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Abstract
Building on Spivakian notions of epistemic violence and combining them with Judith Butler’s analysis representational frames, this article explores the effects of such violence in relation to the Romanian New Wave and all fictional subjects regardless of gender or class. First, I confront film’s tendency towards realism which generally assists in filmic epistemic violence and find that the abandonment of realism is not a necessary solution to this problem. Second, I use Tuesday, After Christmas (2010) as a positive example from the Romanian New Wave which alleviates this violence through its use of ‘anti-ellipsis’, a lengthening of the frame which elides less and allows more of life in, pluralising the fictional subject and making them less susceptible to epistemic violence as they cannot be pinned down for long enough for it to be effectively inflicted.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my colleagues for helping me improve this article: Associate Professor Eneken Laanes, Professor Andres Kurg, Adjunct Professor Kalle Pihlainen, Doctor Teet Teinemaa, Doctor Piret Peiker, Miriam Anne McIlfatrick-Ksenofontov, John Winslow, Silvia Kurr, and the two anonymous reviewers. I would also like to thank the participants of the Romanian New Wave Seminar who gave up their Saturday evening to help me out.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 The film drew criticism for its apoliticality. Critics were unhappy that the film could have been set anywhere in Europe and lost what made it distinctly Romanian (Pop Citation2014, 223). Even films of the Romanian New Wave set in the present usually possess a connection, directly or indirectly, to the consequences of the old regime, for example the effects of immigration in Boogie (Citation2008) or Graduation (Citation2016); the former featuring a subplot about one of the protagonist’s friend’s life in Sweden and his degradation as a result, while the latter’s plot revolves around a father’s attempts to illegally ensure his daughter gets the right grades so she can study in London (and consequently escape Romania). Both of these films examine this political dimension in detail and in both cases the theme of dissatisfaction with Romania is explored through multiple angles. In Boogie, towards the end of the film, the three friends we have followed through a protracted night of drinking and sex in a seaside resort town, where their masculinity and virility are questioned extensively, end their excursion by walking past what they think is Ceaușescu’s summer house. In this conclusion, the film traces a thematic link from their emasculation to the dictator which is then cast into doubt when one of the men declares that it cannot be Ceaușescu’s mansion for there are no peacocks.
2 Caveat. I say ‘less subjectively’ here instead of more objectively because I do not believe that objectivity is possible as will become clear later. The frame and the blocking of the actors within it are still at the director’s behest. That said, the choice of a medium shot also is indicative of a less subjective mode - a close-up being more personal and wide shot being colder, for example, but it still remains impossible for the frame to forgo the filmmaker’s view, it can only minimise or obscure it.
3 Caveat. I write this as a person who has only visited Romania twice (both times in the late 2010s and only the city of Cluj-Napoca).
4 Films of the Romanian New Wave often make minimal use of long-term ellipsis, as well. Not surprisingly given the narrow spaces of time their narratives take place within.
5 One branch of the Czechoslovak New Wave has also been argued to be at the root of the Romanian New Wave with its ‘less flamboyant mode of representation’ (Pieldner Citation2016, 93)
6 Barthes described catalysts as correlating with a nucleus, possessing lower functionality, and being parasitic (Citation1975, 248). However, when deliberately employing anti-ellipsis, this description is less relevant as the correlation to the nucleus is weakened (so many catalysts per nucleus makes it so) and by extension the parasitic element is also minimised as they function not to join nuclei so much as illuminate the life which takes place in between them.
7 At least three participants of the Romanian New Wave Seminar felt this way (see Appendix).
8 There was general consensus about this point among the participants of the Romanian New Wave Seminar (see Appendix).
9 Interpretations by Maksim Nikitin and Ekaterina Moiseeva respectively during the Romanian New Wave Seminar (see Appendix).
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Michael Keerdo-Dawson
Michael Keerdo-Dawson is a Junior Research Fellow at the Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School (Tallinn University). His areas of research include, Romanian New Wave cinema, epistemic violence, characterisation, narratology, interactivity, screenwriting, and agency.