Voice over paraphernalia

With or Without You (dear voice over)

 

Just back from the FIPRESCI Jury at the outstanding 65^th Kracow International Film Festival of Documentaries and short films, and I find myself astounded by the almighty use of voice over in several documentaries our Jury had to analyse.

 

Voice over was once a fundamental part of nonfiction filmmaking, but today many filmgoers seem to perceive it as antiquated, manipulative, and even offensive. When used intentionally and with self-awareness, the type of voice over with a didactic, authoritative feel can seem contrary to current storytelling sensibilities.

 

Today’s audiences are attuned to tone. If voice over is overdone, it conflicts with the film’s rhythm and adds to a lack of immersion. If overwritten, it sounds like a script being read, rather than a life lived. If too emotional or analytical, it undermines the intimacy with visuals, silence or raw sound design provides in a natural way.

The modern psyché functions on fragmentation and multiplicity of voices, not one “truth” provided from above.

The modern spectator wants the filmmaker to be a fellow author with subject, as opposed to a central one.

 

Both “Silver”, a new documentary about a Bolivian village of silver miners and their rich mountain ground, and “Tata” by Lina Vaduvii, impress to the bone, but they do so in significantly different ways—each reflecting the thematic core and emotional tone of their respective films.

 

"Silver" is a very lyrical and contemplative documentary, marked by visual symbolism and emotional subtlety. It depicts the lives of silver miners who dwell in a village at the base of Cerro Rico ("The Rich Mountain") in Bolivia.

 

The film's subjects are not provided as individualized protagonists who are resolved through tidy arcs, but fragments of a collective existence that exists and is produced by the place they exist beneath and work inside. Koniarz allows the daily rhythms of the mining community to speak for themselves: waking before dawn, entering the dark and twisting tunnels, caring for children, and offering coca leaves to "El Tío," the spirit of the mine.

 

These are individuals whose dreams are often not chosen, but inherited.

There is an implicit understanding that mining is not a job, but a destiny, a commitment that is thrust upon them by circumstance, and as close to a ritual as one could imagine.

 

For many of the younger characters, there is a push and pull of hope and entrapment. They might dream of going to school, or escaping, or simply lasting longer than the life expectancy of their fathers—but still, they come to understand that their dreams will be quietly restrained by the gravity of tradition, the pull of poverty, and the mountain’s glittering promise.

 

Koniarz is careful not to sentimentalize their lives.

As the miners pick away, they appear both proud and fatigued, their fortunes possibly laying within the rock itself. Their tie to the land is both spiritual and financial. In this sense, the film depicts something rarely represented outside of sympathy or spectacle: an image of deprivation that still suggests, autonomy, mythology and endurance.

 

Visually, “Silver” is beautifully composed, shaped by cinematography that views documentary as a sort of visual poetry.

 

The camera often lingers—on faces, on the mineral shimmer of the mountain, on the slow exhalation of dust from a mine shaft. Koniarz and her cinematographer employ a muted, almost metallic color palette, echoing the silver ore that defines the region’s identity and fate.

 

Koniarz' style takes us from still, painterly frames in which characters are often framed in wide, wide shots, accentuating their littleness in grand, beautiful landscapes, to darkness and light.

 

The mines themselves are claustrophobic and dimly lit, compared to the blinding, harsh light of the mountain, to add to the light/dark motif of labor/hope; living/death. 

 

"Silver"s non-verbal storytelling engenders much of the emotional resonance that comes from gesture, silence, and image rather than from dialogue.  Koniarz trusts the visual to do the emotional heavy lifting, and it pays off.

 

What makes “Silver” emotionally powerful and rare is its lack of manipulation. The film does not seek to shock, or instruct the viewer; it simply observes in reverence, carefully placing the viewer in a position of absorbing emotional truths, buried in the dust and rock beneath the surface. Its restraint allows it power.

There's a melancholic peace throughout the film—a recognition of the mountain that gives and takes, blesses and destroys.

 

The emotional core is in the contradictions: the young boy laughing on the hilltop, oblivious to his likely fate...the old miner blessing the dark as he goes into it again...the women cooking and waiting in silence.

 

Koniarz finds the sacred ordinariness of these lives, making "Silver" almost mythical; yet grounded entirely in the real—real people, real boundaries, real strength.

“Silver” is a film that exposes the soul within stone. Its figures carry dreams so delicate they cannot be spoken. Their destinies are shaped by forces older than themselves.

Through beautiful visuals and quiet respect, director Natalia Koniarz builds an elegy for lives lived under the burden of beauty and burden.

 

It is a story not of triumph, nor tragedy, but something rare: a story that covers beings as they are deeply felt and powerfully witnessed.

 

The absence of voiceover in Natalia Koniarz's “Silver” is more than a stylistic choice, it makes a serious statement about how to see, feel, and listen to what the film shows.

By not layering an external narrated voice on the film, Koniarz allows the people and the landscape to speak for themselves. The sounds of tools clinking together, the breathing in the mines, the soft hum and murmur of rituals - all of this sounds far more honest and impactful than the words of a narrator ever could.

The miners are no longer interpreted for us; they are simply witnessed.

Their dignity and struggle are relayed, not through commentary or editorial irritations of the film, but rather through raw observational intimacy.

This places resistance to the colonial tendency to speak about, rather than with, marginalized people, and creates a space of respect to simply be with them.

 

The emotional impact of this cinematic encounter arises out of what is left out. Long takes of miners working, the deep loneliness of the mountain, the quiet endurance of daily gestures, all contribute to a growing emotional complexity and depth that narration would only dilute.

The absence of voiceover leads the viewer to dwell in discomfort, beauty, and ambiguity.

This creates spaces for emotion to arise, not because we are told to feel, rather we are left to feel it ourselves.

 

The result is a kind of cinematic empathy, deeper and more lasting than any narrated explanation could have offered. Using voice-over would have introduced an artificial layer that contradicts the film’s deeper commitment to voicelessness—not as absence, but as eloquence.

The earth doesn’t speak in words, nor do the tunnels, the dust, or the ghosts of history. Koniarz honors that silence. This harmony between form and content makes the lack of narration not just appropriate, but essential.

In “Silver”, the "voice-over" is limited to a few typed phrases, with an observational tone, noting only facts. It offers contextual information about the mountain's colonial history and its economic symbolism, but also delves into the spiritual or mythical associations the miners have with the mountain—sometimes referred to as "El Tio."

 

“Tata”takes more poetic license with voice-over—personal and introspective, blurry and often overused, functioning as the equivalent of diary or intimate confab. Lina Vaduvii, as both director and narrator, works through her voice-over her personal relationship and dealing with the categories of dad or "Tata," while more broadly, masculinity, memory, and post-Soviet identity.

 

Her voice-over is fragmented and emotional, inviting the audience into an internal dialogue rather than offering a linear narrative. It’s marked by hesitation, ambiguity, and reflection—mirroring the emotional complexity of the father-daughter dynamic.

Here the voice-over functions more like a personal excavation—an emotional investigation into family, legacy, and identity.

Hers is fragmented and emotional; it feels more like we are invited into an internal dialogue rather than just a related linear narrative. Hers is filled with regrets and uncertainty, all reflections of the complexity of the father-daughter relationship.

 

“Tata” uses intimate, verité-style visuals and creates a layering effect with the voice-over. Oftentimes, Tata’s voice-over either works to bolster the emotional weight of the visuals or acts as a contradiction of them. 

The intimacy of the voice-over is echoed in the intimacy of the camera work.

“Tata”'s voice-over invites viewers into a private emotional space. It isn't necessarily explanatory or contextualizing, but rather more about vulnerability and emotional excavation.

Yet rather than allowing the beholder space to arrive at their own emotional conclusions, the voice-over tends to over-determine the meaning of the scenes.

The narrative voice-over argues for us what to feel when the protagonist reacts in silence, anger, tenderness, and that diminishes what capabilities of rawness exist within the visual material.

The narration conveys an intellectual control that can be cold even as it engages with painful or intimate memories. Instead of increasing empathy, it often flattens it– reminding the viewer of the filmmaker's authorship at moments when we may have wanted to sit quietly with the father, the "Tata" on his own terms.

 

Indeed, the author's presence is the emotional anchor of the film, but it is also its limitations. 

The filmmaker’s attempt to interrogate and make sense of her father's emotional distance comes from a place of brave vulnerability. That said, it is also highly mediated, voice-driven and designed to be grounded in her own metacognition– which is somewhat isolating and often times proceeds without a ton of room for audience engagement with the complexities of this father-daughter relationship.

Rather than opening a shared emotional space, the narration feels like a closed loop. It feels less like invitation, and more like confession. The confessional element can feel performative at time especially when it is layers over visual frames that already communicate so much: a look, a pause, a moment of awkward tenderness.

 

The father, who is called “Tata,” is a powerful figure: taciturn, proud, mysterious. He seems to offer some version of post-Soviet masculinity that is rigid and detached, emotionally stunted but not unfeeling. His displays of vulnerability—uncomfortable attempts at connection, brief moments of regret or warmth—are incredibly poignant. However, because the voice-over often interprets or clarifies this meaning for us, it makes the moment(s) feel less powerful.

Moments of connection (a shared joke, a recounted story) are granted access to feeling, and moments of absence (emotional blankness, silence, regret) are often pre-digested for meaning. We are told what it means before we are allowed to feel it.

 

“Tata” visually leans into a lo-fi, personal archive style: handheld camera work, dark domestic spaces, muted colors. There is a strong use of stillness and observational framing that could signal emotional depth and tension, but the narration rises to bring the viewer back into a narrative that has less authenticity.

The editing is gentle, almost reluctant, and the score minimal, creating what could be a hauntingly intimate ambiance.

 

Yet, this potential of style is undermined by the narrative demand for explanation. This mismatch of style - emotionally-rich visuals; emotionally didactic narration, becomes disconnected.

 Empathy in documentary cinema often emerges when audiences are given room to observe, interpret, and feel on their own. In “Tata” the voice-over attempts to protect us, keeping us tethered to the author’s interpretation and not letting the audience form their own.

Even the narration slips into something more analytical than emotional, more intellectual than lived. This pulls breaks on the emotional line.

 

Silence and ambiguity are tools that can be quite powerful in a documentary story. Here, these moments are filled too quickly with explanation or reflection. We feel the authorial dominance quite strongly: Vaduvi’s control of a story—her framing of the story and her voice driving the story—though not entirely separate from the father’s voice and the father’s presence, leads to the father being reduced to an object of analysis rather than taking part in the shared experience.

 

“Tata” is a courageous film, a deeply personal film - but a film burdened but its narration too. The voice-over was clearly designed to elicit an intimacy, an introspection as well, but its analytical tone created distance instead of intimacy, or empathy.

The visual language of the film and the emotional framework of the film could have said so much more. In explaining, “Tata” perhaps risked saying so much less than silence could.

 

Giulia Dobre

FIPRESCI JURY at KFF 2025

05.06.2025

 

Que cojones tienes

 

                                 Que cojones tienes

There's much to say about “Tardes de Soledad”.

Albert Serra proposes a documentary without voiceover, where he directly shows the reality of bullfighting, while occasionally dramatizing or poeticizing it through the addition of orchestral notes that echo Visconti's "Morte a Venezia."

Both on the arena, and in the star's luxurious life.

The first setting gives rise to a multitude of powerful shots tracking the bullfighter and the beast.

The life of the bullfighter is systematically filmed in static shots and is particularly valuable for the post-bullfight commentary. A few very different scenes breathe new life into the whole, showing other aspects of what goes on behind the scenes.

Serra doesn't take sides.

If you embrace the cultural practice of bullfighting, you'll appreciate the bullfighter's mastery; If you radically reject this practice, you will be comforted by the dozens of shots of bulls being manhandled, disoriented, ridiculed, insulted, tortured, finished off, and then dragged unceremoniously to the ground.

By its very design, the film is highly repetitive.

But you have to accept it.

Because this is Albert Serra, a radical filmmaker.

It's reinvigorated by a host of micro-variations from one bout to the next.

It's heightened by the risks taken in the arena.

It's subtly scripted.

The filmmaker makes every effort to keep the viewer waiting for confirmation.

The viewer, whether connoisseur or not, remains interested in the idea of ​​spending two hours discovering that.

The whole thing is extremely ritualized, like a religious ceremony.

We guess that superstition dictates most of the ceremonial attire, the way to close a hotel door (which we may never see again...), the handling of a silver goblet with which he quenches his thirst.

The whole thing also has a lot to do with sports (a very questionable sport, admittedly...), as we spend these two hours as if we were watching a rare sport on the small screen (billiards, curling, cricket, etc.).

Of course, the film relies heavily on the fascinating bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey.

In this world of over-testosteroned men, where they spend their time encouraging and congratulating each other against a backdrop of absolute vulgarity, Roca alternately takes on the appearance of a big child, a seducer, a woman, a competitor, a star, a guru, a raving lunatic, etc.

The film's intentional and undeniable length leads us to spend considerable time with him, to the point of having the illusion of a deep familiarity.

The faces and attitudes of his acolytes also prove very striking.

We witness a unique prism on the world of bullfighting, approached in a factual, raw, and crude manner, in the arena and behind the scenes.

With no intention of glorifying or condemning, no lyricism or overt irony, Albert Serra gives us a glimpse and a sound, as close as possible to the men and the bulls (those masses of muscles harassed and put to death), as close as possible to the gestures and facial expressions, the blank or intense stares, the trivial or vulgar words, as close as possible to the breath, the sweat, the blood, and the death in the animals' eyes.

Tight shots and microphones.

No overall view of the show or the spectators.

No voiceover.

And so, there's no substantial debate (everyone, depending on their beliefs, will find what is shown noble or ridiculous, beautiful or monstrous), even if certain situations clearly don't flatter the protagonists (the bullfighter like a narcissistic prince in the midst of a court adept at flattery).

This film is above all a remarkable visual and audio experience, immersive, attentive to the details of a hyper-codified and ritualized universe, operating in a vacuum.

The film cultivates paradoxes between the refinement of the outfits and the violence of the acts, between an assertive virility and an obvious homoeroticism...

TARDES DE SOLEDAD is violent because of what it shows on the bull, but also because of what R.R. experiences, and this is very rarely narrated in Cinema.

Furthermore, the film highlights R.R.'s feelings: enormous anxiety and absolute fear at the stake, an indecipherable altered state when he's in the minibus or in his hotel room. He seems almost stoned.

 We emerge from this with the strange and contradictory impression of a scandalous cultural practice that amounts to animal torture, while remaining a quasi-mystical rite whose tradition should be preserved.

And we also emerge from this with confirmation of Albert Serra's talent, which we hope to see continue and be confirmed in future fiction films.

 

Giulia Dobre

April 2025

Qué cojones tienes

Albert Serra nous entraîne ici sur le terrain du documentaire sans commentaires en voix off, ou il montre frontalement la réalité de la corrida, tout en la dramatisant ou la poétisant ponctuellement par l'ajout de notes d'orchestre qui font écho a «  Morte a Venezia » de Visconti.

Et ce, principalement dans deux circonstances : l’arène, et le luxueux bus de la star.

La première donne lieu à la démultiplication de plans puissants traquant le torero et la bête.

La seconde est systématiquement filmée en plan fixe et vaut beaucoup par les commentaires d'après-corrida. Quelques scènes très différentes font respirer l'ensemble, en montrant d'autres aspects des coulisses.
Serra ne prend pas parti.

Si vous adhérez à la pratique culturelle de la corrida, vous apprécierez la maestria du torero ; si vous rejetez radicalement cette pratique, vous serez conforté par les dizaines de plans de taureaux malmenés, désorientés, ridiculisés, insultés, martyrisés, achevés puis trainés au sol sans aucun ménagement.
Par son dispositif même, le film est très répétitif.

Mais il faut l'accepter ainsi.

Car c’est du Albert Serra, cinéaste radical.

C'est redynamisé par quantité de micro-variations d'une joute à l'autre.

C'est mis en tension par les risques pris dans l'arène. C'est subtilement scénarisé. spoiler: 
Le cineaste deploie tous les efforts pour la mise en attente du spectateur qui en veut confirmation.

Le spectateur, connaisseur ou pas, demeure intéressé par l'idée de passer deux heures à la découvrir.

 L'ensemble est extrêmement ritualisé, à l'image d'une cérémonie religieuse.

On devine que la superstition dicte l'essentiel du cérémonial de la tenue, la façon de fermer une porte de chambre d'hôtel (qu'on ne reverra peut-être plus...), la manipulation d'un gobelet d'argent avec lequel on se désaltère.

L'ensemble a aussi beaucoup à voir avec le sport (sport très contestable, certes...) et on passe ces deux heures comme on le ferait face à une compétition d'un sport rare sur le petit écran (billard, curling, cricket, etc.).

Évidemment, le film repose très largement sur le torero Andrés Roca Rey, fascinant.

Dans ce monde d'hommes sur-testostéronnés, où l'on passe son temps à s'encourager et se féliciter sur fond d'absolue vulgarité, il prend tour à tour des allures de grand enfant, de séducteur, de femme, de compétiteur, de star, de gourou, de fou furieux, etc. etc.

Les longueurs volontaires et indéniables du film nous amènent à passer un temps considérable à ses côtés, jusqu'à avoir l'illusion d'entretenir avec lui une profonde familiarité.

Les visages et attitudes de ses acolytes s'avèrent aussi très prégnants.

On assiste a un prisme singulier sur le monde de la corrida, abordé de manière factuelle, brute, crue, dans l'arène et en coulisses.

Sans volonté de glorifier ni de condamner, sans lyrisme ni ironie manifeste, Albert Serra donne à voir et à entendre, au plus près des hommes et des taureaux (ces masses de muscles harcelées et mises à mort), au plus près des gestes et mimiques, des regards vides ou intenses, des mots triviaux ou vulgaires, au plus près du souffle, de la sueur, du sang et de la mort dans les yeux des animaux. 

Plans et micros serrés.

Pas de vision globale du spectacle et des spectateurs.

Pas de discours en voix off.

Et donc pas de débat de fond (chacun, selon ses convictions, trouvera ce qui est montré noble ou ridicule, beau ou monstrueux), même si certaines situations ne flattent clairement pas les protagonistes (le torero tel un prince narcissique au milieu d'une cour experte en flagornerie).

Ce film est avant tout une remarquable expérience visuelle et sonore, immersive, attentive aux détails d'un univers hyper codifié et ritualisé, fonctionnant en vase clos.

Le film cultive des paradoxes entre le raffinement des tenues et la violence des actes, entre un virilisme affirmé et un homoérotisme évident...

TARDES DE SOLEDAD est violent par ce qu'il montre sur le taureau, mais aussi par ce que R.R. subit, et cela est très rarement narré.

En outre le film 

met en évidence les sentiments de R.R., énorme angoisse et peur absolue à la mise à mort, état second indéchiffrable quand il est dans le mini bus ou dans sa chambre d'hôtel. Il semble presque stoned.

On ressort de là avec l'étrange et contradictoire impression d'une pratique culturelle scandaleuse qui relève de la torture animale, tout en étant un rite quasi-mystique dont il faudrait préserver la tradition.

Et on ressort de là aussi avec la confirmation du talent d'Albert Serra qu'on espère voir se prolonger et se confirmer dans de prochains films de fiction.

 Giulia Dobre

April 2025

Hic sunt Dracones

 

"Here are the Dragons, first era": Ariane Mnouchkine at war against the demons of History

 

The Théâtre du Soleil, founded in 1964 by Ariane Mnouchkine, Philippe Léotard, Jean-Claude Penchenat, Roberto Moscoso, Françoise Tournafond, Claude Forget and many others, is a cooperative and participatory society. A splendid and welcoming place, where you go as if on an artistic pilgrimage, for a total and exceptional sensory evening.

For its sixtieth birthday, Ariane Mnouchkine and her multilingual troupe are today tackling the great History, that of the dictatorships of the twentieth century, in order to enlighten the public on the wars of the twenty-first century.

Masked actors, who play Lenin or Trotsky, a soundtrack in Russian translated into French, a hellish speed to describe the hell of the battlefields, represented by painted canvases, animated on frames that transport our imagination! Beautiful theatre, invigorating, useful and enlightening.

 

Ariane Mnouchkine has always believed in the virtues of a theatre made collectively over several months, both artisanal but of high artistic standards, in particular with regard to the acting, the costumes and the set elements, in the tradition of the great German director Erwin Piscator.

 

And she has always wanted to open up French theatre to street theatre, legendary stories but also to Japanese kabuki, noh and bunraku... at the Indian theatre, when she staged the beautiful series of Shakespeare and Aeschylus....

Sixty years after its beginnings, the Théâtre du Soleil / La Cartoucherie has become mythical, with its large halls where the public can eat a good cheap soup, and many premises.

Ariane Mnouchkine, always athletic and always with a keen eye, looks to see if everything is going well, welcomes the public with great kindness, tears up tickets at the entrance... In a ritual repeated a hundred times and as if intended to push back the inexorable of time.

 

"It always starts with a war"

How do you give shape to a revolt?

Ariane Mnouchkine, with her fantastic vital energy, her intellectual acuity and her political foresight, has chosen to explain the roots of this evil.

By evoking this period of the 1920s, she also pays tribute to her father Alexandre Mnouchkine, director and producer, of Russian and Jewish origin, who taught his daughter the principles of the French universality.

She does so with a troupe of 70 artists, bubbling with talent, who feed each other with readings, documentaries, historical and political archives, poems by Pasternak or Isaac Babel, analyses of Roosevelt or George Orwell, which tell the story of the genesis of dictatorships: that of Bolshevism and Nazism, both consequences of the imperialism of the War of 1914-1918.

This new creation of the Théâtre du Soleil was born from an emotion and a question, as Mrs. Mnoushkine explained to us during our short interview "How in the twenty-first century do we arrive at the attempted invasion, enslavement, destruction of an independent country? What, over the decades, makes a leader, I would say a man, such as Vladimir Putin? ?

 

"To try to answer this question, we had to try to recount, theatrically, the birth of a system that changed the world. I should say two systems, because the war of 1914-1918 also fed Nazism. Perhaps, too, with this show, we imagine, very naively, erecting a kind of theatrical barricade against the various despotisms, totalitarianisms and ideological stubbornness, which today threaten us on several fronts. This First Epoch explores the pivotal years 1917-1918, when the Russian Revolution broke out in the midst of the Great War..."...

In a pit at the front of the stage, in a blue overalls, Hélène Cinque plays a librarian-archivist, if we are to believe the wooden drawers for index cards and the books piled up in front of her.

But she also takes on the character of a director who does not hesitate to go on stage. Before the show, she urges the public "to put mobile phones out of order and not to take any photos except after the show" and points out that there are boxes in the room to collect money to buy drones "not to kill but to protect Ukrainian civilians."

Another actress shakes the camera in plain sight to gently make the snow fall from the hangers.

Thus began a history course on the Russian Revolution in 1917 and its aftermath.

Ariane Mnouchkine wants to set the record straight and show the popular revolt in 1917 of the women of Petrograd who were demanding bread, the right to vote for all, the departure of Nicholas II and the end of the First World War. During a very harsh winter with, as a result, permanent famine.

But this revolution had been confiscated by its political leaders, who wanted to install a communist dictatorship "for the good of the people"…

The show plunges with smoke, the sound of boots and cries of famine into the heart of the year 1917.

 Rasputin was assassinated, the war produced a famine and the workers went on strike, the sailors rose up, the price of bread soared. There was a general strike, the insurrection spread to all the districts and the soldiers and sailors made a pact with the rebels.

 

It is all this that will be told to us on a platter, a history book in pictures that rolls snowy canvases under southern lights and skies blazing with still smoking fires.

Until the end of tsarism and the arrest of Nicholas II, the show continued in epic fashion with the formation of the Soviets, the return to Russia of Lenin in an armoured train, carrying the ideals of the abortive revolution in Germany, the return of Trotsky and the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks with the invasion of the Winter Palace.

As with Shakespeare, we are constantly witnessing several plots. 

Macbeth, Hamlet, Antony and Cleopatra face Tolstoy's War and Peace, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey through a mass of historical discourses, real documents that come back to life before our eyes and ears.

And this life takes hold of the inhabited bodies of the actors, dissociated from that of the voices, in Russian.

Everything the characters say has actually been spoken or written. "Some, like Lenin, are world-famous, others, which were very important, have been erased. We want to bring them back to life. Some, because they were very human. Others, because they were demonic. »

 

In order to give substance on stage to the mechanisms of history, to the human passions that oust reason and pervert the exercise of power, Ariane Mnouchkine and her followers have chosen to create, thanks to the free craftsmanship of theatre, "very strong forms, so that an epic embodiment can take pl Subtitled "Victory was in our hands", after the title of Volume 1 of the Diaries of the Russian Revolution by Nikolai Sukhanov, one of the founders of the Petrograd Soviet, this first era, "seems to me like a kind of last groan of the French Revolution, showing how History regurgitates its monsters", says Arian Mnouchkine.

These actors say real words, real speeches, but also express their own doubts, which they confide to the audience, in the form of pauses.

Erhard Siefel's masks distort and enlarge their faces, like moons or suns, perched on animated bodies like giant puppets. 

 Humor, liveliness, energy, are constantly present. 

But at the same time, the stylized projections of the painted canvases, where video images are embedded, detail the laboratory of hatred, the elaboration of racist horror, the venom of terror that occurs after eight months of democracy.

Of course, this show requires attention, since we are asked to read the French translations and to follow the political evolution, which is however made very clear by the immense work of research and synthesis carried out by the team.

 

Here the Dragoons also try to tell how, once the Tsar landed, a provisional government was born with the soviets, assemblies composed of workers, peasants, soldiers of all arms... who will not be able to end the war.

Germany welcomed the return to Russia of agitators to disorganize the country and allowed the exiled Lenin to return by train from Switzerland. He wanted to achieve his revolutionary goal and it was to be the famous October Revolution with the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin.

In other words, the beginning of a dictatorship that does not say its name, even if in the long term, the prospect of a constituent assembly is announced...

After a short intermission, the demonstration resumes on the how and why of the birth of the USSR. In order to say that History sometimes depends on an unfired rifle bullet. The actors have probably learned the text, to pretend to speak, but they are dubbed in Russian, German, English...

 

The viewer's attention is caught by the many beautiful landscapes drawn by Elena Ant and projected, by the voice of Hélène Cinque, who normally speaks French, and that of the actors who dub the characters, by the indications of some twenty dates and places.

We should mention Clémence Fougea, author of music, who governs every evening, on her keyboard, the tornadoes and the rides in the rain, accompanied by Ya-Hui Liang.

We should also mention the images of mirrors and twilights inlaid on silk by Diane Hecquet, in the sublime light and technique of the painters Poussin, Le Lorrain...

And there is also a model train lit up and whose locomotive spews smoke - a quote often made - that of the fabulous Cherry Orchard staged by Giorgio Strehler - and where Lenin travels. It is on that train that he will give his first speech.

This visual and oral communication, both internal and external, works well.

It is as if the authors of this so-called collective creation had hesitated between agitprop theatre in order to link history to recent events, and a historical show accessible to all.

How brilliant are these journeys on wheels, so characteristic of the spectacles of the Soleil, of the three Babayagas in black who escape terror!

What pugnacity in Cornelia, narrator and double of Ariadne, who introduces us, comments, runs after the story and interviews the protagonists, each time apologizing for not being able to talk about everything!

"History vomits ogres" says Ariadne, who transfigures them into poignant scenic creatures to better enlighten us. The actors of the central characters overplay gesturally, masked, treated like puppets...

From the grotesque, we move on at the end to the miniature and ghostly reconstruction of the Winter Palace, on the night of December 4thth to 5, 1918, a deeply moving model of humanity, filmed by Cornelia's telephone.

The auditorium programme deploys, in a six-sided poster, written in black and red letters of the telegrams of the time, the artistic and technical profusion of the troupe, from craftsmen to historians, including political figures, from Winston Churchill to Lavrenty Beria, Stalin's comrade, who was also executed.

Theatre here is reaching its pedagogical paroxysm, while remaining devilishly lively, violent and funny at the same time.

That’s High Art.

Hic sunt dracones, Here are the Dragons: the phrase appears in medieval cartography to designate unknown areas, supposedly populated by mythological creatures.

With theatre as its standard, the Ship of the Soleil invites us to walk the impetuous waves of History, to better know, to better understand, and perhaps to resist better.

People who have experienced or are experiencing the worst know how much easier the tipping point comes than we imagine.

 

Giulia Dobre, February 22, 2025.

“Ici sont les Dragons, première époque” : Ariane Mnouchkine en guerre contre les démons de l’Histoire

 

Le Théâtre du Soleil fondé en 1964 par Ariane Mnouchkine, Philippe Léotard, Jean-Claude Penchenat, Roberto Moscoso, Françoise Tournafond, Claude Forget et bien d’autres est une société coopérative et participative. Un lieu splendide et accueillant, où on se rend comme à un pèlerinage artistique, pour une soirée sensorielle totale et exceptionnelle.

Pour son soixantième anniversaire, Ariane Mnouchkine, avec sa troupe multilingue, s’attaque aujourd’hui à la grande Histoire, celle des dictatures du XXe siècle, pour éclairer le public sur les guerres du XXIe siècle.

Des comédiens masqués, qui jouent Lenine ou Trotski, une bande son en russe traduite en français, une vitesse d’enfer pour dire l’enfer des champs de batailles, figurées par des toiles peintes, animées sur des châssis qui transportent notre imaginaire ! Du beau théâtre, revigorant, utile et éclairant. 

Ariane Mnouchkine a toujours cru aux vertus d’un théâtre fabriqué collectivement sur plusieurs mois, à la fois artisanal mais d’une haute exigence artistique, en particulier en ce qui concerne le jeu, les costumes et les éléments de décor dans la lignée du grand metteur en scène allemand Erwin Piscator. Et elle a toujours voulu ouvrir le théâtre français au théâtre de rue, aux récits légendaires mais aussi au kabuki, au nô et au bunraku japonais… au théâtre indien, quand elle a mis en scène les belles séries de Shakespeare et d’Eschyle….

A soixante ans de ses debuts, le Theatre du Soleil / La Cartoucherie est devenu mythique, avec ses grande salles où le public peut manger une bonne soupe pas chère, et de nombreux locaux.

 Ariane Mnouchkine, toujours athletique et l’œil toujours vif, regarde si tout va bien, accueille le public avec une grande gentillesse, déchire les tickets à l’entrée… Dans un rituel cent fois répété et comme destiné à faire reculer l’inexorable temps.

Bref, pour le public, cela fait partie du voyage en Cartoucherie… Ariane Mnouchkine et ses très nombreux collaborateurs peuvent en être fiers.

“Tout commence toujours par une guerre”

Comment donner forme à une révolte ?

Ariane Mnouchkine, avec sa fantastique énergie vitale, son acuité intellectuelle et sa clairvoyance politique, a choisi d’expliquer les racines de ce mal.

En évoquant cette période des années 1920, elle rend en même temps hommage à son père Alexandre Mnouchkine, réalisateur et producteur, d’origine russe et juive, qui a enseigné à sa fille les principes capitaux de l’universalité à la Française.

Elle le fait avec une troupe de 70 artistes, bouillonnants de talents, qui se nourrissent mutuellement de lectures, de documentaires, d’archives historiques et politiques, de poèmes de Pasternak ou d’Isaac Babel, d’analyses de Roosevelt ou de Georges Orwell, qui racontent la genèse des dictatures : celle du Bolchévisme et du Nazisme, consécutives toutes deux de l’impérialisme de la Guerre de 1914-1918. 

Cette nouvelle création du Théâtre du Soleil est née d’une émotion et d’une question, comme Madame Mnoushkine nous a explique lors de notre courte interview « Comment au XXIème siècle en arrive-t-on à la tentative d’invasion, d’asservissement, de destruction d’un pays indépendant? Qu’est-ce qui, au cours des décennies, fabrique un dirigeant, je dirais un homme, tel que Vladimir Poutine ? Pour essayer de répondre à cette question, il nous fallait tenter de raconter, théâtralement, l’accouchement d’un système qui a changé le monde. Je devrais dire deux systèmes, car la guerre de 1914-1918 nourrira aussi le nazisme. Peut-être, aussi, avec ce spectacle, imaginons-nous, très naïvement, ériger une sorte de barricade théâtrale contre les divers despotismes, totalitarismes et entêtements idéologiques, qui aujourd’hui nous menacent sur plusieurs fronts. » Cette Première Époque explore donc les années charnières 1917-1918, lorsqu’au cœur de la Grande Guerre éclata la Révolution russe.

Dans une fosse à l’avant-scène, en combinaison de travail bleue, Hélène Cinque joue une bibliothécaire-archiviste, si l’on en croit les tiroirs en bois pour fiches et les livres entassés placés devant elle. Mais elle endosse aussi de temps à autre le personnage d’une metteuse en scène n’hésitant pas à monter sur le plateau. Avant le spectacle, elle demande instamment au public « de mettre les portables hors d’état de nuire et de ne prendre aucune photo, sauf après le spectacle » et signale qu’il y a des boîtes dans la salle destinées à recueillir l’argent pour acheter des drones « non pour tuer mais pour protéger les civils ukrainiens. »

Une autre actrice fait secouer, à vue, l’appareil à faire tomber doucement la neige des cintres.

Ainsi commence un cours d’histoire sur la révolution russe en 1917 et ses suites.

Ariane Mnouchkine veut mettre les choses au point et montrer  la révolte populaire en 1917 des femmes de Petrograd qui réclamaient du pain, le droit de vote pour tous, le départ de Nicolas II et la fin de la première guerre mondiale. Au cours d’un hiver très rude avec, à la clé, une famine permanente. 

Mais cette révolution avait été confisquée par ses dirigeants politiques qui voulaient ériger une dictature du pays pour le plus grand bienfait du peuple.

 

Le spectacle plonge donc avec de la fumée, des bruits de bottes et des cris de famine au cœur de l’année 1917. Raspoutine est assassiné, la guerre produit une famine et les ouvriers se mettent en grève, les matelots s’insurgent, le prix du pain s’envole. C’est la grève générale, l’insurrection gagne tous les quartiers et les soldats, les matelots pactisent avec les révoltés.

C’est tout cela qui va nous être raconté sur un plateau, livre d’histoire en images qui fait rouler des toiles enneigées sous des lumières australes et des cieux flambant d’incendies encore fumants.

Jusqu’à la fin du tsarisme et l’arrestation de Nicolas II, le spectacle se poursuit de manière épique avec la formation des Soviets, le retour en Russie de Lénine en train blindé, porteur des idéaux de la révolution avortée en Allemagne, le retour de Trotski et la prise de pouvoir des Bolcheviks avec l’invasion du Palais d’Hiver.

Comme chez Shakespeare, nous assistons en permanence à plusieurs intrigues. Macbeth, Hamlet, Antoine et Cléopâtre font face à Guerre et Paix de Tolstoi, L’Iliade et l’Odyssée d’Homère à travers une masse de discours historiques, de documents véritables qui reprennent vie devant nos yeux et nos oreilles.

Et cette vie se saisit des corps habités des comédiens, dissociés de celle des voix, en russe. 

Tout ce que disent les personnages a été effectivement prononcé ou écrit. « Certains, comme Lénine, sont mondialement célèbres, d’autres, qui furent pourtant très importants, ont été effacés. Nous voulons les faire renaître. Certains, parce qu’ils étaient très humains. D’autres, parce qu’ils furent démoniaques. »

Afin de donner corps sur scène aux mécanismes de l’histoire, aux passions humaines qui évincent la raison et pervertissent l’exercice du pouvoir, Ariane Mnouchkine et les siens ont choisi de créer grâce au libre artisanat du théâtre « des formes très fortes, pour qu’advienne l’incarnation épique ».

Sous-titrée « La victoire était entre nos mains », d’après le titre du Tome 1 des Carnets de la Révolution russe de Nikolaï Soukhanov, l’un des fondateurs du Soviet de Petrograd, cette première époque, « me paraît comme une espèce de dernier râle de la Révolution française, montrant comment l’Histoire régurgite ses monstres », souligne Arian Mnouchkine. 

 Ces acteurs disent de vraies paroles, de vrais discours, mais émettent aussi leur propres doutes, qu’ils confient au public, sous forme de pauses.

Les masques d’Erhard Siefel déforment et agrandissent leurs visages, tels des lunes ou des soleils, perchés sur des corps animés comme des marionnettes géantes. L’humour, la vivacité, l’énergie, sont sans cesse présents. Mais en même temps les projections stylisées des toiles peintes, où s’incrustent des images vidéos, détaillent le laboratoire de la haine, l’élaboration de l’horreur raciste, le venin de la terreur qui survient après huit mois de démocratie.

Ainsi stylisée, cette épopée politique et poétique ancre son stylet dans nos mémoires.

Bien sûr, ce spectacle exige de l’attention, puisqu’il nous est demandé de lire les traductions en français et de suivre l’évolution politique, qui est rendue cependant très claire par l’immense travail de recherche et de synthèse menée par l’équipe.

 Ici les Dragons essayent de raconter aussi de quelle façon, une fois le tsar débarqué, est né un gouvernement provisoire avec les soviets, des assemblées composées d’ouvriers, paysans, soldats de toute arme… qui n’arriveront pas à mettre fin à la guerre. 

 L’Allemagne voyait favorablement le retour en Russie d’agitateurs pour désorganiser le pays et autorisa l’exilé Lénine à revenir en train depuis la Suisse. Lui veut atteindre son objectif révolutionnaire et ce sera la fameuse Révolution d’Octobre avec les bolchéviques; menée par Lénine, Trotski et Staline.

Soit le commencement d’une dictature qui ne dit pas son nom, même si  à terme, est annoncée la perspective d’une assemblée constituante…

 

Après un court entracte, la démonstration reprend sur le comment et le pourquoi de la naissance de l’U.R.S.S.

Histoire de dire que l’Histoire tient parfois à une balle de fusil non tirée.

Ils portent donc des masques légèrement plus grands que leur tête, et ont sans doute appris le texte, pour faire semblant de parler, mais ils sont doublés en russe, allemand, anglais…

 

L’attention du spectateur est happée par les nombreux et beaux paysages dessinés par Elena Ant et projetés, par la voix d’Hélène Cinque qui, elle, parle normalement français, et celle des acteurs qui doublent les personnages (parfois les mêmes, qui donne une certaine uniformité dont le spectacle n’a pas besoin), par les indications de quelque vingt dates et lieux.

Il faudrait citer Clémence Fougea, autrice de la musique, qui gouverne chaque soir, sur son clavier, les tornades et les chevauchées sous la pluie, accompagnée de Ya-Hui Liang .

Il faudrait aussi évoquer les images de glaces et de crépuscules incrustées sur soie de Diane Hecquet, dans la lumière et la technique sublimes des peintres Poussin, Le Lorrain …

Et il y aussi un  train miniature éclairé et dont la locomotive crache de la fumée-une citation souvent faite-celui de la fabuleuse Cerisaie mise en scène par Giorgio Strehler- et où voyage Lénine qui, à son retour, prononcera un discours.

Cette communication visuelle et orale, à la fois interne et externe, fonctionne.

Tout se passe comme si les auteurs de cette création, dite collective, avaient hésité entre un théâtre d’agit-prop en voulant relier l’Histoire à la récente actualité, et un spectacle historique accessible à tous.

 

MaisqQuel brio que ces voyages sur roulettes, si caractéristiques des spectacles du Soleil, des trois Babayagas en noir qui échappent à la terreur !

Quelle pugnacité chez Cornelia, narratrice et double d’Ariane, qui nous présente, commente, court après le récit et interviewe les protagonistes, en s’excusant à chaque fois de ne pouvoir parler de tout !

 

“L’histoire vomit des ogres” dit Ariane, qui les transfigure en créatures scéniques poignantes pour mieux nous éclairer. Les acteurs des personnages centrals surjouent gestuellement, souvent masqués, traites comme des pantins…

 

Du grotesque, on passe à la fin à la miniature et fantomatique reconstitution du Palais d’Hiver, dans la nuit du 4 au 5 décembre 1918, maquette bouleversante d’humanité, filmée par le téléphone de Cornelia avec des visages et des corps sans vie.

 

  Le programme de salle déploie, en une affiche dépliée sur six cotés, rédigée en caractères noirs et rouges des télégramme de l’époque, le foisonnement artistique et technique de la troupe, des artisans aux historiens, en passant par les figures politiques, de Winston Churchill à Lavrenti Beria, le camarade de Staline, qui sera lui aussi exécuté.

La chronologie dramatique, les événements précis, les dates et les références des discours sont notifiés. Le théâtre ici touche à son paroxysme pédagogique, tout en restant diablement vivace, violent et drôle à la fois.

Du grand art.

 

Hic sunt dracones, Ici sont les Dragons : la phrase apparaît dans la cartographie médiévale pour désigner des zones inconnues, supposément peuplées de créatures mythologiques.

Avec le théâtre comme étendard, le vaisseau du Soleil nous invite à arpenter les flots impétueux de l’Histoire, à mieux connaître, mieux comprendre, mieux résister peut-être.

Les personnes qui ont connu ou connaissent le pire savent à quel point le basculement advient plus facilement qu’on l’imagine.

 

Giulia Dobre, le 22 Fevrier 2025.