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Documentary, 2018, 94 min, digital
Original title: Den’ Pobedy
Language: Russian and German with English subtitles
Director:
Sergei Loznitsa
“Loznitsa observes, at times morbidly, always wide-eyed, as packs of people at Treptower Memorial in Berlin commemorate the Red Army’s victory over the Nazis. Another study in crowds – their density, direction, and flow – the film paints the site as a minefield of overlapping discourses, with groups affirming unity yet also striving to set themselves apart. Germans, Ukrainians, babushkas, babes in folkloric dress, motor-bikers – no group’s too trivial for the peace medley. The site’s epic, pathos-heavy symbolism seduces even as it repels. In one mausoleum relief, thanks to Loznitsa’s forced perspective, a German plane appears small enough to be struck by a Soviet peasant’s outstretched, elegantly poised hand. The iconography evokes episodes of unremitting civilian suffering during an airstrike, yet Loznitsa captures it first in close-up, revealing an uncanny inner strength. As myriad interest groups jockey to be heard in the V-Day site’s liminal space, between canonized past and suppressed present, partisan dances and songs erupt as if spontaneously – a simulacrum of yesteryear.” –Ela Bittencourt, Village Voice
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