DAU.Natasha (Melbourne International Film Festival) ★★★
DURING the next year a dozen Eastern European films have been or will be released based around the same location and themes.
The films, and four limited television series, are some of the artistic outputs from a massive project based at a huge facility purpose-built in the Ukraine.
The project started with a Russian film called DAU, which started shooting in 2007, but gradually morphed into a wide-ranging social and cultural experiment examining the ability to live, interact, function and create under the shadow of a totalitarian regime.
In September 2009, the ‘Institute for Research into Physics and Technology’ was opened within a derelict swimming pool. The functioning experimental research facility was inspired by former Soviet institutes and became the largest film set ever constructed in Europe. Scientists were able to live and work in the Institute and it was also populated by hundreds of participants, all cut off from modern life.
The experiment also attracted a range of cultural and creative pursuits, including a series of dramatic films using the authentic location and participants to examine the psychological and social impacts of such an existence; learning from the mistakes of the past so as not to repeat and foster them.
Each film uses some real, albeit novice, actors in the central roles and concentrates on particular characters and moral debates
DAU. Natasha, which screened as part of the recent virtual Melbourne International Film Festival, is one of the first films released and presents a very engrossing but tough viewing experience.
Directed by Ilya Khrzhanovsky and Jekaterina Oertel, it primarily deals with the fractious, complex relationship between two female characters but sets this against the morally questionable activities occurring in a Cold War Soviet Government research facility where volunteer soldiers are being subjected to weapons exposure tests.
Natasha, played brilliantly by Natalia Berezhnaya, runs the facility canteen where a daily procession of scientists and subjects have their daily meals and, sometimes, engage in late-night drinking sessions.
Natasha gossips and argues incessantly with her waitress Olga, in particular taunting her for having an ongoing affair with a married man. Their love-hate, almost sexual, relationship may be a product of their personalities or perhaps the closed society within which they live and work.
Issues intensify when Natasha visits Olga’s home for an out-of-control party with the collection of male characters, resulting in a sexual encounter, recriminations and eventual intervention by the State in the form of a severe security service officer who exerts mental and physical torture in order to manipulate and control.
It’s a film to admire, but not enjoy. In particular I was amazed that all the central characters are played by mostly mature-aged actors in only their first or second roles. To what extent the performances are a product of the authentic surroundings, script and the actual social experiment is fascinating to consider.
Students of history and/or societal structures and culture will find the film fascinating; others, maybe not so much.