Ljudi šute, jedino okoliš (preko slika) ima možda nešto reći. Ali on proždire ljude kad postanu točkice u daljini. Nema se što izraziti. Postoji samo nostalgija za trenutkom koji je upravo prošao. Vidi se samo dijagonala po kojoj svijet klizi u ponor.
A onda ipak napravi mafijaški film o euroazijskim aboridžinima.
Lithuanian film director, one of the most outstanding representatives of cinematographers. His contacts with cinema began in 1985 with the TV serial “Sixteen-years-olds” (dir. Raimondas Banionis), where Bartas played one of the main roles. He is a graduate of the Moscow Film School (VGIK). He made his directorial debut with his diploma film, the short documentary “Tofolaria” and mediocre-length film (which called spectators’ attention) “For the Remembrance of Last Day” (1989), where the real personages are “acting themselves” according to the principles of feature film. The author further “purified” the specific cinema language in the full-length film “Three Days” (1991), which was awarded the prize of oicumene committee at Berlin Film Festival (for the problems, the importance of the theme, the profundity) in 1992, and FIPRESCI Prize for the originality of the style, the significance of the theme, the beauty of pictures. This is a story (almost without plot) about three young Lithuanians visiting Kaliningrad-Karaliautchus-Kionigsberg – a moribund, outraged town. The traditional dramaturgy is ignored in later Bartas’ films, as well: “The Corridor” (1994, it was shown at Berlin Film Festival), “Few of Us ” (1995, shown in Cannes, in the program “Other Point”), “Home” (1997, shown in the same program in Cannes). All of them are works of free structure, minimalistic form, philosophical associations. The works of Bartas are not well-known and analysed in Lithuania, but they have a small, faithful round of admirers in the West.
Lithuanian auteur Sharunas Bartas is the kind of filmmaker one would immediately be tempted to label “pretentious” and “self-indulgent” because there is absolutely no concession whatsoever that he gives to the viewers in terms of the narrative, artistic, political and personal ambitions of his films, burying them deeply within their part-hyper real and part-surreal constructs. All his films have hinged themselves onto a particular moment in Lithuanian history – the nation’s independence from the USSR, just prior to the latter’s complete collapse – and they all deal with the loss of communication, the seeming impossibility of true love to flourish and the sense of pointlessness that the political separation has imparted to its people. The characters in Bartas’ films are ones that attempt in vain to put the dreadful past behind them, traverse through the difficult present and get onto a future that may or may not exist. With communication having been deemed useless, they hardly speak anything and, even if they do, the talk is restricted to banal everyday expressions. Consequently, Bartas’ films have little or no dialog and rely almost entirely on Bressonian sound design consisting mostly of natural sounds. Also Bresson-like is the acting in the films. There are no expressions conveyed by the actors, no giveaway gestures and no easy outlet for emotions.
The outdoor spaces are deep and vast in Bartas’ films while the indoors are dark, decrepit and decaying. The landscapes, desolate, usually glacial, nearly boundless and seemingly inhospitable, are almost always used as metaphors for a larger scheme. His compositions are often diagonal, dimly lit and simultaneously embody static and dynamic components within a single frame. Interestingly, his editing is large Eisensteinian and he keeps juxtaposing people, their faces and landscapes throughout his filmography. But since the individual images themselves possess much ambiguity of meaning, the sequences retains their own, thereby overcoming the limitations of associative montage. Another eccentric facet in Bartas’ work is the amazing amount of critters found in his films. There are puppies, kitten, frogs, seagulls and flies seen around and over his characters regularly. May be, not considering the specific connotations that these creatures bring to these scenes, the intention is Eisensteinian here too – to indicate that the characters have been reduced to a level lower than these beings, unable to either communicate with each other or be at peace with nature, devoid of the notions of nationality and politics.
In many ways, the cinema of Bartas stands in between that of Andrei Tarkovsky and Béla Tarr – both filmmakers concerned with chronicling life in a communist state. While the childhood memories, existential crisis and spiritual yearning in Bartas films directly has its roots in Tarkovsky’s films (all the films starting from The Mirror (1975)), the visual (dancing in entrapping circles, meaningless glances and chatter over banquets and eventual self-destruction of the drifting characters) and aural (the Mihály Vig-like loopy and creepy score consisting of accordions, accentuated ambient noise) motifs, stark cinematography and political exploration are reminiscent of Bartas’ Hungarian contemporary. But, more importantly, it is the attitude towards his characters that puts him right in midpoint between Tarr and Tarkovsky. Bartas’ work has so far been characterized by two impulses – a warm nostalgia and sympathy for his characters that betrays the director’s hope and love for them, as in Tarkovsky’s cinema, and an overpowering cynicism, clearly derived from the (post-neo-realist) films of Tarr, that keeps remarking how the characters are all doomed and done for. This (unbalanced) dialectic is evident in Bartas aesthetic itself, which employs copious amounts of extremely long shots and suffocating close-ups. In the former, characters are seen walking from near the camera and into the screen, gradually becoming point objects eaten up by the landscape while, in the latter, Bartas films every line and texture of their faces with utmost intensity in a way that obviously shows that he cares for them and the pain that they might be experiencing. This conversation between optimism and pessimism towards his people also places him alongside the Armenian filmmaker Artavazd Peleshian – another historian of traumatized lives in a Soviet state before and after independence.
Praejusios Dienos Atminimui (In Memory Of The Day Passed By, 1990)

Trys Dienos (Three Days, 1991)

Koridorius (The Corridor, 1994)

If Three Days presented people stuck in time and moving aimlessly through desolate landscapes, The Corridor (1994) gives us ones stuck geographically and drifting through abstract time. Bartas’ most opaque and affecting film to date, The Corridor is a moody, meditative essay set at a time just after the independence of Lithuania from the USSR and in a claustrophobic apartment somewhere in Vilnius in which the titular corridor forms the zone through which the residents of the building must pass in order to meet each other. Extremely well shot in harsh monochrome, the interiors of the apartment resemble some sort of a void, a limbo for lost souls if you will, from which there seems to be no way out. Consisting mostly of evocatively lit, melancholy faces that seem like waiting for a miracle to take them out of this suffocating space, The Corridor also presents sequences shot in cinema vérité fashion where we see the residents drinking and dancing in the common kitchen. Of course, there is also the typical central character, played by Sharunas Bartas himself, who seems to be unable to partake in the merriment. Conventional chronology is ruptured and reality and memory merge as Bartas cuts back and forth between the adolescent chronicles of the protagonist, marked by rebellion and sexual awakening, and his present entrapped self, unable to comprehend what this new found ‘freedom’ means. Essentially an elegy about the loss of a sense of ‘being’ and ‘purpose’, The Corridor remains an important film that earns a spot alongside seminal and thematically kindred works such as Paradjanov’s The Color of Pomegranates (1968) and Tarkovsky’s The Mirror (1975).
Few Of Us (1996)

A Casa (The House, 1997)

Freedom (2000)

Septyni Nematomi Zmones (Seven Invisible Men, 2005)

Indigène d’Eurasie (Eastern Drift, 2010)

Šarūnas Bartas / Okoreli asketizam
"U budućnosti, ja sam slobodan.Slobodan, zato što ne postojim."
Trys dienos (Tri dana, 1991)
Šarūnas Bartas, istaknuti litvanski reditelj, spada u grupu vrhunskih slikara među filmotvorcima. Opsednut (ne)životom na margini/u izolaciji, odnosno (be)smislom egzistencije, umesto četkice koristi najcrnji čemer. Usahle boje rastvara u depresiji kataklizmičnih razmera i nanosi ih sigurnim i preciznim potezima. Pesimistički intonirana i naizgled nenarativna, u isti mah tegobna i meditativna, njegova platna odišu turobnom lepotom. Hiperrealistične, a od stvarnosti otrgnute, gotovo onirične drame obiluju prikazima teške učmalosti, izazvane kako spoljašnjim faktorima, tako i unutrašnjim razdorom.
Koridorius (Hodnik, 1995)
Dugi i hipnotišući kadrovi smenjuju se letargičnim ritmom, odajući utisak da je vreme stalo. Podsećaju na fotografije koje su nakratko otvorile oči i koje će uskoro ponovo utonuti u komatozan san. Skladne kompozicije, veličanstvene u svojoj strogoći, ogledalo su apsolutne usamljenosti, razarajućeg očaja i uzaludnosti borbe za goli opstanak. Međutim, značenje metafora koje su u njih ugrađene nije uvek lako odgonetnuti. Posebno enigmatičan je film Namai (Kuća, 1996), kojim dominiraju sekvence satkane od ne baš sasvim jasnih simbola - plod mašte glavnog junaka, autorovog alter egoa. Beziražajna lica upečatljivih crta, poneka životinja, nepristupačni predeli, oronule fasade i zapušteni, slabo osvetljeni enterijeri osnovni su elementi uznemirujućih tabloa. Promišljeno odabrane lokacije obično odražavaju psihičko stanje protagonista, mada neretko predstavljaju i tamnicu u koju su sami sebe zatočili ili čistilište kojim tumaraju poput izgubljenih duša, očekujući čudo.
Mūsų nedaug (Nas nekoliko, 1996)
Ljudi su srozani na nivo inertnih entiteta, fragmenata nečijih sećanja ili zaboravljenih misli koje se nesvesno "kreću" ka sopstvenom samouništenju. Prilikom beskrajnog zurenja u prazno, stalno spuštaju ili skreću pogled, kao da se stide nezavidnog položaja u kome su se našli. Čak i u trenucima dok ih kamera izbliza miluje, oni su daleki i nedokučivi. Duboke senke ih halapljivo gutaju, magluština i dim obavijaju grad na umoru, a nedogledne pustinje ili snegom okovane planine trude se da ih učine još ništavnijim. Odbačeni od prirode, razapeti su između gorke prošlosti i neizvesne budućnosti, bezglavo bauljajući po truloj sadašnjosti. Onda kada igraju i pevaju, vrteći se u krug, ili naprasno počnu da se smeju deluju još jadnije i samotnije. Njihovu dezorijentisanost najbolje opisuje jedna od završnih scena iz crno-belog ostvarenja Koridorius (Hodnik, 1995). Par minuta žena patuljastog rasta obilazi oko stola, na kome su ostaci hrane na dohvat njene ruke, a potom izlazi u noć, kao da tamo negde želi da nestane.
Namai (Kuća, 1997)
Ćutljiv i introvertan, nostalgičan i ciničan, Bartas uporno i smelo odbija da se publici obraća onako kako to ona očekuje, što bi neki gledaoci mogli izjednačiti sa pretencioznošću. Odsustvom dijaloga ili njihovim redukovanjem na banalne izraze jasno ukazuje na gubitak sposobnosti komunikacije u poluraspadnutom društvu. Baveći se ne samo materijalnom, već i emotivnom, intelektualnom i duhovnom bedom, oslanja se na minimalistički zvučni dizajn - neprijatnu tišinu, ambijentalnu buku i nenametljive, jedva čujne muzičke pasaže, natopljene setom.
Iskusne sineaste porede ga sa Ajzenštajnom, Bressonom, Tarkovskim, Sokurovim i Tarrom. Ukoliko su vam bliska dela bar nekog od pobrojanih majstora, možda će vam prijati i Bartasov okoreli asketizam. Strpljenje je sve što vam je potrebno da biste mu se prepustili.
Laisvė (Sloboda, 2000)
Indigène d'Eurasie / Eastern Drift (2010) 111' - IMDb Berlinale 2010
- Berlinale 2010, section Forum | press kit PDF [GERMAN] [ENGLISH]
- "Le gros plan par Sharunas Bartas" interview by Thomas Schwoerer (Arte, Feb 2010) video 3'28" [FRENCH] [GERMAN]
- "Indigène d'Eurasie : la course éperdue d'un trafiquant pour s'extraire de la mafia" par: Isabelle Regnier (Le Monde, 7 Dec 2010) [FRENCH]
- "Le contemplatif cinéaste lituanien s'essaie avec brio au film noir" par: S. Kaganski (Inrockuptibles, 7 Dec 2010) [FRENCH]
- "La ligne zone de Sharunas Bartas" par: Philippe Azoury (Libération, 8 dec 2010) [FRENCH]
Seven Invisible Men (2005) IMDb
- "Seven invisible men - Sharunas Bartas. Splendeurs et décadence chez les moujiks" By: Guillaume Bozonnet (Peau Neuve, ?) [FRENCH]
- "Vestiges et vertiges des Soviets" By: Olivier Seguret (Libération, 19 May 2005) [FRENCH]
- Review By: Amélie Dubois (Les Inrockuptibles, #524, 1st Jan 2005) [FRENCH]
- Review By: ? (Cahiers, #562, Dec 2005) [FRENCH]
- "Met de mensheid is het sowieso over"By: Dana Linssen (Filmkrant, #283, Dec 2006) [DUTCH]
- (add link here)
Freedom (2000) IMDb
- Review By: Serge Kaganski (Les Inrockuptibles, #269, 30 Nov 1999) [FRENCH]
- "Freedom" By: Yann Gonzales (Chronicart, 2000) [FRENCH]
- "Les prisonniers du désert, 'Freedom' de Sharunas Bartas : un grand film d'aventures entre Ford et Corto Maltese" By: Serge Kaganski (Les Inrockuptibles, #269, 18/12/2000, p. 42-43) [FRENCH]
- "L'errance désespéré d'un trio dans le désert" By: Jean-Claude Loiseau (Télérama, #2657, 13 Dec 2000, p.50) [FRENCH]
- "L'écho du monde" By: Hélène Raymond (Fluctuat, Dec 2000) [FRENCH]
- "Hoop sterft het laatst" By: Dana Linssen (Filmkrant, #226, Oct 2001) [DUTCH]
- Review By: Florian Abèle (Objectif-cinéma) [FRENCH]
- (add link here)
- Review By: Serge Kaganski & F. Bonn (Les Inrockuptibles, #120, 30 Nov 1996) [FRENCH]
- "AbracadaBartas" By: Didier Péron (Libération, 16 mai 1997) [FRENCH]
- "La cinémathèque de Babel. A propos de The House de Sharunas Bartas" By: Jérôme Lauté (revue Eclipses, 1998) [FRENCH]
- "Verdwaalde passanten in een verveloos huis" By: Petra van der Ree (Filmkrant, #196, Jan 1999) [DUTCH]
- (add link here)
- Press kit, excerpt from Le Monde (JM Frodon, 9 Sept 1996), Positif #425/426 (Noël Herpe, july/Aug 1996), Cahiers #505 (Thierry Lounas, Sept 1996), Le Courrier Art et Essai #51 (15 Sept 1996) PDF [FRENCH]
- Review By: Vincent Ostria (Les Inrockuptibles, 18 Sept 1996) [FRENCH]
- "Résistance de la beauté et beauté de la résistance : a propos de Few of us de Sharunas Bartas" By: Jérôme Lauté (revue Eclipses, #19-20, 1st Jan 1997, p. 25-34) [FRENCH]
- Review By: acquarello (Strictly Film School, 11 Jan 2005)
- "Zij die dichtbij lijken zijn het verst" By: Petra van der Ree (Filmkrant, #181, Sept 1997) [DUTCH]
- (add link here)
- "De quoi sommes-nous la somme?" By: Leos Carax (Festival de Tours, Derives.tv, 1995) [FRENCH] on Corridor & Three Days
- "Les terres inconnues de Sharunas Bartas" By: Jean Roy (L'Humanité, 25 Oct 1995) [FRENCH] on Corridor & Three Days
- Review By: Serge Kaganski (Les Inrockuptibles, #28, 30 Nov 1994) [FRENCH] on Corridor & Three Days
- "Empathie" By: Jérôme Lauté (Revue Eclipses n° 28, 1999, pp 34-37, 34 p.) [FRENCH]
- "Une intériorité dévorante. Le Corridor de Sharunas Bartas visité par la peinture de Vilhelm Hammershøi" By: Jérôme Lauté (revue Eclipses, #31, 2000) [FRENCH]
- Review By: acquarello (Strictly Film School, 13 Jan 2005)
- (add link here)
- "De quoi sommes-nous la somme?" By: Leos Carax (Festival de Tours, Derives.tv, 1995) [FRENCH] on Corridor & Three Days
- "Les terres inconnues de Sharunas Bartas" By: Jean Roy (L'Humanité, 25 Oct 1995) [FRENCH] on Corridor & Three Days
- Review By: Serge Kaganski (Les Inrockuptibles, #28, 30 Nov 1994) [FRENCH] on Corridor & Three Days
- "Figures, anti-figures : Trys dienos de Sharunas Bartas" By: Bruno Girard (Lignes de fuite, ?) [FRENCH] PDF
- « Sharunas Bartas: Trajectoires de la rencontre dans Trys Dienos », Journée doctorale en Langues, Lettres et Arts : Autour du cinéma. Réflexions et études de cas (7/8), Université de Provence, Juin 2008. QT Video [FRENCH]
- (add link here)
Tofolaria (1986) DOC IMDb
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