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Title
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Living Monuments / Polska Sztuka Ludowa - Konteksty 2014 Special Issue
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Description
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Polska Sztuka Ludowa - Konteksty 2014 Special Issue s.221-227
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Creator
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Sikora, Sławomir
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Date
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2014
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Format
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application/pdf
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Identifier
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oai:cyfrowaetnografia.pl:6095
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Language
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ang
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Publisher
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Instytut Sztuki PAN
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Relation
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oai:cyfrowaetnografia.pl:publication:6523
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Rights
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Licencja PIA
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Subject
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anthropology of memory
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pamięć - aspekt antropologiczny
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film - aspekt antropologiczny
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Type
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czas.
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Text
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The art of sense memory (...) does not make a claim to
represent originary trauma —the cause of the feeling —but
to enact the state of experience of post-traumatic memory.
Jill Bennett
The inaccessible can only
be approached by being staged.
Wolfgang Iser
T
he story about the discovery of the art of
remembrance, evoked by Frances Yates
(1999|1966), in certain respects brings to
mind the one shown by Jana Sevcikova in the motion
picture Gyumri (2008).1 Similar, albeit decidedly sim
pler and told from a distance of years, enveloped in the
mist of a myth and transformed into a parable about
(also) obligations towards the deities, it excludes (and
even outright dismisses) the tragedy and trauma in
separably connected with the story conveyed in the
film. In the first, disrespect for the gods and a gesture
of pride precedes the tragic events, while in the other
the element of protest and dissent sometimes appears
after the fact. The first story offers us a simple anecdo
te about the way in which the poet Simonides of Ceos
connected memory with place, and in this fashion
allowed relatives to recognise the bodies of the mas
sacred participants of a banquet after the celling col
lapsed in an interior in which they forgot that respect
is due also to the gods. Simonides, who in the opinion
of the person commissioning the panegyric needlessly
revered Castor and Pollux, was invited outside, were
he was supposed to have been awaited by two unfami
liar youths. The young men were not there, but they
managed to perform their task well: the catastrophe
took place immediately after his exit (1999, 1-2). The
second story also says that it is impossible to live in a
cemetery without creating a subtler and, at the same
time, more complex art of memory ...
Gyumri is one of the oldest Armenian towns. T o
day, it has a population of about 170 000 and its ori
gins go back to seventh century B.C. On 7 December
1988 at least 25 000 of its residents perished in an
earthquake. Certain data mention as many as 80 000
victims. 2 One-third of the dead were children. Jana
Sevcikova devoted four years to research and seeking
witnesses, interviewing them, and shooting a film com
memorating the tragedy or rather the way in which the
survivors managed to tackle the ensuing situation. An
important part was also performed by those who were
born "after the fact” - some were already adults at the
time of work on the film. Sevcikova thus examined also
post-trauma experience. Actually, the film is about as
sorted variants of the art of memory. It is also about
history - the way in which film (and photography?) can
successfully tackle it. Gyumri is proof that sometimes it
is capable of achieving this feat, and very well to boot.
221
SŁAWOMIR SIKORA
Living Memorials.
Forms of Memory
and Oblivion in
the Film Gyumri
History, memory, the media
Naturally, one may ponder the way in which the
existence of such literal traces and records as the
photograph and the film influenced history. Thomas
Elsaesser noticed that the purpose of Siegfried Kracauer’s book: From Caligari to Hitler was not so much the
history of the film as social history; at the same time,
he suggested that the cinema could actually supplant
history: Suppose (...) that cinema was the beginning
of the end of history, the apparatus that would contrib
ute decisively to the suspension of history (after: Willis,
1995, 80). This declaration - taken out of its context
- could probably be compared to famous announce
ments predicting the death of painting after the inven
tion of photography. A similar view, although slightly
different, about photography and history was voiced
by Roland Barthes maintaining that the invention of
photography could inaugurate history. Perhaps we have
an invincible resistance to believing in the past, in History,
except in the form of myth. The Photograph, for the first
time, puts an end to this resistance: henceforth the past is
as certain as the present, what we see on paper is as certain
as what we touch. It is the advent of the Photograph —and
not, as has been said, of the cinema —which divides the
history of the world. (Barthes 1981, 87-88, see also: 93
94). These ostensibly contradictory and mutually ex
cluding opinions can, paradoxically, be close and even
enhance each other. Both indicate that the appear
ance of photographs (still and motion) was the onset
of a different comprehension of history and comprises
a social caesura in its pursuit.
Kirsten Hastrup (1987) noticed that memory and
history can be treated as two kinds of art of memory
- separate but also mutually penetrating. The former
appears to be older, closely connected with the oral,
emotions, and corporeality, while the latter places
trust more in writing and the logical, the linear, and
the rational. The first is closer to the myth, while the
second is often inclined towards ideology (understood
widely as belief in certain procedures and premises).
The former thus retains a human perspective (the ex
Slawomir Sikora • LIVING MONUMENTS. FORMS OF MEMORY AND OBLIVION IN THE FILM GYUMRI
perience of an individual), while the latter frequently
places itself within the range of the outer, objectivising
perspective, the outer (imposed, objective) percep
tion. Finally, and this is extremely significant, the first
can be a perspective of the conquered (also, one may
add, those vanquished by fate - as in this particular
case), while the second usually serves the victors.3 Ob
viously, today we see decidedly clearer that it is impos
sible to easily and distinctly outline a border between
the two. History increasingly frequently resorts to the
perspective of memory, whose setting into motion ap
pears more purposeful not only in the case of such sen
sitive and controversial topics as the Holocaust, where
the traumatic nature of events excludes to a certain
extent their objectivisation and outside perception. 4
Pierre Nora (1989) proposed the capacious term: “site
of memory”, comprehended already not as an actual
place linked with events (as in the earlier mentioned
anecdote connected with Symonides and the partici
pants of the feast) but as a place constructed and cre
ated intentionally.
This perspective was put to amazing use in
Sevcikova’s Gyumri, a composite essay not so much
about tragic events as about the complex art of mem
ory devised by those who survived and those who were
born immediately afterwards. In this case, the film ap
pears to be a peculiarly well-selected medium for tell
ing a story. It also possesses an extremely interesting
construction: we move from external to “internal”
images, from objectivised history (documentary shots)
to contemporaneity (the time of shooting the film),
from recollection (the remembered image) to the
present-day situation and, finally, from the visible to
the invisible.
The film starts with detached takes of bleak moun
tains seen from a distance. Snow capped peaks, mead
ows with grazing sheep. (It is worth adding right at the
onset that the ambiance and rhetoric of the film are
brilliantly co-created by the music). A boy declares off
screen: When I last dreamt about my brother and sister,
we were at home on the couch. We watched video of the
earthquake and they saw their own death. (Cut). A black
screen features the date: 7 December 1988. (Cut). A
tower clock shows 11.40 a.m. Successive black andwhite takes. People carving (restoring) an ornament
in some sort of an interior, with a fragment of an old
church (market place?) visible through an open door.
Blackout. Sepia shots taken from a helicopter (?) of a
town totally in ruins. A shot of an inner wall of a house,
with a photograph of a married couple hanging on the
wallpaper. Zoom. The upper storey of a building: the
inside wall has become the outside one... Homeless
people wearing coats amidst the ruins, bonfires, in
fants in cradles in the o p e n . People busy among the
r u b b le . People carrying c o ffin s. Hundreds of cof
fins lying in the streets... A picture of a catastrophe.
222
A take of the face of a young woman: I will show
you my daughters ( . ) — she searches for the photo
graphs and displays them —ViyanaBorisovna (...) They
were at home with my mother. I believe they left before it
began (...). Cut. The same woman twenty years later
- a close-up of her face, still attractive but decidedly
older: slight ticks could indicate a nervous condition
and an undying memory of tragic experiences (interior
of the home in colour). My friend’s mother consoled me.
She said: Your children have become angels. Don’t look for
them. Next, statements made by successive persons:
archival takes of destruction interspersed with like
nesses of the narrators. When I become conscious, I was
buried. Everything was lying on top of me. The school had
collapsed. There was darkness. I couldn’t breathe. (...) I
heard voices. My schoolmates were dying one after other.
He sings. I sang this song under the rubble to comfort my
schoolmates. 5 One of the mothers describes the bad
premonitions she experienced that day. She even in
tended to stop the children from going to school, but
when she turned around she suddenly experienced
emptiness all a r o u n d .
Documentary images (film records), contrasted
with those retained in memory from the day of the
events, subsequently become a record linked with the
present. One of the women opens a wardrobe full of
”souvenirs” of the children. The bed linen ironed by
her daughter Armina just before death is arranged
exactly the same. The mother takes the clothes that
Tiran (the son) wore during the earthquake out of a
box and shows them while speaking in an emotion
less, impassionate voice. I changed him and saved them
like holy objects. She kisses the garments and displays
the shoes brought for her son from France. After the
earthquake, I took them off to save in his memory. From
a purse she extracts a letter addressed to her daughter
by a boy in love with her. Here’s a pen. A comb, a mir
ror... The enumeration is totally devoid of emotion.
We are touring a crypt full of relics. Here, memory
remains untouched and closely guarded, one of the
possible types of reaction. When I cleaned this room that
time, I had a dream that night. Armina appeared to me in
the dream. She came in and lay down like so. The cam
era shows high heel shoes and a dressing table, moves
around the room and finds a hanging photograph of
the girl, while another large photograph over the bed
is reflected in a mirror. (Off) I believe she comes daily,
and she’s pleased with her room. The cut is followed by
a photograph of the younger son, Tiran, on display in
another room. Gentle close-up centralising the per
spective. Off screen, the mother says: I declared war on
the whole world and on God. Because he didn’t leave me
at least one of them. Cut.
A vivid sixteen-eighteen year-old girl dances (loud
music) and is shown interchangeably reflected in an
old, damaged wall mirror and then directly en face.
Slawomir Sikora • LIVING MONUMENTS. FORMS OF MEMORY AND OBLIVION IN THE FILM GYUMRI
When looking at the reflection in the mirror we see on
the wall opposite a large photograph of another girl.
Filmed in an exterior scene, she says: My parents gave
me the name of my sister. They felt it was right. I also think
this name is good for me. I lost a great sister. They told me
a lot about her. I’m proud my name is hers. I must do eve
rything so my parents don’t feel sorry my sister died.
Another woman speaks in a similar tone: When the
little one was born we gave him his brother’s name. Maybe
it was right that way. Every time we say Araik’s name, it
seems to us he’s home. And nothing happened to him.
Living memorials
The successively shown similar albeit distinctive
stories indicate that children were frequently given
the names of their tragically deceased siblings. Some
times, the birth of those children was planned, upon
other occasions - not. Occasionally, as in the last cited
statement, we begin to doubt whether this practice
was appropriate (perhaps our uncertainty is the de
rivative of consecutive questions). A t other times, the
surviving child “forces” the parents to provide siblings.
This “substitution mechanism” also possesses a strong
cultural dimension: the identity of a name appears to
be an extremely significant and often conscious way
of dealing with memory and, as a consequence, with
forgetting. One of the women described the idea of a
monument commemorating her children and her sub
sequent disillusionment with its emotionless nature:
At that moment, I decided to have more children. So these
children would be living, walking memorials.
Due to an interesting selection of the statements
made by assorted persons Sevcikova managed to outline
a whole spectre of attitudes associated with tackling a
traumatic situation. One of the most intriguing appears
to be the phenomenon of the “living memorial”. Biologi
cal succession must obtain its cultural dimension - such
is the meaning of the process of granting names ”in memoriam”, in honour, as a replacement of the deceased
siblings. The process appears to be particularly signifi
cant in certain traditional cultures - as in the discussed
instance - in which names possess essential importance.
The beginning of the text by Jala Garibova and Betty
Blair (about the importance of names in Azerbaijan)
could act as a commentary on the socio-cultural phe
nomenon of giving the names of dead children to their
”posthumous” brothers and sisters:
Names are the DNA of the social organism we call
community. One tiny strand of letters carries an incred
ible amount of vital information in terms of a person’s so
cial heredity. From a single word, it is often possible to
determine a person’s gender, education level, social and
economic status, language, religious preference, sense of
aesthetics and values, political inclinations, nationality,
age (in terms of historic period), and sometimes even birth
sequence.
223
Like DNA, names not only reflect the inheritance of
the past, but in a general sense, they map out expectations
and possibilities for the future (Garibova and Blair 1996;
see also: Lotman and Uspienski 1998).
Such a socio-ontological dimension of memory en
coded in the name (DNA) appears to be an extremely
adequate metaphor. The idea of the “living” and the
“dead” monument recalls somewhat the dilemma men
tioned by Plato, who in Phaedo deliberated about writ
ing as a measure for improving memory (Plato 1975).
Apparently, in this case, the “natural” and “self-gen
erated” (?) measure is special mediation (the question
is: to what extent is it always fully intentional?) also
between memory and forgetting.6 Memory appears to
be deposited in younger brothers and sisters; in this
manner, it is always present. Those children become
a special "photograph” of the absent siblings, which
can be constantly looked at; they are a peculiar tab
leau vivant with “double reference” and we are enti
tled to presume that the first, ”earliest” one becomes
increasingly enigmatic and in time vanishes and then
they start to ”represent” primarily themselves. The
stories presented in the film show that this could be a
complex process that does not easily succumb to lin
ear time. A t this stage, it is difficult to cite all the nu
ances and idiosyncrasies. The above-quoted mother
of Araik declares that saying aloud the name of the
“new” child is the reason why the deceased one seems
to be still present (it seems to us he’s home. And nothing
happened to him), while another mother admits that
she was unable to use the name of the dead son given
to a successive child. When the latter reached the age
at which the older son died, the mother, in a strange
ritual arranged in front of the camera (but probably
not only for the sake of the camera?), named him as
if once again. From that moment, he would be able to
use his name ’’legitimately”.7 Differences in treating
the ”new” children best demonstrate problems linked
with attempts at a typification of the phenomenon
and stress the impossibility of discovering unity even
within the range of a “given type”.
This special mimesis brings to mind problems as
sociated with the idea of reorientation envisaged by
Michał Paweł Markowski. A new child “performative
ly represents” the deceased one, renders him present
(and replaces him). He represents but, at the same
time, this relation remains flexible and variable in
time - the second child becomes increasingly separate
and “individualised”, a representative only of himself.8
This rather mechanical comparison and schematisation appear to be in their way inappropriate, since they
objectivise the relation in question. Quite possibly, the
metaphor of the “graft”, analogous to the way it was
applied by Paul Ricoeur, would be more suitable.9
Such a solution could be a particularly interesting
way of making possible the work performed by mem
Slawomir Sikora • LIVING MONUMENTS. FORMS OF MEMORY AND OBLIVION IN THE FILM GYUMRI
ory. Edouard Claparède indicated the difficulty en
countered whenever we try to refer to emotions from
the past: It is impossible to feel emotion as past (...). One
cannot be a spectator of one’s own feelings; one feels them,
or done does not feel them; one cannot imagine them with
out stripping them of their affective essence (after: Ben
nett 2006, 27). Presumably, the successive child be
comes simultaneously an embodiment of the deceased
one and makes possible constant contact with "living
emotions”. The fact that this is not an easy task is
mentioned in the statement made by the mother who
recalled a living monument and, at the same time, de
scribed how throughout her whole pregnancy she suf
fered from extreme emotions and thoughts.
This “living memory”, however, also has a sec
ond aspect: the children born afterwards, as if “a re
placement” , who bear the burden of "the memory of
another”, become an embodiment of the memory of
their deceased siblings. Following the example of Julia
Kristeva one could probably say - although she did
so in slightly different context - that siblings born af
ter a tragedy become identified with a special tomb
concealing the dead (2007, 150). That, which accord
ing to Kristeva can be perceived as a singular burden
conducive for the emergence of depression apparently
does not always have to be comprehended as an “al
ien body”, a yoke borne against one’s will, at least in
those cases with which we are becoming acquainted.
This attitude towards deceased siblings, that peculiar
alter ego, which no longer exists (in this world), can be
composed and spans from pride (the afore-mentioned
dancing girl) to greater ambivalence in which we may
seek even certain complaints expressed indirectly: She
has always compared me to my brother. There is nothing
she wouldn’t compare. Everything I’ve done, she’s always
compared.10 (Tiran II)
The camera as mediator and catalyst
Sevcikova managed to skilfully blend images show
ing that despite wounds and scars life goes on. Brief
inserts of school (pre-graduation ball?) and family
events, boys playing computer games, etc. Nonethe
less, in various ways this ”normal life” has become
strongly and inevitably involved in the past and mem
ory. This is a true burden. A girl dancing in front of a
mirror confesses directly to the camera: I’m so different
from my sister (...) When I look at her photo I ask her
how I should do things. I think she always gives me good
advice. Every moment, every second, I feel her next to me,
even though I only speak to a photo. Mariam, I’d like you
to come once into my dreams just as you were, just as you
were. (...) And if you can hear me now, Miriam, come for
a chat. I would like that very much. A boy admits that he
always goes to the cemetery alone and wonders if he
and his brother constitute a “single soul”; if so, then he
is actually sitting next his own grave. Further on, he
adds: When I look at brother’s photo I know that it’s only a
photo. There is nothing beyond the picture. Our soul is the
same. I don’t know if it’s believable, but I believe his soul
is in me. I don’t know how it happened, but I think it. T i
ran II, on the other hand, declares that sometimes his
dead brother walks up to him from the back and places
a hand on my shoulder and embraces me. As if I was shiv
ering. The first time this took place he was frightened,
but no longer. The past with which he is doomed to
live is present constantly - it has left behind scars and
marks: visible ones about which it is sometimes pos
sible to speak, and those that do not reveal themselves
directly. One of the fathers became ill after his son’s
demise: he now suffers from a wound that refuses to
heal (a sticking plaster placed at the level of his eyes
almost totally blinds him). A son born already after
the tragedy confesses while facing the camera: Why
aren’t you with me? If you were here, father wouldn’t be
ill. When our parents found you, it was horrible stress for
father. He didn’t eat for more than a week. (...) Father
has this wound since. (...) If you were with us, none of this
would have happened. And I wouldn’t even be here.
Sevcikova did not seek credibility by means of
simple mimesis; it is to be supplied by archival pho
tographs from the catastrophe, comprising an impor
tant context albeit one that deals only with a single
dimension of the past. She did, however, manage to
discover “inner history”, the way in which it lives on
in memory, as well as an “inner landscape” left behind
by the historical event. History is palpable, which does
not mean that it is always visible. The author has been
capable of avoiding the process of seeking refuge in
the dubious visualisations and reconstructions some
times used in films. When persons born “after” tell
their stories (sometimes we hear them also off-screen)
they are filmed en face and frequently in an exnterior
scene. This approach could be treated as a very special
extraction of a given person from the context of his
place and an even greater focus of attention on the
personal perspective. They speak/confess directly to
the camera, thus stressing even more that if we are
dealing with history then this the sort of history that is
e x p e r i e n c e d at present, in other words, we are
witnessing not so much representation as presentation,
disclosure, and revelation close to the Heideggerian
comprehension of aletheia - truth as disclosure and
unconcealment. This is an experience of the ereignis of
another reality into which we may take a partial look.
Those who survived the tragedy as a rule refer
to memory, narration about e x p e r i e n c e s and
feelings, and rarely mention the present. Those who
were born “after” speak almost exclusively about the
present, ”express the consequences of events” that, it
might seem, do not have to affect them directly (and
this is probably what takes place) but affect them to
tally; sometimes, such awareness comes close to the
224
Slawomir Sikora • LIVING MONUMENTS. FORMS OF MEMORY AND OBLIVION IN THE FILM GYUMRI
question about the reason for one’s existence (And I
wouldn’t even be here), or dilemmas concerning a sin
gle, shared soul (standing over “one’s grave”). The
camera, that special transparent/non-transparent me
dium, takes part in those direct contacts; at times, it
attempts to conceal its existence and in this particular
case it becomes a special catalyst 11 not so much (not
solely) of meaning (which ultimately must be recon
structed by the viewer) 12 as the expression of direct
experience. 13 I am well aware of the certain abuse
carried by those words. And yet ... Sevcikova lucidly
constructed and evoked meanings, ”performatively”
created an inner group portrait made up of particular
stories. This is more of a Cubist portrait showing a sin
gle “phenomenon” in numerous reflections. If invis
ible things are involved, then one of the more interest
ing ways of tackling the problem could be the game,
conceived as a serious game (Gadamer 1993; van der
Leeuw 1991; Turner 1988).
In the film, particular “levels” of reality merge and
in tertw in e.. It is the camera that plays the part of
mediator and catalyst. No longer is history the only to
merge with the present. Thanks to the camera (via the
camera) particular figures communicate with the living
and the dead. Sons speak to a father who for years has
been living in America, younger brothers and sisters
turn directly to their dead siblings (Mariam, I’d like you
to come once into my dreams just as you were. (...) And
if you can hear me now, Miriam, come for a chat), a taxi
driver appeals to his son, for whom he has been search
ing for nearly twenty years: I searched the world for you.
You are my sacrament. You’re my most precious thing. I
want you to know wherever you are, even if you don’t want
to live with us, make yourself know. Then you can return
to them. I am waiting for you. I have your name engraved
on my ring, son. Written right here. I don’t know what else
to say. We live in hope and wait. Paradoxically, the last
family is dealing with the existing situation the worst.
The child survived the catastrophe and was taken to
hospital but then vanished. He was never found either
among the living or the dead, and was probably abduct
ed by other parents who had lost a child in the quake.
Certain traces led to neighbouring Georgia, but despite
a search the father did not manage to find his son. The
family still waits and hopes that the boy will return,
that he remembers his real parents, and for many years
has been living in a state of suspension. 14
Finally, the camera mediates between the pro
tagonists and the viewer. I have in mind in particular
those takes in which the (predominantly) young pro
tagonists speak directly towards the camera. Thanks
to this trick Sevcikova overcame distance. From the
point of view of the protagonists, we, the spectators,
gain the same ontological status as their dead brothers
and sisters. How far and, paradoxically. how close.
It is worth drawing attention to the motif of the con
225
versation with the dead via photographs, mentioned
upon several occasions 15.
It would be difficult to classify Sevcikova’s film
unambiguously. She has made use of elements - es
pecially when she touched upon a sphere that is
both present and absent (invisible) - that should be
regarded as performative. In doing so, she applied
special evocations and avoided attempts at represen
tation, always dubious in such cases. As a result, we
reach the invisible centre - truth revealed albeit not
shown. By resorting to this operation she managed to
touch the truth of ever living emotions. In the case
of older people (the survivors) those emotions are, as
a rule, supported by images of memory. Among the
young such memory is living presence and not an im
age. This extremely interesting film possesses the fea
tures of constructed and evoked truth that ostensibly
would never come into being without the filmmaker
and her camera.
The story told by Simonides of Ceos implicates the
offended gods into the birth of the art of memory. In
the case of Gyumri other forces also become engaged in
the explanatory and justifying story. A universally held
version links the Armenian tragedy with an explosion
of an enormous arms cache stored underground, the
supposed cause of the secondary and most powerful
quake. This belief is mentioned by several persons, and
the story starts and ends with Tiran II. The last words
in the film are: My mom hasn’t set foot inside any church
to this day. She promised when this church is repaired, she
will have us baptized in it. I won’t be baptized until then.
***
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ures in/of History, in: Fields of Vision. Essays in Film Studies,
Visual Anthropology and Photography, L. Devereaux and
R. Hillman (ed.), University of California Press, Berkeley,
Los Angeles, London.
Yates Frances A., 1999 (1966), The Art of Memory,
Ark Paperbacks, London, New York.
Zakowski Jacek, 2002, Epoka upamiętniania. Rozmowa
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Endnotes
1 I saw the film for the first time at the Dialektus Festival in
Budapest (2009), where it won first place in the "Deep
Description” category. It was also shown at Planet Doc
Review (Warsaw 2009), and then on the Planète TV chan
nel.
2 The estimates are probably exaggerated, but in those years
the population of the town declined by 100 000: in 1984 it
totaled 222 000, and in 1989 - barely 122 587 (source Wikipedia, entry: Gyumri, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Gyumri#cite_note-3; access: January 2010).
3 One could ask whether the film, which brings to mind
Memory (MacDougall 1998, chapter 12), is not a form of
evoking reality more suitable than writing (see: Tylor
1986).
4 Cf., e. g. Frank Ankersmit, Narracja, reprezentacja, doświad
czenie. Studia z teorii historiografii (2004). This change of the
perspective from objectivising to one closer to particular
individuals or groups is heard increasingly often; it appears
vividly and enigmatically in an interview held by Jacek
Zakowski and Pierre Nora: J. Z.: You can write history. / P N.:
For whom? Who is still interested in history? / J. Z.: Everyone is
somehow interested. / P N.: «Somehow» is an apt word.
Actually, today people are concerned with reminiscences,
Zakowski (2002, 67). On the change of the perspective
from outer to inner cf. also Sikora 2009a; the memory disco
urse appears to be decidedly important especially when we
touch upon traumatic history.
5 Here, the status of the statement changes, narration (story
telling) becomes performance, and we enter the domain of
performativity.
6 I am far, however, from reversing this perspective, as was
done by, e.g. Marc Augé in: Les formes de l’oubli when he
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8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
noticed that a return to the time of the beginning is connec
ted with rituals and festivities and associated with the obli
teration (forgetting) of all that occurred on the way. This
observation can be encountered in the writings of Mircea
Eliade, although the Romanian expert on religion placed
emphasis elsewhere (nonetheless, it remains a fact that such
an intellectual provocation on the part of Augé makes it
possible to take a different look at those problems). Cf.
Augé 2009.
Today at 11:40 you have reached the age of your brother at the
moment of his death. From now on, son, I will try to say your
name. I have to. I gave you his name so that we would always
hear it, but I couldn’t manage to say it. You also wanted it this
way, Tigram? Do you know how much responsibility you have?
Not only a name, but also lost dreams to become reality. You
have to try to realize your own dreams as well as his. You are not
only his continuity, but you are your own person, son. Starting
today, you and Tigram both exist.
Michał P Markowski cited Wolfgang Iser: Representation and
mimesis have therefore become interchangeable notions in litera
ry criticism, thus concealing the performative qualities through
which the act of representation brings about something that
hitherto did not exist as a given object. (...) The inaccessible can
only be approached by being staged. (2006, 289)
Certain words-metaphors appear to be suitable when they
concern people and the world of difficult emotions.
The mother of Tiran (who appeared in the earlier described
room-crypt) admitted: A year or two ago I was still looking in
my children for the first ones. I compared everything - eyes,
movements, words... I loved the dead ones through the living
ones. I tried to stop missing them this way.
The camera as a catalyst of events is a conception present
in anthropological reflections at the very least from the time
of Jean Rouch.
It is often said that film images-narrations are in this respect
more polyvalent than the text: the text communicates/stores meaning while images are illusions/depictions of events.
In the second part of the film in particular we deal not so
much with representations as with attempts at evocation
interestingly favoured by the camera. It is the latter (the
cameraman) that becomes the catalyst of recollections, and
thus also of emotions and meanings. The very role/function
of the camera in the film succumbs to change and from
registration/representation of external reality it gradually
undergoes a transformation to become an instrument of
evocation; it seems to be conducive for reflection and cer
tainly for the verbalisation of emotions and thoughts (on
the term: evocation cf. Tylor 1986).
From the anthropological point of view such suspension can
be compared to staying in the liminal sphere, on the border
of life and death, the impossibility of ”getting out” of it or
transition to any other side. The grandmother of a lost boy
says: Dear Pula, I’m waiting for you. I won’t die until I see
you.
Sevclkova conducted an interesting differentiation: those
who survived the earthquake are, as a rule, interviewed at
their homes but the young - those who were born already
”after” - often speak directly to the camera outside the
home (the sole exception being a girl who although familiar
with the story of her parents and older siblings for all prac
tical purposes lives “outside” it). We are entitled to assume
that Sevclkova, wishing to hear the young people, was com
pelled to leave the site “suffused” with memory.
