A year already of murderous war in Ukraine. The master of the Kremlin expected it to be short and victorious. Human vanity and pitcher error. These twelve months of horror will have offered us a crash course in contemporary international politics, with its pretenses, its lies, its resistance, its heroism, its games of alliance, its massacres, its Western fears of doing too much or too little. . Add the desperate fear of a world conflict, with the help or not of strange flying objects capable of short-circuiting waves in the enemy. For lovers of anticipation works, a film script. Fiction and reality seem to come together, like endless parallels.
The art is at the front there. Because of the past of the President of Ukraine, who knows music. A sign of the times too. Because culture is now brandished or denounced in the name of the most diverse causes. Throughout history, art has served as target, javelin and booty for belligerents of all stripes. But the phenomenon takes the bit to the teeth.
In this epic, a close-up face: that of the president Volodymyr Zelensky. It is difficult not to admire his courage, transmitted to a standing people. No doubt he impresses Vladimir Putin too. In perpetual camouflage, the former actor knows how to play the cards of representation. To him, the star of this cruel, bloody, Shakespearian play, full of sound and fury. As a fine strategist to the aid of his beleaguered homeland, he does not intend to give up his airtime. Otherwise, international sympathy might crumble, arms shipments to match. There star warrior multiplied on the screen plays the survival of her country.
In many festivals and cultural galas, by videoconference, we see him addressing artists, their allies, their spectators, asking progressive forces to play caryatids of support. Zelensky talks about art and resistance. Rarely have war and the world of culture communicated so much as during this conflict. With permanent elevator referrals.
At the 73e Berlinale, which started on Thursday, nine films, mostly documentaries, on the life of Ukrainians in wartime are screened. The most prestigious: Superpower Americans Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufman. The filmmaker of The Pledge and of Mystic River originally wanted to shoot a documentary in kyiv about Zelensky’s career. This former interpreter of a Ukrainian president (in the series servant of the people) catapulted leader of the country fascinated him. Under the pandemic, they communicated by Zoom, then the day after the landing of the American team in Ukraine, the Russian invasion came to confuse their cards. Penn stayed there, interviewing the artist-politician-turned-war-hero, paying homage to his people in concert. The president of Ukraine, the film’s headliner, addressed the Berlin audience on Friday. The circle is complete.
The beleaguered artists have competed in creativity and ingenuity to denounce the assault of Putin’s army, with videos, posters, photos, paintings that thumb their noses at the invader. Above all to boost the morale of the compatriots on the line of fire. Sculptors contributed to the war effort by coordinating anti-tank welding. Curators emptied museums of their works to avoid bombs. Still, several national treasures have gone to ashes, like many theaters and heritage buildings. These citizen models of resilience ask foreign sympathizers to get to know their literature, their music, their films, their graphics. Because the population is also fighting to defend its culture.
The latter, generally poorly deciphered, long annexed to Russian heritage, was exported, ironically, under the din of missiles. Musicians were the guests of honor from the greatest Western institutions, with talent highlighted. Festivals present the works of their filmmakers. We saw last May at the Centaur theater, thanks to Michel Marc Bouchard, Leslie Baker and Eda Holmes, the show Ukrainian lyricsenriched with texts by national playwrights.
At the same time, so many Russian artists have been boycotted on our stages and abroad since the beginning of this invasion. Sometimes I’m sorry that we cut the whistle to sensitive beings when their political leader loses the north. Art is a weapon of war, I know, must be understood, but its substance remains fragile! We wish him peace in the near future, like cannon fodder humans in this hell. Today, our wishes fly away in the wind. Tomorrow, we will relaunch them, later too.