Hacker Cinema
Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone
2022 · TV series · documentary · 60 min episodes · 1 season
Created by Adam Curtis
What it felt like to live through the collapse of communism and democracy. A series of films by Adam Curtis.
4 positive1 neutralfrom 5 commenters
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5 comments on Hacker News
“Curtis’s stitched-together compositions are less collages than they are Rorschach blots: look into their murk, and you can find your own worldview confirmed.”
This passage, which I see as being core to the author’s critique, doesn’t really jive with me. Basically he’s saying these movies are enigmatic, they offer space for reflection, they resonate with a lot of people across the ideological spectrum.
Well, you can look at that cynically, or you could say that’s precisely — almost definitionally — what makes them effective.
To go a little further than that: I don’t think it’s a fair claim. Each of his movies since Bitter Lake have had the same general arc of “emerging ideological apparatus promises to resolve social contradictions and empower the common person, fails to do so.” In this sense, his narrative angle is broadly _anti-confirmatory_.
Then there’s the aesthetic critique, which, whatever. I really can’t fault someone for finding fault with Adam Curtis’s style. And it’s least overbearing in TraumaZone out of all his movies I’ve seen, so I get why this author favors it.
As it happens, I’m about halfway through TraumaZone right now. It’s great. Poses some interesting questions, doesn’t offer any easy answers.
There is a BBC documentary series called Traumazone from 2022, which has a bunch of video from the USSR/Russia in 1985-1999, which is pretty interesting.
Growing up in the 1980s, I never really got to see a look at the life of your typical Soviet citizen just living/working.
Adam Curtis’ most recent work, Traumazone, aims to capture some of the feeling of what it was like to go through the collapse of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the “capitalism” that followed. I found it very powerful and helped me empathise better with those citizens and leaders. Watching Gorbechev and Yeltsin struggle and try their best to navigate the disaster. It’s quite different from his previous works. He doesn’t narrate. I personally think it’s a masterpiece in alternative documentary making.
https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/traumazone-2022/
A BBC press release with a bit more backround:
Journalist and Bafta award-winning filmmaker Adam Curtis has created a new series of seven films – entitled Russia 1985-1999 TraumaZone: What It Felt Like to Live Through the Collapse of Communism and Democracy
https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2022/adam-curtis-russia-1985-1999-traumazone
Note: the iPlayer link means the programmes are not available outside of the UK. Someone will probably upload to YouTube (or elsewhere) at some point.
Great story. Thanks for sharing this reality.
For anyone who doubts it I highly recommend Adam Curtis's new 6 hour docu-montage "Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone"[1]
[1] https://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/ideas-international-politics/2022/10/adam-curtis-traumazone-review-magic-lantern
[1] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/adam-curtis-documentary-traumazone-traces-circumstances-in-post-soviet-russia-that-led-to-rise-of-vladimir-putin/articleshow/94840128.cms