“This is not a socially conscious film. There is no society. It is nonexistent. It is not a philosophical film either. There are no authorial points of view or ideas. It has to be admitted this film is dangerous. Truly dangerous. As a matter of fact, it undermines the authority of the state. For it, too, is nonexistent.” 1
So says Artur Aristakisian, in regards to his film A Place in the World (2001), the follow up to his documentary Palms (1994), two of the more harrowing and confrontational films I’ve seen in a very long time.
The Quick Gist
A Place in the World is about a hippie commune called The Temple of Love, run by a cult-like leader who acts as a messiah to the hopeless and helpless people of Moscow.
Palms is a documentary about the lost and forgotten people of Chișinău.
A Place in the World (2001)
The first film, A Place in the World, is about a hippie squat/commune created by a cult-like leader who believes the most effective way to help homeless and disabled people — or anyone, really — is to provide them with free unconditional love, with a heavy emphasis on sex. He’s their messiah, and they will do anything for him.
Their dilapidated squat, called the Temple of Love, is open to all and filled with the most desperate people you could imagine. The lost and lonely. Disabled people. The poverty stricken. The deranged. Those looking to put into practice their ideas for an idyllic world. But most are there because they have no other place to go.
Shambling around in what rags they have, they live each passing day in absolute squalor that only gets worse as the film unfolds, always willing to do anything their leader asks of them. Desperation knows no bounds here. It’s kind of like if you made the Dystopia song, “Stress Builds Character,” into a feature. It’s a movie about the monster behind the dumpster in Mulholland Drive. Only scarier.
Allegedly filmed on location in a real squat in Moscow, there is an unparalleled authenticity in the film. It’s like you’ve been shepherded into this underground world and you’re witnessing people and places you simply shouldn’t be seeing. Adding to this authenticity are real people mixed in with the actors, though for the most part, you’d be hard pressed to tell them apart.
Similar to Jean Genet’s work, there are moments of real beauty in the desperation and destitution. And there’s love for these people. There is a shared humanity. You can feel it from the director himself, as well as between the characters, as perverse as it sometimes becomes. Though, unlike Genet, it’s much less romantic, if romantic at all.
So what’s the point of a film like this? Is it a social film? A neorealist call to action? Or simply poverty porn? The desperation olympics. A test for how much we can endure.
Maybe it doesn’t need a point. Why should it? Aristakisian says it’s none of those things. It’s not for entertainment, it’s not a film to intellectualize. This movie doesn’t concern itself with how we feel. It’s actually a film that purposefully ignores its viewers.
“You despise them and they know it. You just want to spoil yourself by feeling sorry for them. Or maybe you need sympathy more than they do? In that case your situation is more hopeless than theirs. At least they have made a profession out of begging for their wants. They have clearly identified themselves as needy and down-and-out, while you are scared of your needs. And you are insulted by the very fact that they do not use the film as a means to address you and beg for your help, but as a way of ignoring you...” 2
This sentiment reminds me of something Ronald Bernstein said about the excruciatingly difficult character in his film, Frownland. In regards to the hostile nature of the film, the viewers are posed with the question: “You think you like people? You think your heart breaks for the weak. You really think so?” 3 This kind of hostility forces a confrontation. Forces us to self reflect. It’s time to confront ourselves with the truth, and be faced with the realization that we may not really care. Or if that’s too harsh, then maybe the truth is most of us just don’t really want to see the darkest depths of these people’s horrendous lives. Most people don’t, anyway.
But despite this authenticity, the film is so intense, so hyper grim, so unrelenting and extreme in its despair that it almost becomes aware of itself. People eat rats, a man castrates himself, a dead baby is buried in rubble, wounds fester. Sure, it doesn’t stop because Aristakisian and these people aren’t concerned with our feelings. But at times it’s hard not to think that this simply can’t be real. While in its own sick way it’s mesmerizing, it’s also just too depressing.
Yet, it is in fact real. And that becomes even clearer when you watch his previous film, the 1994 documentary Palms.
Palms (1994)
The predecessor to A Place in the World is also Aristakisian’s first film. It’s a two and half hour long documentary on the marginalized people of Chișinău, formerly Kishinev: the outcasts, the homeless, disabled people, the starving, the forgotten. Children living in swamps. A woman that has laid in the same spot for forty years. A family of blind beggars. It’s clear that so much of what Aristakisyan put in his narrative feature, he got from this film, even down to recreating some of the shots.
The documentary is an open letter to his unborn son. His son that is still in the womb. Told in chapters, Aristakisian tells him about these people that somehow eek out an existence in this overlooked world, recounting each one their stories.
There is something holy about the way Aristakisian speaks of them. They are pure and innocent. Like Pasolini, he considers these outcasts as sacred. Closer to God than any one of us. They have not been spoiled by the system. They are so detached and separated from the world that they are truly free.
The tone feels much different than his follow up feature. Here, Aristakisian exudes an even clearer compassion for these people. They are so pure, that we should in fact strive to be like them. Not only are they pure, but their lack of participation in the system — a system he deeply detests — is itself a truly defiant act. According to Aristakisian, the best thing you can do in your struggle against a system that exists to destroy and commodify is to lower yourself into the world of poverty, refusing by all means to participate in society.
It almost seems that with A Place in the World, Aristakisian is interrogating his own ideas about these outcasts and the way they live. In Palms he projects onto them an image of purity. But do they feel that way about themselves? Does he really believe these ideas about these nearly irredeemable people?
It raises an interesting question. Is the cult leader in A Place in the World a sort of stand-in for Aristakisian? It almost seems like that film was an exercise of him trying to put these ideas into action. A sort of praxis of extreme poverty and unconditional love, in an attempt to reach utopia. But we see in that film, it’s impossible. There is no hope. No meaning, no paradise, no utopia. Just misery and death. Or maybe worse. The realization that its unattainable, only to be forced back into an ordinary life collecting a pension and sitting in front of the TV.
But what Palms does have in common with A Place in the World — aside from the images of extreme poverty — is that it isn’t a movie asking us to feel sorry for these people. It isn’t asking us to take action on behalf of them. As Graeme Hobbs writes in his essay on Palms:
Perhaps surprisingly for a film populated almost entirely with beggars, Palms has nothing to do with charity. Its real subject is proximity. In its relentless depiction of life at the margins and with its discomfiting jabs of authenticity, it is an affront to personal space…
One of the usual lures of cinema is the attraction of journeying in safety to places and with people you would not otherwise meet. Palms presents you with no seductive journeys. It does not care about you and it does not indulge you. It leaves you with nowhere to go except back on yourself, making you keenly aware of your own reaction – your disgust, your righteousness, your shame, the boundaries of your love. Watching Palms, you are no longer the centre of the world. How can you incorporate this place and its people? 4
To emphasize once again, these films were not made with us, the viewers, in mind. And because of this lack of consideration, we are forced to reflect on our own feelings and reactions to what we are witnessing.
In Palms, there is a godlike reverence for these people. That we should become like them. But as a character in A Place in the World says, “Nobody loves you. Nobody loves anyone.” Did Aristakisian change his mind? Did he realize in the end, there is only misery? That there is nothing, no utopia? No meaning, no hope, nothing next to godliness? Could this be why he never made another movie?
I’d like to think not. That this was just an attempt at further interrogating the ideas he posed in Palms. To operate and live in a world so devoid of hope is debilitating. But these films do confront us and allow some access to a nearly unthinkable world, one that still exists alongside us right now. Because though they may look it, these aren’t films from the 50s or 70s. Incredibly, these were made in 1994 and 2001.
So, if you’re feeling up for an intense couple of hours, I highly recommend these two flicks. Difficult, disturbing, but also incredibly moving. This is powerful cinema.
Along with the films, I’ve also included an interview with Aristakisian who shares some thoughts on making Palms. You can watch it all on the site, or in better quality through my Plex server (request an invite). The password to watch the films directly from the site is: aplaceinthisworld.
I would say enjoy, but I’m not sure that’s exactly the right word. Have at it and good luck!
Stojanova, Christina. "This film is dangerous" Artur Artistakisian defends his Mesto na zemlie (A Place on Earth, 2001)
Hobbs, Graeme. The Opened Hand: Reflections on Artur Aristakisyan's Palms.