Transcending Time & Border: Universal Frustrations Spanning Communist Czechoslovakia to 21st Century Greece on Film

Synopsis

“I don’t do psychoanalysis, I do cinema.” Athina Rachel Tsangari’s voice plays over Suicide’s “Ghost Rider” in her Filmmaker Spotlight episode of The Criterion Collection’s “Meet the Filmmakers” series (Criterion Collection, 00:00:07–00:01:02), in which select standout auteurs are interviewed for an insight to their creative process. This song references Tsangari’s repetitive use of it in her critically acclaimed feature film Attenberg, wherein a young woman, Marina, navigates life and budding sexual interest while grappling her father’s impending death, her intimate-yet-bitter relationship with longtime friend Bella, and newfound sexual affair with an Engineer. All this takes place in early-21st century Grecian town Aspra Spitia, in fact the very city in which Tsangari herself was born; known today for its persistent economic depression caused by the entry, economic takeover, and abrupt exit of French aluminum mining company Pechiney (Explorabilia) in the early 2000s. Attenberg, therefore, is Tsangari’s reflection on modern Grecian society and its affliction of foreign economic imposition; and how these factors affect the development of young women like Marina with life scenarios that parallel Tsangari’s own. Tsangari’s vision, however, cannot be properly comprehended without thorough understanding of the context in which Vera Chytilova crafted her 1966 Czechoslovakian film Daisies, from which Tsangari undeniably took considerable inspiration for Attenberg.

In the years surrounding Daisies’ first screening in 1966, Czechoslovakia was ruled by the Communist Party, supported by the Soviets, following a successful coup d’état in 1948. By the 1960s, dissatisfaction with the ruling Party spread nationwide as its international positioning weakened amidst growing threats of takeover from nearby Eastern European nations–nations which, in 1968, would successfully invade Czechoslovakia during the Warsaw Pact. Over the following decades, the Communist Party’s power would continue to deteriorate as national protests grew in number and force; ultimately yielding Czechoslovakia’s dissolution into two nations (Castro 110). Specific to Chytilova’s frustration, however, was the social order imposed by the Communist Party requiring a lifestyle of uniformity, controlling both private and public spheres of citizen life. From this emerged a “static” society (Castro 111), emphatic of societal compliance with traditional familial values of women’s role as homemakers with little tolerance for career pursuits beyond this identity.

It is here that the thread connecting Chytilova’s Daisies with Tsangari’s Attenberg comes into view: tensions in each film arise in clear relation to the depressed situation of their larger community at that moment in time; whether it be the slow, vengeful demise of Tsangari’s own birth town due to decades of foreign economic imposition; or the brewing nationwide tension in Czechoslovakia at the federal government’s oppression upon citizens amid approaching demise by international invasion. This sense of frustration with life as it is, stagnant of motion toward life how it should be, therefore transcends all barriers of time or nationality commonly thought to separate Chytilova and Tsangari, or any filmmakers of such radically different lived societal experiences; with only the heart of their deepest societal frustrations remaining in their art.

In Daisies and Attenberg, the auteurs voice their personal commentaries on a diversity of worldly matters relevant to their time: commentaries, as it results, that take exceptionally similar form. Despite the films’ settings spanning two different nations over two different centuries, Chytilova’s sentiments on Czechoslovakian life in the 1960s are remarkably comparable to those of Tsangari in early-21st century Greece. Namely, both filmmakers critique unstable governments’ impact on civilian life and societal pressures imposed upon young women, as well as highly abstract concepts of human desire and the inevitability of death; with the goal of comparing life as it is to life how it should be.

Part I. Commentaries on Concrete Matters

Comparison I. Government & Society

Chytilova and Tsangari both express frustration with their respective national governments’ failure to grant citizens the basic right to self-express due to simple ineptitude. Each filmmaker portrays her feeling through metaphor: metaphor for deindividualization of the self through authoritarian dictatorship in Chytilova’s case; or metaphor for the stifling, economically parasitic relationship of the Western world imposed upon Greece for Tsangari. Through Daises and Attenberg, the auteurs demonstrate how original thought is repressed in their respective homeland by societal forces outside the hands of the citizens they impact, through medium of both film plots and the very literal process of making the films themselves.

Daisies was filmed in early 1960s Czechoslovakia as Europe reeled politically following the end of Stalin’s dictatorship in the USSR in the decade prior, causing a period of international tumult as tensions rooted in conflict between Capitalist and Communist social order pit Western and Eastern nations against one another. Chytilova herself adamantly opposed the deindividualizing effect of communist social orders on citizens; believing Communism to be opposed to original thought: a freedom she considered a fundamental right (Bracke 12). Chytilova’s view recurrently appears thematically in Daisies, ultimately becoming fully illuminated only by one of the final scenes wherein one Marie asks the other if she is happy after the two have nearly been drowned as punishment for acting anarchically out of communist order, wasting food, engaging in sexual promiscuity and teasing, and otherwise opposing Czechoslovakian imperatives for female behavior (Daisies 01:10:47–01:11:25).

Likewise, in Attenberg, Tsangari builds a reflection on her personal resentment toward the Grecian government for its role in causing the nation’s escalating economic troubles; to be revealed in full only at the occasion of the death of Spyros, Marina’s father, near the end of the film. Here, Tsangari signals her view that Greece has long been internationally subjugated as the scapegoat of the Western world’s economic failures; seen in the disproportionate downfall of the Grecian economy and inability to recover following the global 2008 recession compared to stronger Western nations with a history of industry in and exploitation of Greece (Calotychos et. al., 244), and that the Greek government’s passive compliance was not only instrumental, but causational, in this process. Attenberg is filmed in the Grecian seaside town of Aspra Spitia, a textbook example of a Greek town overtaken by foreign industry, in this case of invasive and environmentally- as well as economically- damaging aluminum and bauxite mining; and quickly abandoned at the first sign of economic hardship (Karkani, Aesthetics 206). To reflect this, Tsangari uses film techniques including lateral tracking shots, establishment of a mise-en-scene which confuses space and time, camera immobility, “haunting” ambient noises, and special focus on monochromatic settings (Karkani, Aesthetics 205), including the eerie portrayal of the town as Marina drives (Attenberg 00:20:28—00:21:13), signaling the decline of a once-industrious, now-ghostly town with only the skeleton of abandoned foreign industry left behind.

Tsangari and Chytilova also rebelled in their respective film creation processes by neglecting to respect standard filmmaking techniques and social sensitivities in favor of unabashed, relentless, and at times unsettling, plotline and technique. Coincidentally, history would reveal each filmmaker as not only pioneering their mode of thought’s representation in major media, but also as pioneers of an entirely new era of filmmaking in her respective country. Chytilova and Tsangari, by taking bold measure to be some of the first artistic critics of the governing bodies and societal precedents which molded their very careers, effectively kickstarted an eruption in each of their respective national film industries that would alter its trajectory for years to come.

Early in her filmmaking career, Chytilova’s understanding of the industry was entirely informed by her education at the Prague Film Academy, then in a rare period of relative freedom from Czechoslovakian governmental oversight—though certainly still not free—during her period of study there in the late 1950s, allowing her to experiment with innovative filmmaking techniques. These techniques would one day define the Czech New Wave, including its unconventionally long sequencing, experimentation through music and sound, and bolder, challenging themes reflective of modern society (Culik 199). Meanwhile, the Czech government remained conservative at Daisies’ release; critical of Chytilova’s displays of gluttony, anarchy, and sexual promiscuity and labeling such activities as “political provocation and an attack on social normality” (Castro 115). In the years following its initial screening, the Czech government intermittently restricted the showing of Daisies for fear of public incitation of unrest and further provocation of a population already deeply dissatisfied with the state of society.

Tsangari too found herself limited in filmmaking capacity due to her national government, yet on the opposite end of the spectrum, for the Greek film industry, at the time of Tsangari’s creating Attenberg, was deeply underfunded by filmmaking institutions of Greek nationality. Speaking in an interview about the Greek film industry “running itself on two million Euros total,” (Calotychos et. al, 242-243), Tsangari cites the lack of a Greek National film school as indicative of a larger “relationship of servitude and of feudalism, in addition to cultural imperialism” (Okada 163) between the Greek film industry and European industry leaders such as France. Her frustrations are reflected in Attenberg when Marina and Spyros, her father and town architect, discuss the literal crumbling of Aspra Spitia in tandem with its economic and spiritual demise (Attenberg 00:51:05–00:52:52). Their discussion nearly mirrors the real-life situation of Aspra Spitia, as Tsangari’s depiction, shot on-scene at the town, remained virtually unaltered, placing the characters and plot as close to the real city’s situation as possible. As an unintentional yet fitting outcome of her unconventional filmic approach, composed of blatantly uncomfortable and disconcerting sequences throughout, Attenberg yielded Tsangari to be popularly acclaimed as a founder of the newly-minted cinematic “Greek Weird Wave” (Okada 160).

Individually, therefore, the auteurs’ commentaries on their nations demonstrate their similar longings for personal freedoms and original expression independent of governmental influence. Chytilova and Tsangari differ only in the specific circumstance under which each is creatively oppressed by her government, whether by the iron grip of authoritarian Czechoslovakia governing Daisies’ screening capabilities or Greece’s weak film industry left unsupported by its own faltering national government. What each film demands, however—the demise of Czechoslovakia’s authoritarian government or freedom from stronger nations leeching off Greece’s economic vulnerability—is not the essential connection point. Instead, it is the relentless pursuit of freedom of expression each filmmaker seeks by mode of filmic creativity that conclusively links Attenberg with Daisies.

Comparison II. Expectations of Young Women

Further, Chytilova and Tsangari both examine the experience of young womanhood contextualized by unreasonably demanding societal expectations in their respective films. Most interesting, however, is that the filmic structural medium they use to do so is nearly identical: by examining effect of male expectations imposed upon women specifically through the lens of a sisterhood-level relationship as portrayed through innovative cinematic techniques.

In Daisies, two young women named Marie, whose identities as humans, dolls, or otherwise remains intentionally vague; have a singular goal of anarchy and “going bad” amidst a bad world (Daisies 00:02:50–00:03:05); entertaining themselves by seducing and exploiting old men for meals (Daisies 00:06:31–00:12:30), eating food in gross excess (Daisies 00:24:25–00:25:22), and disrupting the conformist public (Daisies 00:16:15–00:19:16). The Maries, therefore, react to male societal expectation on opposite ends of the socially-unacceptable spectrum; one being hypersexual and eager to engage with men, and the other hyper fixated on purity and virginity (Daisies 00:02:13– 00:02:23). Though they act in tandem, rarely leaving the other alone or acting without consulting the other, down to their precisely opposite wardrobes and hair colors; the Maries inherently demonstrate the impossibility of living successfully in Czechoslovakia outside its structural patriarchal norms. Repeatedly throughout the film, the Maries find themselves in situations wherein men hold certain spoken or unspoken expectations of them: sexual favors, respect, gratitude for feasts purchased for them, and otherwise. In response to these expectations, however, the Maries creatively diverge from the norm time and again; fleeing and hiding from the men before their demands be met. This overdramatized portrayal of the Daisies’ inability to live normally in society while not adhering to these male-imposed expectations is symbolic of the Czech societal structure’s inherent prevention of women from successfully deviating from the typical succession of marriage-wifehood-motherhood without sacrificing their place in society entirely.

Likewise, in Attenberg, Marina frequently acts in tandem with her friend Bella; both physically in their shuffling, animalistic escapades down the sidewalk (Daisies 00:17:13–00:17:22), and in life, as Bella becomes Marina’s “sexual informant” as the more sexually experienced of the two, even pushing the boundaries of friendship and sisterhood by demonstrating how to kiss on Marina herself (Daisies 00:01:00–00:03:18). Like the Maries, here arises the conflict among Marina and Bella’s natures: hypersexual Bella is far more adjusted to her feminine identity than Marina, who is out of place in her body, especially for a young woman of her age. Marina consistently demonstrates her longing to be something else to escape the inherent expectations of her given form, whether it be an animal (Attenberg 00:53:36–00:54:46), or a “real woman” capable of feeling sexual desire. Her motion is frequently awkward and jerky (Karkani, Framing), as seen in scenes exacerbating her oddities, such as in the shot wherein her shoulder appears detached (Attenberg 00:33:22–00:34:08); altogether indicating she is maladjusted to her place in Grecian society; unable to merge her self-identity with her social identity, especially relating to men. Even as she ultimately embarks on a sexual relationship with her lover the Engineer, Marina never fully adapts to the relationship: the romantic aspect never catches up to the sexual, which always retains an air of discomfort and un-naturalism; with sex performed more as a necessary act of physical burden than one of emotional gratification.

Both films, therefore, reflect each main characters’ fractured relationship with her femininity, whether sexual and performative as Bella and the dark-haired Marie, or asexual and self-conscious as Marina and the blonde Marie. These parallels are perpetuated by each film’s similar mise-en-scenes, as Karkani describes Attenberg’s cinematography as “captur[ing] limbs, decapitated bodies… agitated mobile shots, excessively saturated colors in combination with a droning digital sound aim[ed] at framing anxiety…” (Karkani, Framing). These parallel a sequence in Daisies wherein the Maries’ bodies are edited to appear cut up, creating a collage of decapitated limbs (Daisies 00:54:20–00:55:10), as well as other examples of color filter manipulation (Daisies 00:23:33–00:24:01). In every case, these shots embellish each filmmakers’ frustration with—and desire to escape from—expectations imposed upon young women like themselves by the patriarchal influences domineering over their respective nations.

Part II. Commentaries on Human Abstractions

Comparison I. Human Desire

Regarding broader, less concrete phenomenon central to both Chytilova’s and Tsangari’s filmic depictions of feminine life in an oppressive world; both filmmakers consider human desire in their films. More specifically, the auteurs question how society expects women to experience desire—sexually, in friendships, and in relationship with the larger world—compared to the reality. Poignantly, the medium by which the filmmakers do this is once again nearly identical: in Attenberg and Daisies, the main characters, the Marie’s and Marina, are deficient or atypical in these aspects of so-called “normal” human desires. Both filmmakers, therefore, make the creative decision to analyze how essential desire is to the authentic human experience (and how lackluster life without it can be) using proof by contradiction.

In Daisies, because neither Marie experiences desire, and instead state they simply seek to act as badly as the world around them is (Daisies 00:02:50–00:03:05), they consume in perpetuity: their singular objective is to behave anarchically and without second thought, and in doing so demonstrate that the ability to reach a limit on fulfillment of primal, contingent desires is imperative to the upkeep of society. This approach metaphorically captures Chytilova’s pessimism at the Czechoslovakian societal precedent set by communism which portrayed human urges as necessary to be sequestered away for the so-called greater good of social order, demonstrating her opposition to its “Socialist realism spirit, the triumphalist discourse of Communism” (Castro 114). Chytilova indicates that Communism does not in fact succeed in aligning societal desires; but rather alienates people from their most basic urges by feeling guilty even for the simplest pleasures which deviate from governmentally-appointed social norms, sending them to their demise, as seen in the Maries’ failure at their resistance mission when they are drowned (Daisies 01:07:03–01:08:03).

In Attenberg, likewise, Tsangari also uses desire as a societally evaluative medium through Marina, a young woman who does not experience sexual desire normally; as opposed to her close friend Bella, whom she envies for her sexual experience and promiscuity. Seeking familiarity, Marina ultimately turns to mimicry (Okada 168), replicating animalistic movements referential to the documentaries by the film’s namesake, Sir David Attenborough. Interestingly, the rare occasions in which Marina does display desire—exclusively emotional in nature—occur when she speaks French or listens to French music. For example, when Marina teaches Bella the French song about love (Attenberg 00:23:00–00:2357), Tsangari recalls attention to the fact that Marina only experiences full, unabated humanity through full, unabated desire with the help of French foreign interference. This, therefore, refers to Tsangari’s own perception of Greek cinema—and by extension Greek society and citizenship—as a mere product of mimicking other nations (Okada 164) and lacking a distinct national identity due to foreign economic imposition and a weak national sovereign entity.

Therefore, both Attenberg and Daisies depict appropriately apportioned desire as an essential element of a life well-lived, thereby challenging viewers to question how they themselves act on most personal desires, being fortunate enough to experience them to begin with. Chytilova and Tsangari mutually stress the necessity of exploring human desire by proving life cannot be lived to the fullest, most natural extent without relentless pursuit of it—not just at a surface level, but at a deep, character-defining intensity. By modelling the undesirable nature of Marina’s state lacking natural sexual desire, Tsangari demonstrates the necessity of allocating energy to meeting primal needs; while Chytilova establishes a boundary on this necessity, indicating through the Maries’ excessive surface-level desires that there is more to desire of life than instantly resolvable primal urges, in contrast to what the Czechoslovakian dictatorship would have its oppressed citizens believe.

Comparison II. The Inevitability of Death

Building on their respective filmic representations of abstract elements which perplex citizens of their respective societies, Chytilova and Tsangari both conceptually address the idea of death. Specifically, they do so within the sharp boundary that time is known to be finite; and therefore, should be spent in a way authentic to the self, as opposed to acting inauthentically in a futile extent to outrun the inevitable. Again, they do so by demonstrating the consequence of acting otherwise.

In one of the concluding sequences of Daisies, a chandelier falling on the Maries, who fail to escape punishment for their anarchical ways and appear to succumb to their attacker; here an ambiguous force representing the Czechoslovakian governmental body Chytilova so adamantly resisted throughout her art. Still, there is no singular scene making obvious their death; instead, the chandelier falls, the Maries gasp, and the scene cuts to bombs (Daisies 01:11:50–01:12:23). Here, Chytilova employs the Kuleshov Effect (Castro 114), thereby indicating the Maries do not die literally, and therefore are not people; but rather exist as metaphorical personifications of Chytilova’s frustration. It is at this point that the viewer is, just as in the film’s opening scenes, sharply sent back to the brutal, unforgiving real world of war and destruction, having been intentionally left behind in favor of the film’s fantastical, symbolic sequences. Chytilova herself frequently was interested in the limited nature of time allotted by a singular human life (Culik 207), explaining the irony of the Maries saying in unison, “We are still young and have the whole of our lives ahead of us” (Daisies 00:51:20—00:51:23).

Likewise, Marina’s development in Attenberg takes place in the context of Marina’s father Spyros inching toward death from terminal illness. Like the Maries, Spyros too does not undergo an outright, on-screen death in the film; yet Marina’s panic anticipating his death—and by extension, the death of Aspra Spitia, the town of his own architectural design—induces much of her action, and thus the plot of the film. The only moment in which Marina speaks French in the film, for example, is when she inquires with her father about his planning for his own death behind her back (Attenberg 01:00:30–01:00:39), as she views the grand process of his death as involving herself as much as him.

Chytilova and Tsangari, therefore, undertake a contradictory approach to proving the futility of outrunning death, whether by the Maries’ begging for forgiveness and altering their immoral philosophies, or Marina’s last-ditch attempts at altering her personality to prolong addressing the impending death of her dear father and home. Ultimately, both auteurs prove death cannot and should not be escaped; and therefore, the self should never be scarified in attempt to avoid reality.

Conclusion

It is only through evaluation of the thematic parallels of governmental commentary, social expectation of young women, desire, and death between Chytilova’s Daisies and Tsangari’s Attenberg that the full extent to which the films mirror one another in message is seen. Both Chytilova and Tsangari use elements of “weirdness,” in deviating from preestablished filmmaking conventions to demonstrate how passively accepting societal norms, flawed as they are, has a far deeper impact on one’s life than may be realized; thereby challenging viewers to evaluate their world as rebelliously as the auteurs construct their films. In the films, Marina, Bella, and the Maries encounter this truth the hard way by acting reactively to governmental control and male expectation, and as a result experiencing unnatural levels of desire and unhealthy fear toward death. The filmmakers, therefore, act as an outlet expressing discontentment felt universally by citizens of societies around the globe; whether it be due to unemployment from their government allowing foreign industry to destroy their once-great town, or a life dedicated solely to motherhood without second thought, or otherwise. Through their similar filmic structures, each film challenges the viewer–initially intended to be citizens of the filmmaker’s own nation, yet still highly applicable to an audience affected by diverse societal norms worldwide–to critically evaluate the extent to which society also affects their life; and what should be done in response. In their respective positions of societal stuck-ness, Tsangari and Chytilova each utilize the most effective platform they know—symbolic expression through film–to express their most personal yet deeply universal frustrations with the powers which ultimately shape their lives.