Kommentar von Stefan Grisseman
Kommentar von Stefan Grisseman
Among the many problems facing the new member countries of the EU, art plays a rather minor role, to put it mildly. But firstly, this is only speculation and secondly, nevertheless one can talk about everything. Because it is both popular and expensive cinema, as a sub-category of art, is particularly problematic and comparatively exposed in all debates in which the issue is not constitutional arguments, the economic crisis, job shortages or fear of immigrants.
In striking contrast to literature or visual art, East European cinema is hardly noticeable at all in the new Europe, or, even worse, it barely exists. The might of Hollywood apparently does not even leave niches for alternative proposals. Whereby the rule is: the smaller the country, the less room for alternatives. A look at the cinema programme in Tallinn (Estonia), for example, shows how globalised the film industry already is: taking 11 October 2004 as a random sample date. In the Coca-Cola Plaza with its total of 11 screens they are showing "Shrek 2“, "Raising Helen“, Spielberg's "The Terminal“, "Garfield“ and "Dodgeball“. In the nearby Kosmos Cinema they are playing "Catwoman“, "The Stepford Wives“, the remake of "Ladykillers“ and "King Arthur“. The Ekraan, the third (and last) mainstream cinema in the city offers much the same but on fewer screens, a single Estonian production can be seen there: the children's film "Veepomm paksule koutsile“. The only programme cinema in Tallinn, Kinomaja, only shows films at irregular intervals: documentary, essay-like works and small, institutionally funded retrospectives, now and then.
It is not only in the ten "new" countries that cinema has its difficulties. In all 25 members states of the EU there has been a marked decrease in the size of audiences in recent years. Only one film market continues to grow inexorably: the market for American films. In almost all cases European cinema successes tend to be local and cannot be exported (with the exception, of course, of France, whose film industry continues to have worldwide importance): Europe is under a cinematic local anaesthetic.
Obeying this remorseless logic Austria's art-house cinemas are largely empty of productions from the ten new members of the Union. Whereby it is not the case that there is nothing from these countries that is worthy of discussion or a second look. Estonia, for example (much like Latvia) has a lively trick-film scene whose mastermind is the Estonian animation virtuoso Priit Pärn; in Poland naturalist Robert
Glinski presents complex film alternatives to the works of conservative art-cinema veterans such as Andrzej Wajda and the papal advisor on culture, Krzysztof Zanussi. Slovakia still has the magical realist Martin Sulík, while the Czech Republic has an absurd (in the best sense of the word) filmmaker, Petr Želenka and the lone Surrealist, Jan Švankmajer – as well as an astonishing figure of 15 films produced there each year. In Hungary, where about nine films are made annually, there is not only the internationally respected cinema hermeticist, Belá Tarr; strange films such as "Hukkle“ (2002, director: György Pálfi) have also provided us with surprises.
So it can be seen that in most of these countries the cinema scenes are not lacking in artistic, productive individuals, the problem is that the work possibilities for such individuals are extremely restricted. In France around 200 films are produced each year. In Cyprus, Malta and Lithuania between zero and three cinematic works are made annually and the situation in Slovakia and Estonia is similar. One does not have to be a pessimist to call this region cinematographically underdeveloped. In addition there is the problem represented by the rapid cultural decline. The completely under-financed cinema scene in Lithuania, which in the 1990s still boasted a number of single-minded artistic personalities such as Sarunas Bartas or Audrius Stonys and was characterised by a strongly poetic documentary tradition, has seemed in recent years incapable of producing any relevant work. Today Hollywood shoots its films there on account of the beautiful landscape and uses Vilnius as a substitute for Jerusalem.
Apart perhaps from Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary the new member states are not cinema countries in the same league as Western Europe in terms of film tradition. They are still at the beginning. Quite simply there is no money for co-productions. The digital revolution, as the only adequate means of combating internationally exploding costs, will be helpful in providing a cinema d'auteur. This will be necessary in order to close the yawning gap in all these countries between the old, good-humoured consensus cinema and the more modern, but aesthetically equally deadlocked, radically pessimistic film. The helplessness of the post- communist cinema that has replaced the Socialist Realism of former times with present-day social realism is also to be felt in the films themselves, particularly in the more ambitious ones.
"As a trademark" says Christine Dollhofer, the director of a fine festival of contemporary European cinema, which was started last year in Linz, "or as a brand European cinema doesn't exist. Its qualities are to be found more in regional characteristics and narrative traditions." Dollhofer's "Crossing Europe“ festival presents works by loners such as Pärn, Švankmajer and Želenka – and also shows that there does exist a cinematic art that is formally uncompromising and more than just culturally pessimistic. One can therefore continue to hope that the cinema of the "new" Europeans will soon not only take its rightful place alongside the established European cinema but might, in fact, even tread disrespectfully on the latter's toes.