Ilya Khrzhanovsky’s massive multimedia project, combining altogether 14 feature films, TV series, immersive installations and digital features, faced criticism and scrutiny on many accounts. For the last two parts of his Dau film franchise, the Russian director had his cast of professional and non-professional actors living for months in what was described as a reconstruction of Soviet-era totalitarianism, filming real emotional breakdown and anguish and alleged violence to exhibit them on screen. But as always, controversy and consequences are two very different things. His new Dau film, labelled as the project’s centrepiece, comes again under fire. While its director renounced his Russian citizenship - but not the state funding he got in the past for Dau - he is just fine with his lead actor Teodor Currentzis’ strategic silence about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and profitable ties to Russian oligarchs. Now Dau is premiering in Competition at Venice where Lidanoir spoke with Khrzhanovsky about his controversial work.
Lida Bach: Considering all the justified criticism against your Dau project, do you see its new parts’ invitation to the competition of the Venice Film Festival as a form of triumph or reaffirmation?
Ilya Khrzhanovsky: First of all, for me, they are two different entities: the Dau project and now this Dau movie. It was always meant to be like this. The other Dau movies from the Dau project were built completely differently. It was another type of dramaturgy, another type of working with time and characters. The Dau movie was, from the beginning, built according to different rules. I came here with this movie, which took me 20 years to make. Though there was a pause of several years when I worked on different things with my main actor.
I focused on the Dau project for a multiple years, sinceI wanted to see what would happen when you look at the material and the characters through time. I took this luxury to make this risky experiment because it was very complicated to find the money to finish it.
There was also a certain risk that I would look at this material and see it as just old stuff that would not work at all.
The Dau project is bigger than me. It has a lot of elements. I just present a few of them. But this movie is my movie. I control the narrative and made the decisions about the stylistic approach, which was quite radical. It has a different style, which makes it a scale of myself rather than something bigger.
LB: But are there any parallels in the approach? For example, is there a connection in the use of real emotional breakdowns and real psychological violence?
IK: No, no. I mean, there are some parallels In the sense that it’s the same set, and some characters are the same. But in this movie, we have a script and a narrative. I always know where something is coming from and where it is going. With the Dau project, on the other hand, I could decide during the shoot how it would develop and what kinds of characters could be developed.
LB: Is this the end of you working on the Dau project? Your new film contains footage from some of the other Dau parts, and there are also parts which haven’t been released, yet. Are more releases planned?
IK: Yes, there will be more. At some point, I stopped the release of the Dau project during COVID.
LB: And because of the controversies?
IK: Because it was COVID. Then spent three years in Ukraine working on the Holocaust Memorial Project. Then the war started. I planned to finishing the Dau movie in 2022. But then I started one year later, and had to confront a different reality with the war.
But, of course, at some point I will also release the Dau project with all the movies.
For example, there is another aspect of the project. I recorded not just 700 hours of footage, but also 4,000 hours of sound. I transcribed all these 4,000 hours and edited them into a book: 247 books, 500 pages each. It is a nonlinear book where you can choose the character and choose the topics, and the internet will edit it for you.
LB: What will happen the whole project?
IK: I don’t know. The world is changing so quickly and so dramatically. I only know what I’m doing in the moment. At the moment, I’m very happy that I have a chance to present my film to the public here in Venice. Then we’ll see what’s next.
LB: Talking about the movie, you say that there are three artistic parts. How did you approach each one of these parts?
IK: These three parts correspond to periods in the life of the main character: his youth, mature years, and the rest of his life. In different periods of our life, we have a different perception—not just because time and people change, and we have different bodies, different body language, different fashion, different everything. We also perceive our own lives differently when we think about our youth or about other periods of our lives.
I start in St. Petersburg in the 1920s, and I try to use the color principles of Lyubov Popova, Kandinsky, Malevich, and the Soviet avant-garde. If you look at photographers from the end of the 1920s and the end of the 1930s, you will see how body language, faces, dynamics, and even the muscles in people’s faces changed. That’s why I also cast so many people and tried to find the right characters for the different time periods. This difference can be implied unconsciously to the audience.
LB: Regarding the story, there is the central theme of transcending the human condition and trying to become God. This is also present in other parts of the Dau project. How do you relate to it?
IK: At the beginning of the 20th century, scientists, especially physicists felt that they were gods because they believed they could change the world, explain the world, and the universe. These physicists in Germany, the USSR, the US, and other countries participated in the creation of the most terrible weapon in the world, which could destroy the whole world.
For the first time in the history of humanity, somebody built something that could kill everything. These were people with great intentions, with great faith, and with a gift of anticipating future developments and facilitate them. This physical reality creates good things and the most terrible things. What happens to a human being who has these kinds of thoughts?
LB: How was the atmosphere on set between you and your main actor, Theodor Currentzis? Especially in regard to your apparently different political viewpoints?
IK: Since this movie was filmed between 2008 and 2011, it was a completely different reality. It was a time when it was impossible to imagine a war in Russia. It was impossible. Also, we had Putin in the KGB orchestra and so on. Theodor, first of all, is a genius musician. Secondly, he is a person who has made his choices. Actually, this movie shows his character making his choices. I learned at some point—and this is also part of the story of Dau—is that it’s not easy to judge.
We are used to having an opinion and judging immediately. I’m not talking only about Theodor whom I consider a truly genius conductor. He keeps working in Russia, which, for me, is a strange choice, but it is his choice. He never did anything that was explicitly pro-war. He never did anything for weaponry or anything like that. In the 1930s and 1950s, a lot of Russians came back to the USSR because they believed in the Soviet system. Like Prokofiev, a great poet. All of them paid for it. Partly, the story of this movie is that we all pay for our choices.
On the set, I tried to create a bigger picture, where you can see different sides of reality. You cannot simply say, Landau signed with the KGB and was simply a bad person. We don’t know how we would react when tortured like he had been in prison.
My godfather was born 126 years ago and lived until 1984. He was one of the first Soviet screenwriters and writers. He was a close friend of Mikhail Bulgakov. Because of this friendship, my godfather spent more than a year in jail. He was tortured, and he didn’t sign anything. But all his life, after he came back and became quite a successful Soviet screenwriter, whenever he saw a policeman, he would tremble. It is easy to judge when you were not there.
My political view is clear, and I don’t think I need to describe it again. I try to talk not about current politics, but about inertia and tension: where we are, what will happen, and where the danger is. Of course, there is a lot of danger in Russia, but not only in Russia. At the moment, Russia and Ukraine are the active site of this terrible, bloody war. But what will happen in Europe? What will happen in Asia? What will happen in America? We don’t know. But we see and feel that something is boiling. That was my feeling when we started to film this movie. It was impossible to imagine that this would happen. But what will happen in the next couple of years, is a big question. And I try to think about it.
LB: Did you ever feel you went to far with the realist reconstruction of potentially traumatic and harmful situations?
IK: No, no. Because so far it’s a playground, so far it’s a game.
It is not a reality show. The camera is one of the main actors. I also insisted on filming it in 35mm because when you film in 35mm, you can hear how time is running. With my new movie you can actually see that it is a fictional movie. With the Dau project, I tried to be as realist as possible. I tried to build a mythology that everything was real. That’s also why I didn’t want to show this movie before. It’s extremely difficult. The stylistic language changes a number of times. It starts very surrealistically, then becomes more and more realistic, and the speed of the dramaturgy slows down in the second part. You cannot say whether it is the past or the present.
The most important thing was to create a feeling of realistic emotions and reactions, while at the same time keeping other dimensions. Like destiny, fate. The Greeks knew this quite well. That is why it was important to choose a Greek character. A genius who is a foreigner. His moral and ethical relationship with fate is completely different, shaped by the culture and the civilization in which we live.
If we talk about violence, if you read Greek mythology or the Holy Scriptures, there is terrible violence. There is always a fight, there is violence, and there is the question of what is happening with the body, the soul, and the spirit.
LB: You’re often described by the media as a provocateur. Do you see yourself that way, or do you have a very different image of yourself? How do you feel about it?
IK: I think it is a question of perception. I don’t think I’m a provocateur, but I know that I’m doing something that is unusual, strange, and creates strong reactions. People can like it, hate it, try to destroy it. That is the story of the life of the things that I build. I try to talk about love and destruction. And if you go to the level of love or the strongest emotions, you always find pain, destruction, provocation - the unpredictable.
It’s important to build things that actually touch people. The intellectual level is great. It is important that something is creating a reaction. I believe the perception of it will change over time. But it’s certainly not harmless for myself. The scandals and controversies, and the way it is sometimes described, can be very painful and uncomfortable for me. But I’m doing what I know I have to do. So I have to accept the reaction.
LB: Thank you for the interview.