Ambersun-

Did you actually write this?

Talking too nostalgically about one’s life as an abused woman should make one cringe.  I know, you do love those children conceived in rape. It’s not all bad, ever.

Do you mean to suggest that (in essence) all of those actually born in LV during the occupation are children conceived in rape? That is beyond mad.

Tom,
Didn’t we already discuss the meaning of cretin?  Do you want to try and answer your own absurd question and prove that you are not?  I’m sure you know the English term for the example I used of Latvia as the raped woman who births “Soviet culture”.  Have a glass of wine and chill before you drive yourself “mad.”

Herder,

That link you posted happens to be my YouTube playlist. You, and others of course, are welcome to view it. Simply click on “Play All Videos”.

Pierre

tom - do you actually read all that ambersun spews forth?

tom - 31 August 2010 08:45 AM

Ambersun-

Did you actually write this?

Talking too nostalgically about one’s life as an abused woman should make one cringe.  I know, you do love those children conceived in rape. It’s not all bad, ever.

Do you mean to suggest that (in essence) all of those actually born in LV during the occupation are children conceived in rape? That is beyond mad.

Yep. That’s exactly what Ambersun suggests Tom. She also wrote this fine chunk of stupid:

Soviet culture through all the contradictions, strove to create ‘socialism with a human face’? He makes it sound very warm and cozy. Why such apology for a brutal, stupid system? What’s the point of creating nostalgia for it? What’s to be gained but continuing that leftist fantasy?

Soviet culture strove to no such thing. This suggestion of yours is mind boggling Ambersun. You don’t know Donskis or your arse from a hole in the ground.

Why do you strive to such incredible lengths to embarrass yourself ? Seriously.

And shashlik isn’t Russian. Shashlik and kibin came to Lithuania during the rule of Vytautas.

Pierre, you are NOT an ignorant no-Latvian.  There is hidden meanings in this clip, in this song.  I have listened to it twice and here is what I am gathering.  Perhaps the folks who lived in the 60’s in LV can add more.

The lyrics go:  “This song is not about shirts but has a deeper meaning”  and further “When evening comes the shirts will all be black”

Try and think of Latvia under the Soviets and colors like “white” and “black”, day and night (or evening) can take on a much more sinister meaning. These boys were called in by the “Director” to answer to their choice of lyrics. 
How many average working folk were called before their “Directors” to explain their “lyrics”?
I would love to know more about this film and Alex or Andrej could do a much better job than I in explaining it for us.

Back to movies for a moment. Haven’t seen Cetri Krekli, but thanks to the links planning to. Just wanted to say that there are quite a few films which read between the lines made during Soviet times. Limuzins Janu Nakts Krasa comes to mind.

Andrejs

Not just films contained ‘read between the lines’ messages;  books too.  My favorite is “Krasainas pasakas” by Imants Ziedonis.

I would like to read that book.  Kristine, does Saulaine’s Book Store have “Krasainas Pasakas”?

Sveiki!

Just a note.

Certainly, even a cursory reading of Ziedonis’ „Kurzemīte” (publ: 1970) is enough to suggest that ‘reading between the lines’ for the „zemteksts” was necessary during the Soviet era in order to fully appreciate the work at hand.  However, what I found astonishing about „Četri balti krekli” is that a film was produced and officially released during Soviet controlled-Latvia about how artists dealt with the need to appease the censors.  In other words, by then LPSR was allowing criticism of its own ideology to appear in this film, and didn’t feel that this threatened its totalitarian principles.  I, for one, didn’t realize that prior to the late 1980’s, when the communist order was collapsing, that this had ever occurred in the past.  I do know a bit about underground movements from several friends who worked during the 1960-s or so.  But this film was not produced by anything other than an ‘above-ground’, officially-sanctioned LPRS agency.

Andrej M, how frequently did this occur within LPSR cinematography?  Were there other films produced during the 1960’s (or 1970’s) that essentially questioned the validity of the censors?  When you have the time, I would love to hear your thoughts about this!

Visu labu,

L.

Sveika Lize,

Haven’t seen enough of the films of the 60s and 70s to comment, but would suspect that that probably not too many directly. But you got me to thinking. Latvian documentary filmmakers were particularly known for the poetic style. Wonder how much of that came about due to the need to be able to tell stories between lines in a genre which demands the exact opposite.

Andrejs

Sveiki!

Paldies, Andrej!

I’m not very familiar with Russian or other former-Soviet bloc documentary styles.  But does LV’s ‘poetic style’ significantly differ from theirs?  I’m just wondering whether this wasn’t a common style within the USSR among some filmmakers.

Also - which documentaries do you think exhibited this style?  I have seen some that I guess I’d call ‘attempting to be artistic.’  But, this doesn’t really apply to all Latvian filmmakers.  Podnieks, for example, didn’t strike me, at least, as falling into this category. I just want to make sure that we’re talking about the same thing. : )

Visu labu,

L.

Its a chicken and the egg ultimately, but I think you could say there was a distinct common style. Seleckis, Podnieks and Hertz come to mind.

http://www.latfilma.lv/history/9rig03.html

http://www.latfilma.lv/history/9rig01.html

And then there’s this little blurb on Mediadesk:

•We have very strong documentary filmmakers. Most of them are following the philosophy set by Uldis Brauns and Herz Frank back in 1960-ies when the Riga School of Poetic Documentary Cinema was founded. One of the School’s key principles was to follow the forgotten attitude of Dziga Vertov to the documentary film as a material for art. This School pays special attention to the visual language of the film, thus creating a peculiar – poetic – manner of the documentary. It has significantly influenced the development of the Latvian cinema and strengthened the position of Latvian documentary films in the context of world cinema.

Andrejs

Sveiks, Andrej!

Mea culpa - I forgot to thank you for the links.  The first one in particular was extremely interesting and helpful.  It actually explains why „Četri balti krekli” wasn’t seen as subversive - though, I still think it surely was! : )

Visu labu,

L.

“What “anti-system,” “anti-Soviet” things could be seen in the Herz Frank’s (cameraman Juris Podnieks) small film “Ten Minutes Older” (1978) that became an original business card of both Frank and the new Latvian documentary filmmaking? In this one-take film, a very small boy, with great devotion, lives through apparently a theatre show (film viewers see neither the stage nor hear what actors talk), he laughs, he cries, his facial expressions change continuously, and from this we can read all what he feels. It is very amusing to follow it. And is this all? The longer you watch the screen, the more worrisome you feel. Ideas are coming into your mind about what will happen to the young hero when he grows up, how his life will develop. And then, insensibly, you look back to your own life; what has happened to you since you were as ’ old as this boy? And why the ability to live with such devotion has been ” lost? Why the ten minutes are so thick and where the time of my only life is lost? There are no words in this film, but there is something that does not let you go and, actually, makes you think about the meaning of life.Merely a little film. Why should the authorities turn against it? It could be even used as advocacy for the beauty of childhood in the Soviet country. Unless it would make you think so irresistibly…”
(Taken from Abrams Kleckins article, posted by Andrej on this thread)

Andrej, is “Ten Minutes Older” available in video?  I am just fascinated by the above description of the boy who without speaking a word conveyed his feelings while watching a film in a theater that affected the audience so deeply.  To be able to confront your own thoughts about life by just watching the boy’s expressions on the screen and to seek a meaning for your own life back then and perhaps ask: “what if…...?”  That really is cinematic art.