Cinema of the Other Europe: The Industry and Artistry of East Central European Film is a comprehensive study of the cinematic traditions of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia from 1945 to the present day, exploring the major schools of filmmaking and the main stages of development across the region during the period of state socialism up until the end of the Cold War, as well as more recent transformations post-1989.

In encouraging a more inclusive and comprehensive understanding of European cinema, much needed for the new unified Europe ‘enlarged’ towards its Eastern periphery, this book maps out the interactions, key concerns, thematic spheres and stylistic particularities that make the cinema of East Central Europe a vital part of European film tradition.

In particular, this study explores the social, historical, ethical and industrial contexts of filmmaking of the region, from the innovations of Hungarian Cinema of the 1950s, the international impact of the Czechoslovak New Wave in the 1960s and 1970s, the Polish cinema of ‘moral concern’ throughout the 1980s, to the transitional cinema of post-communism and the ‘velvet revolutions’ of the 1990s. The book thus examines the work of directors as diverse as Zoltán Fábri, Wojciech Has, Jan Nemec, István Szabó, Juraj Jakubisko, Károly Makk, Miklós Jancsó, Krzysztof Zanussi, Milos Forman, Andrzej Wajda, Márta Mészáros, Andrzej Munk, Jan Sverák, Bela Tarr and Krzysztof Kieslowski, and considers films such as The Fifth Seal, The Saragossa Manuscript, The Round-Up, Mephisto, Passenger, Ashes and Diamonds, A Blonde in Love, The Dekalogue, Kolya, Goodbye Lenin and Divided We Fall.

Cinema of the Other Europe is thus a timely appraisal of Film Studies debates ranging from the representation of history and memory, the reassessment of political content, ethics and society, the rehabilitation of popular cinema, and the rethinking of national and regional cinemas in the context of globalisation.

Dina Iordanova is Chair of Film Studies at the University of St. Andrews and has published widely on Eastern European, Balkan and Russian cinema, including Cinema of Flames: Balkan Film, Culture and the Media (BFI, 2001) and Emir Kusturica (BFI, 2002).

2003
208 pages
978-1-903364-61-1   £16.99 (pbk)
978-1-903364-64-2   £45.00 (hbk)


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chapter samples
Introduction


reviews
'This comprehensive and original study examines important common themes of history, memory and morality, and draws attention to the area's unique contribution to film history. With detailed accounts of some remarkable films this book marks an important stage in the reintegration of the cinemas of East Central Europe into our conception of what constitutes "European" film.'
Peter Hames, Staffordshire University

'An excellent and timely contribution to European Film Studies. The book's wide-ranging scope, its critical consideration of scholarly literature and the inclusion of a comprehensive resource guide make it an authoritative compendium on East Central European film ... This informative and original exploration of cinematic traditions and current trends in East Central European film culture is an excellent and timely contribution to European film studies. A more profound understanding of post-communist societies and cultures will be indispensable for a successful integration of ‘the Other Europe’ on the eastern periphery into to the new unified Europe. Iordanova sets a new agenda for the study of East Central European film cultures by challenging some persistent Cold War clichés about the function of cinema in the highly politicised societies of Poland, Hungary and the former Czechoslovakia. Examining the film cultures of these countries from a regional rather then a national angle provides fresh insights into common stylistic trends, similar industrial set-ups and shared master-narratives which makes the rich heritage of East Central European film accessible to a wide readership. The book’s wide-ranging scope, its critical consideration of scholarly literature and the inclusion of comprehensive resource guide make it an authoritative compendium on East Central European film.’
Daniela Berghahn, Oxford Brookes University

‘Dina Iordanova’s well-researched book is a welcome update to our documentation on the cinemas of three countries that have become four: the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia. Well over three-quarters of the texts in fact are devoted to the period when the four countries were three. The study begins with the end of the Second World War and glances much more briefly at post-Communist cinema … Effectively this is an extensive and scholarly study of Czechoslovak, Polish and Hungarian cinema from 1945 to the turn of the century. The detail and precision are exemplary: Iordanova is both historian and critic and highly adept at blending both styles of writing for her broader purpose … A book of themes, this study has a daunting task of presenting a vast range of films to a readership that will have not seen many of them. Different theme-categories used by Iordanova with their stress on social content are an ingenious and appealing way of superseding this difficulty. They draw us into the material quite fluently and always give context … Few monographs would have the courage to take on such a rich national cinemas in one volume and leave us with the impression that its coverage is near complete: no obvious omissions and definitely no short cuts. It is all here and all the more laudable for being so.’
John Orr, University of Edinburgh

'Its greatest innovation is the decidedly regional and cross-disciplinary approach, liberating East Central European cinema from the aesthetic-political analysis that traditionally considered these films within their isolated national contexts … it offers an accessible map to researchers and teachers navigating the complexities of East Central European visual cultures of the last five decades.'
Anikó Imre, University of Washington

‘Against the background of a national cinema approach, Iordanova’s project stands out as unique. Rather then discussing Polish, Hungarian, Czech and Slovak cinemas separately, she regards them as a regional phenomenon and attempts to identify their common denominators … Some parts of Iordanova’s study reveal aspects of the respective cinema which have never been tackled before and open new avenues of scholarship … Cinema of the Other Europe is a groundbreaking work … It provides a necessary tool for the work of academics specialising in Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, or even Russian cinema, and is a useful addition to the library of every film scholar whose definition of "Europe" extends beyond "Western Europe".’
Senses of Cinema

'None of the many offerings of the London-based Wallflower Press seems more essential and timely than Dina Iordanova's Cinema of the Other Europe ... Her book is truly groundbreaking.'
Film Quarterly

Dina Iordanova’s Cinema of the Other Europe is a book film scholars should have on their shelves for ready reference. Generally speaking, books on cinema written by professors in university film departments are brushed lightly aside by those critics who haunt film festivals and write extensively on directors of choice. And since many of these university editions stem from an in-depth analysis of videotapes and DVDs supplied for classroom courses and film seminars, they are overlooked by the film historian as being a trifle “academic” – meaning: tedious, partial, pedantic, even dogmatic. By the same token, the research academician specializing in the sociology, psychology, and semantics of the cinema tend to dismiss “over the top” eulogies by the film critics whose so-called expertise stems from a portfolio of interviews with favorite directors, while paying little attention to the sociopolitical context from which certain key films were formed ... Iordanova’s Cinema of the Other Europe is the exception that should be the rule. On one hand, her book is a comprehensive study of postwar cinema and filmmaking in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia (later the Czech Republic and Slovakia) from 1945 up to 2003. On the other, it is an erudite compendium of the cultural and political forces that molded these national cinematographies into astonishing productive movements under totalitarian governments and kept them alive and resourceful during the trying post-1989 transformations. And through it all she writes with the eye of an appreciative critic who can pinpoint the influential importance of a film or director in a specific country and weigh them in proportion to the national film culture in a neighboring country. Take, for instance, Andrzej Wajda’s Ashes and Diamonds (1958). Czech director Jiri Menzel has often cited that film and its director as a major influence in the development of the Czech New Wave of the 1960s. Cross-cultural references are important and necessary in this specific case – one among many, it should be added.
The singular aspect of Iordanova’s study is her focus (almost exclusively) on the cinematographies of “East Central” Europe ... This exclusivity allows her to dig deep below the surfaces of national cinematographies in Poland and Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia. She is thus able to measure the impact of literary influences, social conditions, political realities, historical events, moral or ethical questions, and even surrealist traditions that had inspired key directors to make their best films at the right time and for the right audience. Viewed from this distance, Andrzej Wajda’s Man of Marble (1976) and Man of Iron (1981), both milestones in Polish and East Central European cinema, were as much cultural and national manifestos as they were cinematic works of art.
Cineastes, critics, and film students are well advised to read and re-read Dina Iordanova’s Cinema of the Other Europe, a major research book on the postwar cinematographies of East Central Europe.
Ron Holloway, World Association for Christian Communication


‘Iordanova's new book springs from a desire to revise Eastern European cinematic discourse as a transnational phenomenon rather than as the sum of several national film industries … here Iordanova continues her project of re-mapping and reconceptualising the cinema of Eastern Europe from the perspective of transnational and global dynamics. One of the most valuable aspects of Iordanova's book is her determination to write both a border-crossing and a comparative study. The survey includes the cinemas of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia (former Czechoslovakia), and former East Germany - a regional formation, often designated East Central Europe. The argument rests on the general premise that, like Scandinavian cinema for instance, these national cinemas share a series of common features which allows one to regard them as a cinematic entity … Relying more on the notion of regional critical studies (Edward Soja) than on the national cinema concept, Dina Iordanova is less concerned with the existing boundaries and more open to the new realities of the post-Cold War era. The transnational approach helps the author to outline common trends that have been neglected in previous nation-focused studies. At the same time this strategy does not efface local cultural originality, the specific imagery bound to certain localities. This shapes an uneven and contradictory trajectory of the "global localisations" within the global/local nexus. It is in this sense that Dina Iordanova regards her study as part of a broader project of re-investigation, re-assessment, and re-mapping of European cinema beyond the Manichean opposition East/West and within the contexts and complexities of the globalising world … Frequently recalling the traps of hidden binarism, her text's intention is to return the cinema of the "other Europe" to where it belongs: inside European cinematic heritage. Decades of isolation meant that this cinema was less well known and less frequently studied, and it was hence often misinterpreted in the West. For this reason the author's primary aim is to demonstrate that, without an acknowledgement of the industrial capacities, artistic achievements, and specific spectatorial experience of Eastern European film practice, the concept of European cinema will remain biased … Briefly outlining the idea of "Central Europe" and its significance for the political and cinematic thought in the region, Dina Iordanova carefully avoids the traps of the decades-old identity dilemma and proceeds with a thorough analysis of these countries' industrial and artistic practices. The text's "both general and comprehensive" approach covers historically rich and stylistically heterogeneous material. Aware of the dangers of reduction and simplification in any attempt to discuss such broad cinematic landscapes, Dina Iordanova hopes to avoid these risks by structuring the text as a series of navigating paths each exploring a certain trend. She first offers a discussion of the general context of the East Central European film industries, their organisation and functioning (part one). Then the text shifts to the major thematic preoccupations: history, identity, ethics, and society (part two) and proceeds with chapters that discuss these and other aspects in more detail: narratives of identity (chapter three), the discourse on morality (chapter four), the rural/urban conflict (chapter five), and finally, women's cinema and women's concerns (chapter six). The concluding chapter (seven) offers a general survey of recent tendencies in East Central European industries – filmmakers, landmark films, and central themes since 1989 … Readers for whom this book will be an initiation into the cinema of the region will find a useful introductory guide to identifying East Central European cinema in terms of time and place in Part One. The contours of the national industries and their collaboration in the decades of Cold War isolation helps the reader to grasp the region's specific practices of production, distribution and exhibition. This initial discussion of the state-run centralised film industries before 1989 is extended into a survey of the market system and entrepreneurial practices since 1989 in chapter seven … By devoting two chapters of the book to the thematic preoccupation with history, and discussing the great number of films concerned with the past, Iordanova indicates the central place of history in the collective consciousness and the cinematic tradition of East Central Europe. Depicting the historical vicissitudes of the region, "crucified between "East" and "West", (Todorova, 1997:142), the majority of films are concerned with the controversial relationship between individuals, historical processes, and power. These films are often subtle allegories of the totalitarian society and functioned as a subversive voice within state-controlled production. "The struggle of man against power is a struggle of memory against forgetting" Milan Kundera has written, defining narratives of the past as acts of both resistance and subversion. The treatment of history and the depiction of man's relations with power are, according to Iordanova, the most significant contribution of the East Central European cinemas to European and world cinema. As a rule, the film plots stress not so much the historical accuracy as the experience of people involuntarily caught up in the storm of the big events and forced to make tragic choices. Alongside historical epics (such as Andrzei Wajda's Pan Tadeusz [Poland/France, 1999] or Gábor Koltay's blockbuster The Conquest [Hungary, 1996]) the book discusses a number of films focused on individual experience, and memory: personal traumas, the victimisation complex, the helplessness of the ordinary people in the face of the "madness of the world", the psychology of perpetrators. The specific treatment of history leads Iordanova to the conclusion that "some of the finest East Central European films belong to the strong tradition of personalised interpretation of history" where "the relationship between individual experience and national fate is conceived in an entirely different manner than is officially sanctioned memory". Without directly declaring their political intentions, these films are artistic evidence of the gap between the historical master narrative of socialist power and individual remembrance. Thus they form a body of those "small histories", in Foucauldian terms, that emerge in the interstices of the master narratives. In addition, the directors often transformed the historical plots into a backdrop for exploring the existential and philosophic dilemmas of life opening the historical narratives to universal moral concerns. "Taking sides", "shifting sides", loyalty and betrayal are themes which have preoccupied film auteurs in this part of the world for decades. Iordanova's comprehensive survey of the films dealing with the past identifies a series of cross-border tendencies: stylistic and narrative approaches that characterise all of the regional cinemas she covers. Gradually, a spectrum of narrative and stylistic techniques is outlined, shaping a remarkable aesthetic tradition. Among the diversity of styles and approaches Iordanova lists are surrealism, the absurd, the grotesque, satire, magic realism, post-modern pastiche and nightmarish allegories, a "rich field crying out for investigation by post-modern historians". Narratives are often non-linear, non-chronological, fragmented, kaleidoscopic, syncretic, absorbing both the Western and Eastern narrative traditions … In a 1986 interview the Polish director Andrzej Wajda noted bitterly that one of the consequences of the Cold War isolation is the fact that Western audiences show "little or no interest" in films made in Eastern Europe. That is a pity, the director says, "for I am certain those concerns are not ours alone but apply to the world at large, or will in the very near future". Wajda's prognosis has proved far-seeing: during the following decade the director Krzysztof Kieslowski was labeled the "first European director" (The Encyclopedia of European Cinema, 1995) and "one of the world's most talented filmmakers" (Portuges), whose "transcendental and philosophical stance was to greatly influence the direction of European cinema" in the 1990s. Iordanova's emphasis on the universal appeal of Eastern European film comes close to Paul Coates' conclusion that these cinemas were the first to represent power as a diffuse, non-personalised, and global force, a concern typical of the postmodern treatment of power in contemporary Western thought … Discussing the cinema of modern state socialism – which is less well known and seems less interesting to the audiences in the West – Dina Iordanova focuses on a paradoxical feature: the markedly apolitical stance. This aversion to politics and the intentional departure from political examination is the basic difference between the Eastern and the Western cinema from that period. The reason? The apolitical stance was partly due to censorship, partly due to an over-politicised society, which threatened to disrupt any privacy and intimacy: "[In] a social context where state socialist ideology would not leave much space for individual privacy, film-makers vigorously asserted the right of the individual to be indifferent to politics." … This asymmetry, appearing between the two sides of the Iron Curtain, was not as big as it might seem at first glance. During the decades in which Western political cinema was "busy exposing the faults of capitalism" in the film of directors like Costa-Gavras, Ken Loach, Reiner Werner Fassbinder and Bertrand Tavernier, Eastern European cinema was busy "subverting state socialism", its own totalitarian, repressive political system. The investigation of personal experience under totalitarian regimes depicts the moral crises, degradation, spiritual and physical destruction of individuals in a society now labeled a "velvet prison". Without dealing with politics directly and often narrated in the form of "cryptic allegories", these films are, in fact, powerful political statements … The special emphasis on women's cinema and women filmmakers aims at drawing the reader's attention to another less well-known aspect of Eastern European cinema. Iordanova carefully investigates and elaborately muses on another East/West asymmetry, this time in the territory of feminist cinema. The major concern of women's films in Eastern Europe is not usually gender inequality in patriarchal society; rather their interest is in the social, personal and existential problems of people living in a system of total oppression. Reading this chapter one might be surprised to discover how many women have been engaged in filmmaking during the decades when Western women-filmmakers have fought (and still fight) for the equal right to work in this "man's" profession. The proclaimed equality of the state socialism allowed many women to work in the industry alongside men for equally pay. Could this alone explain their "reluctant feminism"? Iordanova asks. Indeed, there is a paradox: while the women-filmmakers create powerful feminist cinema they either reluctantly accept their affiliation with the feminist project or reject it altogether … Trying to explain this phenomenon, Iordanova looks at both the different social/culture realities in which the Eastern and Western feminism is rooted, and at the use of the term itself. For women directors in Eastern European the notion of feminist cinema and the mission of the cinema in general obviously mean more than "a simple engagement with the political cause of the day" or a "blind commitment" to "any identifiable feminist cause", imagery or vocabulary … The final chapter of the book is an attempt to present more than a decade long cinematic period (since 1989) in less than twenty pages. The survey guides the reader through the labyrinth of the transitional period, discussing its reversals and uncertainties, and describing cinemas in flux, which continue to redefine their terms. The chapter focuses on the industries' recent transformation, the appearance of a new generation of filmmakers and the crises of identity in the older generation. The migration and movements across national borders are now more intensive – this time not only within Eastern Europe but across the world. Despite radical economic and social changes, a certain continuity can be observed in the filmmakers' preoccupations: the conditions of market competition and the limited funding have not reduced filmmakers' interest in the traditional themes of spirituality and existential dilemmas. Thus, in the post-communist period, moral concerns and artistic experimentation with style and expression are still alive, alongside flourishing popular mainstream genres. The appendix at the end of the book contains a comprehensive list of research resources, including Internet sites, useful information for lecturers, proposals for further reading, and an expended bibliography and filmography. It should be added that the notes to each chapter contain information as interesting and important as that found in the main body of the text. Iordanova's book is valuable and useful for both teachers and students. Some readers may find that general arguments prevail over comprehensive study of particular film texts. But we should remember that the aim of this revision of the East Central European cinema is more to re-open the question rather than to offer comprehensive answers. Reaching the last pages of Cinema of the Other Europe one closes the book with a clear awareness of several re-definitions that Iordanova presents. First, the text successfully breaks with the stereotypical view of Eastern European cinema as the totally controlled "state art" of "socialist realism", obsessed mainly with the gloomy aspects of the socialist reality. Second, it powerfully demonstrates the richness of artistic tradition, the proliferation of hybrid generic forms in a regional cinema, which is now engaged in an uneven struggle against the remnants of the Cold War isolation and the non-reciprocal exchange between Eastern and Western Europe. Finally, by paying special attention to cross-border aesthetics, the book defines the industry and the artistry of East Central European cinema as a unique contribution to world cinema. It is in this sense that the book is both a useful referential text and an illuminating study whose author does not hide her affinity with and admiration for Eastern European cinema … Cinema of the Other Europe certainly extends the limits of the recent academic interpretations of Eastern European cinema and draws the attention of the international community of scholars to many issues that still await academic investigation.’
Violetta Petrova, Screening the Past

‘Dina Iordanova's Cinema of the Other Europe is an unusual publication in the field of cinema studies: it is one of the very few monographs that examine regional—rather than national—film industry practices and products. The "other Europe" that lies at the center of Iordanova's investigation is the territory embraced by Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Over the decades, individual monographs have focused on the national film industries of these countries (including the former Czechoslovakia). But it has been more than a quarter of a century since the east central European film industries have been examined as a unified field; and even then, they were lumped together with the rest of the former Soviet satellite states under the artificial heading of "Eastern Europe." The events of this same period—the end of the Cold War and the disappearance of the eastern bloc, the independence and (in some cases) the fragmentation of nation-states, the erasure of the United States from the equally artificial construction of "the West"—have rendered all previous studies obsolete, historical surveys of a lost world. This re-charting of the map of Europe, both geographically and ideologically, has been accompanied by an economic transformation that has changed every aspect of daily life in these countries, not excluding the operations and productions of the film industries, and the consumption of its products. Central to Iordanova's study, therefore, is the radical impact on these industries of the transition from a state-financed model to a commercially driven one, from state-controlled enterprises to ones answerable to viewers' tastes … The historical focus of Iordanova's study extends from the post-Second World War imposition of Soviet rule over east central Europe and extends through the present. She identifies five distinct periods in the development of the region's film industries: 1949–56 ("totalitarianism and isolation"), 1956–68 ("'between two revolutions'"), 1968–80 (the period "ironically called 'Normalisation' in Czechoslovakia"), 1980–89 ("the gradual weakening of socialist regimes"), and 1989-present ("the post-Communist era") … At the beginning of her book, Iordanova does an excellent job of formulating the "tasks" that confront contemporary scholars interested in "outlining a more adequate (and desirable) picture of East Central European film," including the reassessment of "industry configurations and considerations," the reintroduction of "the study of style," the rehabilitation of "popular cinema," the examination of "cinema's role in forging nationalism" and its "exploration of moral issues independently of politics," the study of "cultural production and consumption patterns," the reassessment of views of "cultural dependency versus transculturation and globalization," the reconsideration of "the motives and commitments of émigré film-makers," and the encouragement of "studies in documentary film-making" … At the heart of Iordanova's study are two of her "tasks": "cinema's role in forging nationalism" and its "exploration of moral issues independently of politics." The three chapters of the second part of the book ("Film and History, Ethics and Society") deal thoroughly with matters such as identity, morality, and modernity—that is, with issues that are "existential" (a word that occurs so frequently in the book that it gradually loses meaning) … Similarly, in the "Overview" of the third part, Iordanova provides both a passionate argument for the study of "'popular' films" and an exhaustive taxonomy of its genres (surrealist works, heritage and folklore, adaptations of fairy tales, biographies, science fiction, horror, erotica, action-adventure, "crime, mystery and spy dramas," and comedy) (117-8). Iordanova's point is excellent and right on the mark: popular film genres have been consistently ignored by film scholars writing about the non-West European (and even Soviet) film industries … Iordanova's latest study should be in every university library and read by anyone whose interest is not limited to West European cinema.’
Vladimir Padunov, Slavic and East European Journal

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