CONNECTIVITY: THE SPACE OF DOCUMENTARY SEQUENCES IN THREE FICTION FILMS OF RIGA FILM STUDIO

Abstract

The subject of this study is the augmentation of portrayal of reality in fiction films by inclusion of documentary sequences. This article explores a hypothesis that in the spacetime continuum, film borders of cinematic genres, the divide between documentary and fiction cinema is disregarded. This divide appears if not artificial, then subordinated to the unity of each particular film as a text. The concept of con- nectivity can be applied to describe the relation of spaces of the documentary and the fictional sequences in a film. The Latvian cinema offers a wide range of instances for the generic fusion of the documentary and the fiction film as genre. The practice of including documentary sequences into the fiction films – in a tradition of the Riga poetic documentary school in the case of this study – (re)presents historical dynamics in film poetics. The appearance of several genre s paces in one spacetime continuum of a film (re)constructs the social space of film’s production momentum. The documentary sequences in the fiction film function both as an added and illustrative value to the main fictional visual narrative, and gradually become a meaning-making element in the wholeness of this cinematic text. Initially in the short film Divi (“Two”, 1965), directed by Mihails Bogins, filmed by Rihards Pīks, and later by Henrihs Pilipsons the documentary sequences were employed to (re)create the modern urban space. Later, as the practice of documentary inclusion became common in the middle of 1960s, the documentary sequences appeared in the musical film Elpojiet dziļi (“Breathe Deeply”, 1967, directed by Rolands Kalniņš, cinematographed by Miks Zvirbulis) to construct multiplicity of spaces, uniting creative and factual realities in the narrated space of the film. The film Elpojiet dziļi demonstrates that the merger of genres, styles and spaces is creative to the extent of spilling off the screen and into the non-cinematic reality. The film is a story of a fictional boy band. It inspired formation of the band Menuets to re-enact the songs written for and performed in the film. The con nectivity of the documentary and the fiction sequences in this film achieve a level of connection where it is no longer possible to speak of subjugation of one genre to the other. It can be described as a construction of a new connected and permeable cinematic space. A further instance of the connectivity of documentary and fiction generic spaces in a film is the film Ābols upē (“Apple in the River”, 1974, directed by Aivars Freimanis, cinematographed by Dāvis Sīmanis (sen)). This film represents a stream of multiple genres and a flow of various citations, inspirations and ideas featuring the cultural space of late Soviet republic of Latvia. In this film the connectivity of the documentary and the fictional episodes becomes rhetorical means of cinematic expression.