging the impact himself when he reads a poem in front of the "Dear Leader" statue. The poem was submitted to the censoring body and was admitted. They didn’t know that the filmmaker was actually being ironic and absurd: "Love is like a pineapple, sweet and indefinable", goes one line. Absurdity and dictatorship meet once again in the subversive element of language. The staged reading sets free a resonance of counteraction.

Having these films as examples of counteraction, it becomes clear that a simple moral perspective isn’t enough to denounce injustice: one has to take the higher ground also with regards to a legitimate use of the media itself.

By Johannes Bennke and Lydia Castellano