{"id":13543,"date":"2019-06-14T09:05:01","date_gmt":"2019-06-14T07:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.switchonpaper.com\/?p=13543"},"modified":"2020-10-20T17:23:33","modified_gmt":"2020-10-20T15:23:33","slug":"dau-a-project-unhinged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.switchonpaper.com\/en\/profile\/work\/dau-a-project-unhinged\/","title":{"rendered":"DAU<\/em>, a project unhinged"},"content":{"rendered":"

The idea for the biopic emerged from a discussion between the director and French producer Philippe Bober<\/a> in Rotterdam, 2005. In 2008, it radically evolved in scale. Khrzhanovsky, described by Th\u00e9\u00e2tre de la Ville<\/a> in Paris director Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota<\/a> as \u201ca monster child\u201d, decided to reconstruct the interior of a Ukrainian physics lab that Landau had directed. In the center of Kharkov, he transforms a giant abandoned swimming pool into an enclosed film studio that is only accessible if you leave your personal effects at the door. Over the span of three years, more than 400 people are recruited to live, work and sleep while being filmed continuously by cameras in a kind of imitation totalitarian system.<\/p>\n

From language to underwear, every last detail of the past is recomposed into the present. There is even a punishment for using anachronistic language, a fine to be paid in rubles. But the director\u2019s vision does not end at simulation. Although the shoot is loosely based on a screenplay by Russian author Vladimir Sorokine<\/a>, for Khrzhanovsky the project is actually about guiding people\u2019s behavior, manipulating and motivating participants into recreating an extensive human comedy to be watched from his observation tower.<\/p>\n

With the financial backing of businessman Serge\u00ef Adoniev<\/a>, the budget at his disposal is practically unlimited, and the names associated with the project also lend a certain credibility. Not only are the scenes shot by the famous DoP J\u00fcrgen J\u00fcrges<\/a>, known for his work with Wim Wenders and Michael Haneke, but DAU also manages to pull in an international elite. The project involves, amongst others, orchestral conductor Teodor Currentzis<\/a>, theater director Romeo Castellucci<\/a>, artists Marina Abramovic<\/a> and Philippe Parreno<\/a>. About twenty scientists are also invited to conduct their research on site, including 1982 Fields Medal<\/a> recipient Shing-Tung Yau<\/a> or Italian expert on loop quantum gravity Carlo Rovelli<\/a>. And although Leonardo DiCaprio and Louis Garrel ultimately decline the offer, G\u00e9rard Depardieu, Isabelle Adjani, Fanny Ardant, Isabelle Huppert and Monica Bellucci all agree to offer their voices for the overdubbing.<\/p>\n

This said, other, more borderline personalities continue to haunt the project. Maxim Martsinkevich<\/a> was at the film shoot in the Ukraine, nicknamed \u201cthe machete\u201d and leader of xenophobic and homophobic movements like Occupy Pedophilia<\/em> or Format 18<\/em>. Alongside other followers of his ideology, they molested American performer Andrew Ondrejcak<\/a>, who is still too traumatized today to give any interviews. Similarly, in a torture scene where the story\u2019s main female protagonist, Natasha, has to insert a glass bottle into her vagina, the torturer, a former lieutenant-general of the KGB, plays himself in person.<\/p>\n

And so violence is not only present in the scenes caught on tape, but it is omnipresent, both in the manipulation itself and the very working conditions. Most participants were underpaid, if not paid at all, and condemn a \u201cculture of intimidation and harassment\u201d. To the French actress who played Natasha\u2019s torture scene, now under shock and refusing to speak, the director responds: \u201cNo one cares! She\u2019s a prostitute, I found her in an SM brothel!\u201d Neurobiologist James Fallon<\/a>, despite being a rather illustrious participant in DAU, confesses that he never saw any money at all: \u201cWhen I got to the Institute, I found myself smack in the middle of a strip-poker game. Ilya was screaming at everyone, I didn\u2019t understand anything, and the chaos made my head spin. He reminds me of Casanova, a congenial psychopath.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the plethora of rave reviews, unsettling accounts are piling up and are enough to transform this fascination for DAU<\/em> into disgust. Although the shoot ended in 2011, the director\u2019s megalomania persists, to the point where he even tried \u201cin secret\u201d to erect a copy of the Berlin Wall on Unter den Linden. On paper, DAU<\/em> indeed seems seductive, however the French infatuation with it surprises seen how the project is as deranged as it is confused, both from a legal and ethical perspective.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Translation by Maya Dalinsky
\nCover: DAU \u00a9 Phenomen IP 2019
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