social reality of that time and we entail automatically in no fidelity of war’s representation of that period, as it is been dealt in the film.
What we may have is the appearance of the film as a ‘cognitive filter of subjective inwardness’ of the people experiencing the consequences of war.
And that has to deal with the immediate and undisputable horrific feelings that the war tragedy produces to all human beings. And from that point of view we may say that what is filtered is a ‘world unified’ - under the particular universal feelings of despair -, a ‘focal point’ that can be otherwise described as reality.
So, from that aspect, Underground seems to be realistic.
Nevertheless, the examined film is renowned to be a panegyric representative of a combination of Brecht’s ‘Epic drama’, ‘Theatre of the Absurd’ and ‘magical realism’.
Beginning, Bertolt Brecht’s ‘Epic theater’ was used to observe and comment on ideological and socioeconomic matters involved with Marxist theories and opposed to national socialism.
It was based upon the ‘alienation effect’ or ‘estrangement effect’ used to motivate the audience to overcome any illusions created by the theater. The spectator should not identify with the character and should not be drawn into the play.
Those effects, delivered satirical and cynical, were strategies like the use of unusual settings, songs breaking off scenes, documentary techniques and many other novelties in order to be focused on the moral and political teachings.
In that way the spectator could reach his own conclusions and finally through the Aristotelian Catharsis could to be able to ‘give a solution’ to the world rather than only to observe it.
‘Epic theatre’ or ‘Epic drama’ also included the strongest objective of expressionism. The aim was to challenge, dare and create emotional shocks to the spectators through a distorted and indistinct way of presenting the scenery and the characters.
The ‘Theatre of the Absurd’ started from the French thinkers Sartre and Camus and it engages the notion of the absurdity of human life through the employment of eccentric and irrational situations and dialogue.
The main objective was to underline the meaningless existence in an apathetic and intimidating world.
“Magical realism employs various techniques that endow all things with a deeper meaning and reveal mysteries that always threaten the secure tranquility of simple and ingenuous things…” ¹
“The principle thing is not the creation of imaginary beings or worlds but the discovery of the mysterious relationship between man and his circumstances.
In magical realism key events have no logical or psychological explanation…” ²
“A ‘poetics of excess’ that typifies magical realist texts, extends within a broadly delineated typology, from the fantastic to the hyperbolic and from the improbable to the possible. Magical realism manages to present a view of life that that
exudes a sense of energy and vitality in a world that promises not only joy, but a fair share or misery as well. In effect, the reader is rewarded with a perspective on the world that still includes much that has elsewhere been lost. Where ‘possible’ is instantly transformed into ‘probable’ as we are transported from the domain of the real to the magically real by the similarly uncharted stratagems to of the artistic imagination…” ³
Garcia Marquez maintains that “realism is a kind of premeditate literature that offers too static and exclusive a vision or reality. However good or bad they may be there are books, which finish on the last page. Disproportion is part of our reality too. Our reality is in itself all out of proportion. In other words, magic text is, paradoxically, more realistic than the realist text…” 4
The implication of the entire above paragraph stated can be met in Underground with reference to the film’s narrative and mise-en-scene.
We have a story being told quite unconventionally – for the Hollywood standards - and in a theatrical way.
It is consisted of episodes, parts, acts that each one can stand on its own but also are strongly interrelated, as they provide a beginning, a middle and an end.
The main theme that is presented really ambiguously is that the Communist propaganda was the deceptive force that led to the Yugoslavia’s break up and
Kusturica does not provide immediately identifiable ‘good’ and ‘bad’ guys in the narrative as he dares the audience to reach his own conclusion.
The parody and allegory commenting on sociopolitical issues is everywhere and an excessive aesthetic can be encountered in an amoralism deriving from the film’s outrageous and unconscionable parties. Irrationality comes forth triggering off the audiences emotional shocks.
There is also a luminous lack of a clear story -outline that most of the times confuses the spectator who ends up being unable to identify with the characters and be absorbed in the film’s plot.
The ‘alienation effect’ also works through the representation of theatre in the film, as that can be seen enough times, so as to persuade the audience to sustain its ‘distance’.
The mise-en-scene also entertains the above idea of alienation, as the whole scenery is surrealistic employing illogical situations and succeeding in disjointing itself from its characters.
Though couple of times we have documentary shots of WWII as a direct reference to historical events we then have the rejection for any correct and complete account of the observed social reality of that time with shots like the ones who portray the film’s characters together with historical persons like Tito.
An absurdity and irrationality are also promoted through shots like the ones that show the zoo’s animals in the streets and the bombing ‘intruding’ people’s lives with no affect on them at all. It is as if the paradox becomes reality.
In addition, the use of the animals serves the purposes of metaphors and symbolism. Especially at the bombing when all the animals are ‘unleashed’ it is as if all the elementary survival human instincts are ‘unleashed’. The faster, the bigger, the smarter ‘animal’ will survive on the expense of the weaker.
The monkey also is a presence that preserves powerfully the effectiveness of ‘magic realism’.
It is the fantastic and hyperbolic element that will transform the ‘impossible’ into ‘possible’. Suddenly, the weaker with the help of ‘magic’ representation will make it and survive and the ‘smarter’ through Catharsis will not.
It is all a fantastic situation that is realistically treated.
In Underground every spectator can make his own judgment through the prism of the satirical myth and will end in enhancing the idea of the ‘real’ by embodying all scopes of imagination controlled and offered by the director.
In addition, we may remember what Garcia Marquez insisted on “what seems fantastic to certain readers and critics is actually an ordinary, everyday reality.
It seems fantastic or exotic if you are not aware of the social an historical context”. 5
So, we may say that we have to talk about different audiences in order to conclude if Underground can either be seen as realist or not.
We have a whole generation that lived and suffered from war in Yugoslavia, as it was dealt in the film periodically from 1941 to 1991. For that audience and their particular culture the film’s provocation, satire and ‘magic realism’ can be interpreted in a ‘reality’ they fully lived and experienced.
For them, Underground can be seen only as realist with direct references to their present full all the consequences of the past.
For the audience that has some knowledge of the historical, sociopolitical and cultural identity of former Yugoslavia and Balkany, the film can swing from time to time from realist to ‘magical realist’, as that has been described previously.
And of course, there is the biggest part of audience with no awareness of the historical and cultural context of the Underground that will confront it as surrealistic, epic, absurd, and funny ‘text’ commenting on a country that does not exist any more.
So, by drawing this disciplinary line with reference to multiformity of the consciousness and knowledge of the audiences and having exploring most of the fundamental concepts regarding ‘realism’ and ‘anti-realism’, we may say that Underground can be read both as realist and not.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Blandford, Grant and Hillier; The Film Studies Dictionary; New York, Oxford University Press; 2001
Danow, David; The Spirit of Carnival Magical Realism and the Gortesque; Lexington; University of KYP; 1995
Gocic, Goran; The Cinema of Emir Kusturica: Notes from the Underground; London, New York; Wallflower Press; 2001
Hill and Church Gibson; The Oxford Guide to Film Studies; Oxford, New York; Oxford University Press; 1998
Jameson, Frederic; Aesthetics and Politics; London, New York; Verso; 1997
Zamora L.P and Faris W.B.; Magical Realism; Durham, Duke; UP; 1995
NOTES
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Zamora and Faris, Magical Realism, (Durham,1995), p.15-32
- Ibid, p.119-123
-
Danow David, The Spirit of Carnival Magical Realism and the Gortesque, (Lexington, 1995), p.65ff
- Zamora and Faris, op.cit., p.148
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Gocic Goran, The cinema of Emir Kusturica: Notes from the Underground, (London, New York, 2001), p.72
Word count: 1680 appr.
Evangelia Koutoumani (St. Id: 01003096) Page of Page of
2nd Assignment – FM 266
