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“In 2009, more than 400 people left their daily lives and returned to the former Soviet Union.”

The above text comes from a world premiere that started from the movie and finally broke through the concept of the movie in an extremely weird way.

Some people often joked that they want to go to the “parallel world”, but we all know that this kind of behavior can only exist in crazy assumptions at present. Although this is crazy, it is not a joke.

On February 17, 2019, Paris ended a film exhibition that is probably the largest and most unimaginable project in the world so far-at the Pompidou Center in Paris, France, and two other theaters. People can feel immersively a former Soviet society that was copied and restored, and the people living in it.

Please note that this “Soviet society” really exists in the 21st century and is located in a region of Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine, like a ghost left over from the former Soviet Union.

The people in it are not so much acting as they are living, just like living in another parallel space.

Such a huge experimental project is only because of a film project originally, it has a rather concise name: “DAU”.

Of course, this movie plan has already been “deteriorated”. Some people describe it as “strong Stalinist Chumen show”, an anthropological social experiment .

The hidden birth of a “ghost city”

To be precise, DAU is not an image, but a visual presentation, which is based on the three-year data record of the above-mentioned copy of the “Soviet Society”.

According to DAU’s official website, this project has accumulated 700 hours of video materials, 2.5 million pictures, 40,000 pieces of clothing, 8000 hours of sound materials, and 4,000 documents.

The screening in Paris may be just a part of these materials, and maybe what they record is just the tip of the iceberg of the former Soviet replica of DAU.

DAU’s exhibition plan, as well as the next two stations in London and Berlin, and it is said that TV series, documentaries, and even the release of the original film are also planned in the future.

Back to these materials, the starting point of these plans-

2009In 2004, more than 400 main actors and 10,000 participants left real life and came to this “ghost city of the former Soviet Union”, a huge, closed, independent, secret institution like a small society during the Stalin period. (hereafter referred to as DAU) .

Most people are not real actors in such a large composition-they are recruited from all over the world, including real artists, philosophers, Nobel Prize winners, street cleaners, bars Workers and even infamous criminals.

Official website information shows that Nobel Prize winner Physics David Gross participated in the performance, and his role was a participant in the International Science Conference held here in 1956.

They cut off communication with the outside world and became “Soviet citizens.” Basically they will be given the same status as outside the DAU-cleaners are still cleaners, waiters are still waiters, scholars are still scholars, even criminals, Party members, wizards, Nazis.

They work, live, develop friendships, fall in love, give birth to newborns, accept the jurisdiction of the former Soviet Union, and experience the changes of the Soviet Union before 1938-1968. Although the project lasted only three years, DAU also has its own time”.

Participants act as shop assistants of” 1952 “

However, at first, you can imagine this huge and complicated project, and the original intention was just to make a simple biographical film?

At present, Douban can still find entries that are outdated but have recorded the director’s original ideas, translated into “Lev Landau”.

Lev Landau, a gifted former Soviet physicist, Dau is actually his nickname. He has remarkable achievements in many fields of theoretical physics. He won the Nobel Prize in 1962, and that year, because of a serious car accident, his physical and mental health were damaged. By 1968, he eventually died of deterioration. .

Director Ilya Herzanovsky (Ilya Khrjanovsky) I just want to make a film about his last 30 years. The earliest film and television project can be traced back to 2005.

Dau teaches students in the classroom. This show is based on the original biographical material

So for the long-term shooting, we started to build a huge scene about two football fields, as much as possible to restore the environment where Dau lived.——It is a copy of a secret research institution located in Moscow at that time.

It was only when this replica was completed in 2009 that this huge project began to move towards an unexpected ambition:

After completing a year of shooting, the director simply gave up the original intention of the biographical film and focused on the “Soviet society” in front of him.

How realistic can a copy be?

In 2012 and before, this project still appeared in newspapers. At that time, I thought it was about to be released. A related article could be found in the “Southern People Weekly”, but after that, the news went down and DAU seemed to Hidden.

Since the director changed his goal, DAU has transformed from a film and television shooting venue into a “parallel world” that stayed in the 20th century, isolated from the real world, actually exists and runs.

It was n’t until nearly ten years from the beginning of 2009 that we were filming, from January 24 to February 17, 2019, in the 25 days, we “outsiders” finally had the opportunity to truly witness the rumor in Paris The long-running “Ghost City”.

It is interesting to enter the theater to visit the DAU video. The ticket you need is not called a “ticket”. They call it Visa. There are three types of visas: 6 hours, 24 hours, and unlimited. To obtain the last two visas, you also need to pass a psychological test.

This is not really an idea that I came up with for this screening, because When you actually visit DAU, you really need to get a “passport” for review and entry.

A handful of journalists who have been allowed to visit DAU during the project shoot. And most people outside the world are unaware of this secret existence.

As mentioned earlier, this Soviet replica was inspired by Dau ’s secret agency for the last 30 years of work and life. It is well-equipped and well-ordered, almost a closed and independent living area .

In the institution, the retro architecture, decoration, clothing, and daily necessities are actually copied from the Soviet Union, and even the hairstyles, food packaging, cigarette brands, etc. will be updated according to the advance of 1938-1968.

Again, there seems to be real business here, people trade in rubles. Participating players tried to use the rubles they left from the Soviet era here, and were judged to be “using counterfeit currency.”

We may think of DAU as a “big brother” style living area, but it is not at all.

There are no hidden monitors everywhere, and there are no heavy and numerous photographic equipment visible on the set. In fact, the photography team has only three people, and they will record a certain person and an event when they stroll freely, and this is also It only takes a small part of the time in a small corner of the DAU. Most of the time, people will not be observed and filmed.

In 2011, when a Scottish producer Eddie Dick was about to talk to director Herzanovsky about a new project, he was allowed to enter DAU. At that time, according to DAU, it was 1953.

Before entering, he and his colleagues were asked to wear the right clothes, cut their hair short, get a “passport” and some rubles, and be questioned for the purpose of the visit.

But after entering DAU, he did not see the filming throughout the entire Dick visit.

Dick described that there were guards moving, someone drinking coffee, and people doing their own things. He even went to Dau’s apartment and had tea with his wife Nora. “I didn’t say to anyone, please, what the hell is this! You will find that you are hypnotized, just let it be.”

Dau’s wife Nora

Is it realistic or artificial?

Although we know the specific content of the DAU project, many places are still confusing. For example, the use of “real” and “Chumenxiu” in this place is a contradiction in itself; for example, we know movies The Chumen in here is blinded, but the people here are voluntary.

Not long after the screening began in Paris, the Guardian published an article detailing DAU. Author Steve Rose said that due to the 2019 exhibition plan, he was finally accepted after years of “invalid request” canPrior to interviewing the director, he was asked to watch at least four of the 13 DAU films-these 13 are the 700 hours of video footage edited from the aforementioned.

Of the four films watched by Steve, the first three are equivalent to Nora’s trilogy. The first is Nora’s mother who came to see her. The second is Nora and Dau, and Maria ’s old lover Maria. The third part happened more than ten years later, when Dau was almost bedridden, their son had grown into a weird boy, and Nora was bored and lonely.

This is “1968” Dau and his wife and children. Dau is played by Teodor Currentzis, the chief conductor and artistic director of the troupe. His wife, Nora, is played by Russian actor Radmila Shchyogoleva. Nora’s mother is the real mother of Radmila.

In the fourth film, Steve sees the gatekeeper of the research institution drunk and sees an old lady vomiting. A considerable part of the film is the gentle and awkward sex, body and speech of two men at one night. Insult.

According to Steve, none of this seems to be a performance. However, all these films are attractive and boring, the conversation is long and messy, almost unedited, and the emotions are so fierce and convincing that it is like watching a Dougma 95 movie.

Dogma 95 is a film movement initiated by Russ von Thiel and others, which aims to emphasize the purity of the composition of the film and focus on the real story and the performance of the actors themselves. Or if you’ve seen “Idiots” by Russ von Thiel, you can probably capture a little Steve’s look and feel experience.

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If we understand correctly, that is to say, within DAU, on the one hand, it is still interpreting the historical and social changes within the organization in the last 30 years of Dau’s life; on the other hand, all people live as true as possible With.

So, can you describe it like this: It’s like a real and visible archive record.

One of the theaters in Paris, Ruth Mackenzie, artistic director of Théâtre du Châtelet, said, “I am 100% convinced that what we are going through will be loaded into the history of Paris, art, technology, and cinema in the future.”

Teodor Currentzis, who has returned to reality, Dau, describes this performance experience as follows: “The key is how to be yourself at the same time, not yourself.”

But even so, we will see some pretty amazing things in those materials, such as-

Abramovich, a well-known performance artist who entered the DAU as a visiting scholar and wore a 50s costume, is undergoing a cleansing ceremony hosted by a shaman shaman;

Or a police officer is torturing a naked, tearing woman in a prison room. Details are not shown here, but you can think of a Stanford prison experiment. This experiment was forced to end after 6 days, and DAU lasted at least two years. …

How does this all happen?

Is it a nightmare or a paradise?

In the ambiguity between the real and the false created by the director, we show our fear, anxiety, and arrogance. I think this is part of the job: it will activate you internally or forcefully or Weak side.

This is what DAU’s “Executive Producer” Martine d’ Anglejan-Chatillon said. When asked about the prison scene, she replied: She was not completely deprived of her rights, and it was all acting.

“She (naked woman in the photo) Knowing that she can stop, everyone can just say” I can’t handle this ” Stop, but she chooses to stay in it. Maybe it’s to find something on the other side.

Of course, Steve said that because he couldn’t verify the actor, the truth of this statement can only be seen with wisdom.

Also according to Dodor’s character Teodor, living inside DAU, he has absolute freedom. Although he is also afraid of being arrested by the KGB, he will also feel uneasy. “But in real life, I also feel this way. Uneasy. “ (Note: National Security Council, KGB or KGB for short, Soviet intelligence agency from 1954 to 1991)

During the three years of the project, he spent about one year in filming, and the rest of the two years intermittently stayed in the “organization”, eating, sleeping, living, and staying for a few weeks at a time, when he or other When people leave, they will feel that they have come to another time and space, and the real world looks more like a set.

I know there areSome people choose to stay if they decide to stay there or return to the “future.”

Is it true that Teodor said? Perhaps not necessarily, many participants are reluctant to talk to Steve.

There are rumors that someone moved to Ukraine and lived in DAU for a few months or more; others also came and went quickly, thinking that this place of totalitarianism has been transformed into a place of repression of darkness-its existence is only for Meet the director’s enjoyment of sex and power.

As for the director himself, DAU thinks that DAU is more than just a copy of Soviet society. It also reflects reality.

In the Soviet Union and DAU, people will voluntarily obey totalitarianism, but this is actually more obvious to us today, for example, we are eager for mobile phones today.

What do we know about these things? It actually knows us better than we do. This is a transparent world, but we refuse to admit it is like we are sitting here, but refuse to admit that we are moving on a moving planet.

Nevertheless, one thing he admits is that in an overhead place like DAU, human behavior is released, and in real life, you usually do n’t dare go too far, because the price to bear is too much. Taller.

In this regard, producer Martine said that DAU is a microscope that observes human nature .

Reference source:

www.dau.com

Inside Dau, the ‘Stalinist Truman Show’: ‘I had absolute freedom-until the KGB grabbed me’ | theguardian.com

Stalinist Truman show: artist paid 400 people live as Soviet citizens | theguardian.com

This article comes from WeChat public account: see ideal (ID: ikanlixiang) , author: look over the editorial department