How to present the dark
side of the world in images and are there images which not only
reflect these dark sides but also form a kind of resistance? These
are questions as old as the history of documentary cinema. By the
Name of Tania tells about one of these girls in Peru who leave
their native villages for a better life. But they are allured by
fantastic rumours like for example that there are rich men who will
dust the girls they prefer with gold dust. But the girls end up in
forced prostitution, they are beaten up, raped and their dream of
freedom ends up in slavery. At the first sight such a synopsis
sounds very suspicious like social porn camouflaged as a social
report.. But from the first moments on , the film goes a very
different way. It is a very complex film essay which moves
permanently between fiction and documentary and reminds me often in
the experimental films by Trinh T. Min-ha or in the films Marguerite
Duras, especially in the use of over voice narration..
The film is focused on
Tania. The name is fictive but gives an idea of identity. As she has
a name, she is nevertheless an example of the faceless crowd of young
woman or minor girls who are exploited.
The first images present
landscapes. At first a young woman is lying on a bed. The room is red
lighted. The contour of the body, the room and the colours are
slightly disintegrated into a blur. The other landscapes are the
geographical ones of the Amazon, sometimes in its natural glory,
sometimes destroyed and disgraced by copious gold digging and big
slums.
The film does not move
always in a chronological order. Tania´s over voice comments are
sometimes referring to moments we see but sometimes her voice is
literally taken out of time. Once we see her looking from a terrace
down to a city. The terrace appears as a frame in the film frame. It
is a seldom quiet, almost contemplative moment. This little rest
period seems to be necessary for both, the protagonist and the
spectator to deal with the horrible events the film tells about..
Sometimes when Tania is in
front of the camera, almost like in a conventional interview
situation, we see the natural or urban landscape in the background
which looks strangely flat while Tania´s physical appearance is
almost emphasized like a three dimensional figure.
What the film finally
offers, is a kind of protected zone like I suggested in a different
kind in my text on Anamika Bandopadhyay´s The Third Breast.
All the horrible experiences of Tania are only revealed in her
commentaries. The filmmakers refusal to redouble the suffering of
their protagonist in not illustrating it, might be the most important
artistic decision.
Once we see Tania waiting
in a police station before and during her testimony. The impact of
this film is split into two aspects: the first is the awareness that
Tania is only one example of this exploitation and slavery of young
women, the second one is the idea of hope in distinguishing Tania
always as a subject. A reason more to create a special even
artificial space for her. The dynamic of documentary and fiction
appears as the key to understand the film.
I do not really know how
Tania´s comments are filtered from a lot of research interviews with
these victims of slavery, forced prostitution of often girls of minor
age. The elements of performance and documentary interviews are often
difficult to distinguish. The film tries to accomplish both,
compassion but as well discretion.
There are often moments
when the contours of bodies and things tends to be dispersed into
colours and surface, a kind of reduction of the film image to its
natural flatness, an disembodiment of the physical world. The
illusion of the perception of bodies is for a moment suspended. One
can read it is a sad link to a moment when Tania comments: “It is
not my body anymore.”
By the Name of Tania is
also a film about destroyed landscapes, the human and the
geographical ones
It is this cinematic
tactfulness for closeness and distance, for compassion and discretion
which will stay with me. It is again another variation of “caméra
stylo” and in its emotional impact it recalls films by Marguerite
Duras like Les Mains Négatives and her two Aurelia Steiner
-films.
Rüdiger Tomczak
Screenings:
12.February, 20.15, Cubix
8
14.February, 13.00 Zoo
Palast 2
17.February, 16.00
Cinemaxx 3
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