His films are admired at festivals, producers know his name, foreign TV channels participate in his projects. In Russia, he is best known as the creator and president of Artdocfest, a festival in which Psychologies has been participating for many years. Vitaly Mansky is a director of documentary films, which, according to him, we do not have.
Psychologies: In the world, we see a steady increase in interest in non-fiction literature. Does this also apply to documentaries?
Vitaly Mansky: To be honest, I have never directly linked the audience’s craving for non-fiction and the situation in documentaries. You know, we have this internal term: “BBC style”. This refers to a rather dry and responsible narrative based on facts. Its typical examples can be seen on the BBC channels or, for example, Discovery. Travels, historical investigations… Such films, of course, are closer to non-fiction. Or rather, they are part of this phenomenon.
But are these bad films?
VM: Yes, wonderful, wonderful! But this is more of a format television documentary. She has many recipes, one of the most famous is this one. First, the text of the future film is completely written and recited. And then a picture is strung on him, like meat on a skewer. I have been a television producer for many years and have produced about 300 films with more or less similar recipes. Therefore, this is not a completely foreign story for me. But when I’m making my own movies or looking for films for a festival, of course, I’m not guided by this style.
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Which one?
VM: I call it creative documentary. Such a movie can tell about local events and non-public people. And of course, it doesn’t invent anything. But it is not limited to stating facts. There was a famous film by Hertz Frank “10 Minutes Older”. This is a hidden camera shoot of a boy in the theater, a 10-minute observation of the child’s face. For growing up, one might even say, for the humanization of a small creature just entering the world. This is not a performance, and there is nothing invented. But this film, in my opinion, can not be classified as non-fiction. Such a movie first of all gives the viewer the opportunity to experience emotions. Yes, connected with reality, with the world in which this viewer lives – but it is emotions. It’s still art, not a document.
The writer Mikhail Ancharov seemed to have a very suitable phrase in this case: “A work of art differs from a fact by the size of the author’s soul.”
VM: Yes, that is what I am trying to say, although I do not pretend to be such an aphoristic. Most of the paintings that we show as part of the Artdocfest festival cannot be recounted. That is, it is possible to retell something, but the main thing will disappear – the strength and even, I dare say, the greatness of these films. They can – and should! – to watch in order to experience what their creators counted on. And the position of the author becomes the main thing, what exactly he chooses in reality as a fulcrum. A documentary is not a document in the conventional sense. Not a certificate with a seal that certifies that a certain fragment of reality is exactly the way it is presented. After all, even the very first film in history – “The Arrival of the Train” – could also be completely different. It would seem, where more documentary? But if the Lumiere brothers had turned the camera, we would not be watching The Arrival of the Train, but Were Watching the Train. A completely different movie.
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Then what dictates the choice of angle, the direction of the camera today?
VM: The cinema that I am talking about, creative documentary, is conceived as an artistic interpretation of reality, its image. This means that the artist dominates here. And he, if we really simplify, looking at a puddle, he sees either dirt or stars reflected in this puddle. And this is only his right and the peculiarity of his device, in this choice he, in fact, as an artist, consists. In 2014, the painting “A Man Lives for the Best” by Hanna Polak won at Artdocfest. Hanna has been making a film about the life of a girl born and living in a Moscow dump for more than ten years. I watch a lot of documentaries and, believe me, I’ve seen twenty films about landfill dwellers. And their ending is somehow predictable, regardless of artistic merit. More than half definitely ended with a funeral or a view of an unmarked grave. When I watched Hannah’s film, I was ready for just such a development of events. But towards the end of the movie, an absolute miracle happens. I just got goosebumps down my spine. That’s a miracle and that’s it, there’s no other way to say it. And this is the strength, the power of the artistic expression of Hanna Polak. Which was able to see in a puddle and dirt, and stars, and in general the whole universe.
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Let documentary films not be a document, but after all, descendants will judge our era based on documentaries, too?
VM: Undoubtedly. But documentarians, like the blind men in the parable, touch the elephant piece by piece in order to describe it. And years later, a set of these disparate testimonies is formed, a common context emerges. Leni Riefenstahl sang Nazism, including in the classic Triumph of the Will. Decades later, Mikhail Romm in the film “Ordinary Fascism” uses Riefenstahl’s material, editing footage of “Triumph of the Will” with filming from the death camps. Both of these were real. But only their combination gives us a surprisingly vivid image of that time. And absolutely regardless of what Riefenstahl herself thought about what she was shooting and put into her film.
“If the Lumiere brothers had turned the camera around, we would not be watching The Arrival of the Train, but The Meeting the Train. Quite a different movie.”
What is happening in Russia with documentary films? Is what, for example, Arkady Mamontov shoots, is it also a documentary film?
VM: Well, in a way. It depends on what we put in this or that concept. What, for example, is love for you? For some, communication for money falls into this category. And if we talk about what is happening with documentary films in Russia, then officially there is no creative documentary in our country.
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How does it not exist?
VM: In the entire 10-year history of Artdocfest, despite the fact that its program features hits that are in demand all over the world, only one film from our competition was shown on a major Russian federal TV channel. There are practically no documentary films in film distribution either. Although many of the films that we show at the festival are very successful at the box office. This, of course, is not “Pirates of the Caribbean”, but their box offices in the European box office sometimes amount to millions of euros. There is also almost no civilized monetization of Internet impressions in Russia. And what happens? There is practically no documentary cinema in Russia.
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Is it even necessary? Maybe you don’t need to spend money on it, especially in such a difficult time? Maybe you can do without it?
VM: So let’s try, let’s! Here in North Korea, such an experiment has long been carried out. There, however, a number of “useless” things are removed from life. But the result is obvious. And in principle, everyone can start with themselves. Just remove all mirrors from your own apartment. Take it away and live without them. What a savings!
Now you are finishing work on the film “Relatives”. Is this a picture about Ukraine?
VM: Yes. And about my family. What is happening today in Ukraine has deep historical roots. These are not just “little green men”, all this has a foundation. And it is very difficult to understand the reasons for these processes. But these same processes can be seen at the grassroots level, they are reflected in the fate of specific people, ordinary families. And my family, as it happens, is scattered all over Ukraine. I myself am from Lvov, and my relatives live in Kiev, and in Odessa, and in Sevastopol, and in Donetsk. And between them all these conflicts also exist. I decided to make a picture that, using the example of relations within our family, would help people understand and understand what is happening globally in this state.
Korean experiment
The new film by Vitaly Mansky became a notable event in the world of documentary films last year. “In the Rays of the Sun” is a picture about the life of an ordinary family in North Korea: a schoolgirl and her parents. While making a movie according to the script and under the strict control of the North Korean side, the director nevertheless managed to create a frightening portrait of a society of total lack of freedom, where citizens do not even realize that some other life is possible.
In the Rays of the Sun, dir. Vitaly Mansky, 2015.
And for yourself, were you able to understand what was happening?
VM: For me this was not an issue. I did live there from birth until I was 18. But, I confess, there are things that cannot be put into words. They can only be felt. Otherwise, I would have just a film from the category of non-fiction with geopolitical calculations. But my mother and I do not discuss geopolitics. Not in real life, not in the movie. But in the picture, I dare to hope, one can feel the fundamental contradictions that exist in Ukrainian society. Yes, in fact, in Russian too.
Where can the film be seen?
VM: Yes, all over the world. 10 major European TV channels were included in the project at the stage of its development.
Are there Russians among them?
VM: I think you yourself know the answer.