User Reviews

*swan lake starts playing* Sergei Loznitsa got tired of usual documentaries one day and decided to make one in style of found- footage like The Blair Witch Project and the Paranormal Activity but with much more scary premise – what happens in country where everybody is equal, but some are more equal than others. Michael Moore Award winning documentary, "The Event", from the first scene drops the viewer into the thick of things right after the August Putsch (Coup d'état) in Moscow 1991. Presenting only several screens with exposition text, Loznitsa has manipulated the archival footage of Moscow's august sacrificing narration and hand-holding of the viewer that are so prevalent in the documentary genre to achieve a sense of presence and involvement in the said viewer. Sergei Loznitsa graduated Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography at the age of 33 in 1997, after being not satisfied with merely working on designing artificial intelligence, and even before graduating in 1996 already won first of his 17 awards as of 2016, so if anyone is to turn documentaries into time traveling device, it may as well be him.

Take a glimpse behind the iron curtain and see how the people of USSR looked (hint – they also had mullets!), and how they looked at the camera when listening to the news of the coup d'état that had overthrown the Soviet power that ruled for 70 years. Footage from the archives directed by Loznitsa, as much as one can direct it, shows the crowds of people on the streets of1991 Moscow, distraught with news of change, astonishment in faces of some, relief in the faces of others and everybody wondering what will happen next. In- crowd hand-held camera creates a sense of presence, even participation, in the viewer, making them a witness of the events. Overhanging wide-shot scenes show the scale of gatherings, meetings and protests in the streets and squares of Moscow. Absence of narration is still not enough to claim objectivity, as Loznitsa still can influence the viewer with editing (Kuleshov effect) as well as with what he decides to show us, the viewers, and from what perspective. Instead he opts for people's voices, pamphlets and protest signs to preserve genuine reaction of people. Still, there is enough objectivity so that people may have differing thoughts provoked by this film. One thing is certain – most will wonder what happened to those people whose faces Loznitsa is so eager for us to see, are they alive today, and if so, what they think of that fateful august now that they had the time to reflect and see the consequences? Arguably, those very faces are the things that create the sense of involvement in us, staring in wonder of the events unfolding before them, the greater picture out of their grasp, and us – viewers wanting but unable to tell them what their in-moment decisions had resulted in, and always wondering if this time machine that Loznitsa has created allows us to tell them what we feel the same way they tell us with their eyes.

On August 19th, 1991 a group of operators for "Lendokfilm" went out to the streets to shoot one of the most significant events in the newest Russian history. They were the eyes of common folks, the eyes that almost 30 years later let us see the story of August Putsch - the Soviet coup d'état attempt. The film is a chronicle of events in Leningrad starting with the crowd trying to figure out what is going on, protests, barricade construction, and ending with the declaration of the members of GKCHP as the traitors of the nation. This historic moment is often referred to as the death of Russian communism.

Sergei Loznitsa, a famous Ukrainian film director, made a successful attempt at demonstrating the actual chain of events four months after which the Soviet Union was no more. He does so by focusing the viewer's attention at the protesters, while carefully inserting pieces of information that allow us to construct our own version of Putsch.

The people that are depicted in the documentary are the main storytellers. Their appearance tells us a lot, young and old people wearing jeans, lush hair, brightly-colored jackets - expressing their readiness to live in a democratic country. Fair enough, this was the first real opportunity to speak up for political rights within 70 years. There is, however, some history attached to it. Prior to the Putsch, the USSR underwent a series of political reforms, known as Perestroika and Glasnost, that aimed liberalization, freedom of speech, and overall democratization under the country's first and last president Gorbachev's rule. His initiative faced a lot of critique and was often considered as a sign of weakness from the communist party. Consequently, 8 high-level communist officials have created the committee on the state of emergency (GKCHP) to overthrow Gorbachev.

Even though the crowd was exercising their democratic rights by gathering, protesting, and building barricades, it is important to mention that people were clearly supporting the current government, not the GKCHP. Seems pretty clear - nobody wants communism anymore. But did the people know what they are getting instead? Sitting here in 2020, knowing the actual outcome of the events, another question appears - even if there is democracy on the streets, is there democracy inside those buildings?

Speaking of the inside of those buildings, it's no secret that KGB was always famous for their ability to do things behind the curtain. "Volodya! Volodya!" - says an unknown voice to a rushing figure in front of Anatoliy Sobchak, the figure that strongly resembles the current president of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, a member of KGB back then. Volodya doesn't respond. Next scene we see them rushing out of there. In a blink of an eye. We can only guess about what happened in the building that Sobchak and the company entered, but the event that happened there has probably defined the nearest 30 years of the political life of the Russian Federation, as well as the name of the documentary. Loznitsa wants us to decide what kind of event do we want it to be on our own, but the fact is - it happened.

When assessing the cinematographic decisions, it is important to notice that there are two key camera plans - a detailed, close view, and a wide view. It allows the viewer to see both the scale of crowd gatherings and assess closely the appearance of separate individuals that constitute this crowd. The editing of the documentary also plays a significant part in connecting the scenes so they would make sense. As we see, the scenes follow the chronology and are separated with a long black screen with Swan Lake playing in the background. Even though it may seem like Loznitsa's participation in this movie is minimal, the scenes are cut masterfully by a Cannes festival invitee.

In Mikhail Yampolskiy's article The Country Where Ressentiment Won, Yampolskiy states that the defactualization in Russia has reached the stage of destruction of the government and society. In other words, the resentment of Russian people, that is based on feeling helpless and incapable of even the smallest change in their own country, is now a driving force of the deconstruction of the state. This process, however, began right there, in the Event. "Let's call them lies. Lies. About. That. Time." - said Loznitsa in his interview one year before the release of the film. Lies about that time - a good summary of Loznitsa's documentary career, he is indeed famous for being able to bring up the lies to the screen. Lies that look so small and innocent there, somewhere on his tapes, while getting bigger and bigger as we look at them closer and trying to fill the puzzle of today's reality with them. This is probably how it works with lies. Those sweet little lies that always favor the present, but never the future.

The American film director, writer, producer, and Word War II veteran Samuel Fuller once claimed that "film is a battleground: love, hate, action, death... in one word, emotion". Linking this utterance to the following review, the irony is that The Event/Sobytie being deprived of emotional flows, demonstrates a truly historical battleground made up of the authentic video recordings. Unlike horror movies most common for the found-footage genre, The Event, filmed by the Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa, deals with the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt taking place in Leningrad (current Saint Petersburg). Sergei Loznitsa, though, was awarded for the best directorial work in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018 for another historical drama Donbass, The Event, filmed in 2015, seems like being served as a substantial component of his documentary baggage. The latter is the manifest of peaceful demonstrations against the anti-constitutional seizure of power where the majority of the people are at a loss, being unaware of what was going on around, though tolerantly expressing their opinions to each other and waiting for any form of updates. This review considers both, technical (music) and authentic (the video recordings) parts of the movie as an illustration of peaceful demonstrations that rationalized the necessity of tolerance in relations among narod throughout the coup d'état The most prominent structural feature accompanying a tolerant action sequences of The Event is, perhaps, the "production numbers", that is, the music. The main composition that accompanies the film throughout the plot is the Swan Lake, a ballet by Petr Chaikovsky, originally composed in late 19th century. Most, almost all the elderly people deriving from the Soviet time knows that this music is a social phenomenon demonstrating the battle of good and evil, the sign of a certain change. Despite the fact that open scrambles did not take place along the plot, slogans and posters were hung across the streets and in front of the administration building. For example, the slogans were scanning the phrases such as "when we're get rid of the communist plague, we shall be free"; "Yeltsin trusts me and I trust him"; "Farewell to communism", etc. These lines demonstrate that people are positioning themselves for in need of help and clearly subjected to a change the ongoing nature of which they are not aware of. Moreover, these feelings are anchored by another song of one of Evtushenko, Dai Boh/God Forbid, the lines of which depict the intentions of a prayer. Particularly, "God forbid less torn wounds when there is a big fight; God forbid more different countries without losing its own however; God forbid that your country does not kick you with your shoe". These lines illustrate that despite the fact the event of political importance is taking place under the involvement of citizens, the putsch itself was being held in a peaceful and silent regime. Because, the aforementioned lines carry a certain cathartic feature driving the audience into the world of song, the world of peace and grace. Another song that was played out is Peremen/Changes by Victor Tsoy. The chorus part chants that the hearts and eyes are in need of changes, that this need is even depicted in their laughter and their tears, and even in the pulsations of the veins, the final slogan sounding as "We are waiting for Changes". These lines also manifest the intentions of the common people roaming the streets in indignation. Therefore, the accompanied songs of the film are considered to be strengthening the representation of tolerance between people and are accurately juxtaposed with ongoing plot and slogans. Despite the music playing a substantial role in the representation of the plot, the authentic material collected from the archives creates a solid foundation for the opinion formation. It is this part of production that has given a rise to the idea of tolerance between and among the narod prevailing all over the event. To be more precise, there have been the eight camera men who were filming the event with a hand-held camera using both, close-up shots and long shots for a better view and understanding of the situation. This multi-viewed case helps to watch the moods and determine the feelings of the narod in calm indignation. For example, the camera men were able to catch several scenes with groups of people whispering that "no one understands what is actually going on there", and also the scenes where some local leaders were calling other to be quiet and peaceful, so that no one could be subjected to harm. Even when some of the citizens were asked whether they realize that "tonight they carried out a coup d'état", they were a bit at loss, though nodding. Such a tolerant manner is perhaps the prevalence of the movie, though not much inherent to traditional coup d'état. To sum up, despite the fact that that historical reality narrates an extreme transformation of the Soviet Union where both main actors, incumbent government of that period and the opposing communists, failed leading to the dissemination and following formation of member states, The Event demonstrates a smooth transition of the political regime with the help of such striking documentary instruments as the collection of authentic materials so that the opinion formation is detached from the imposed idea, but is up to the audience, and the music that does not release the viewer from the mundane reality, but instead accompanies the authenticity and provides a cathartic release.