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| THE HOUR IS NEAR… Jānis Putniņš | |
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It's no exaggeration to say that few Latvian documentary films of recent years have produced such a stir as "The Hour is Near" by Juris Poškus - about Ēriks and Daniels, two young Christian evangelists from one of the so-called "charismatic sects". In itself, this concept wouldn't be anything out of the ordinary, were it not for the fact that the main characters are such an amazing pair of opposites, so that one almost wants to ask - is it really a documentary?
Any Hollywood casting mastermind would compliment Poškus for his outstanding work in this regard. The big, retiring, slightly chubby Daniels with his expressly material thinking, and the small, lively Ēriks with his great stock of energy, for whom spreading the Word of Christ gives much greater joy than any worldly joys (with the possible exception of eating), are a particularly colourful pair - just like Buster Keaton and Fatty Arbuckle in their day, or Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. It seems almost incredible that these people, so different in character, might also be friends in real life. It rather looks like a very cleverly staged mystification, and it seems we can even find in places some shred of evidence for this suspicion, as when the actions of the main characters seem too much like acting, and when certain details, such as their central-symmetrical stage costumes seem to have been conceived by the director and apparently do not aspire to documentality. If we also consider that the film's structure, tracing the presentation to the world of the song performed by the two main characters, has been constructed after the best fiction film examples, then we may truly pose the question of whether the film is an authentic document of reality. However, in spite of all the above, Poškus succeeds in showing a world that cannot be described as anything else than documentary. Yes of course, the main characters are always aware of the camera's presence and act accordingly in front of it, and the director has not only applied a great deal of effort to arrange the footage according to his wishes, but at some points even permits himself to emphasise his own presence, for example in distorting the sound and in showing in slow motion the attempts by a small dog to bite the arm of the main characters' friend. In one episode, quite unexpectedly, questions are addressed to Ēriks from behind the camera, apparently with the wish that the filmmaker's presence should be inseparable from the world being filmed. Paradoxically, all of this only serves to heighten the film's realism, since games, pretence and manipulation are part of the film's semantic material, so in the case of "The Hour is Near" we can certainly say that the formal techniques and style are closely connected with the documentary setting. Lying precisely in this unity of form and content are the answers to many questions unanswerable at the first instant, relating in the first place to the film's message, which is largely based on its rough and very eclectic style. There is no doubt that Poškus is interested in the two main characters, but he is even more interested in the world of which Juris Poškus himself, not just Ēriks and Daniels, is an essential part. The film is in the first place about this little world and the attempt to break out of it. In this context, Ēriks and Daniels, who seek their way through spreading the Word of God, are not so very different from Juris Poškus, who in a similar situation makes films. In my view, precisely this is the source of the film's force and effectiveness. Thanks to Ēriks and Daniels, Juris has succeeded in recording a setting that precisely, starkly and realistically documents much more than just the activities of two people. The portrait of the setting is undoubtedly the film's main treasure. This setting is open and virtually indefinable: when it is approached through a limiting concept it succeeds in sliding away without revealing its secrets. However, it is enough simply to have something tangible for us to be able to talk of an entirely real world, holding us all in its power just as in the American movie "Matrix". It is a world offering countless illusions, in the form of gambling machines, money, brands, TV shows, mass events and corporative religions, where people shift chaotically like somnambulists from one position to another, seeking instinctively either to establish themselves in this setting or else to find an exit from this burden of materiality. Significant in this context are the two different routes chosen by the film's main characters. For Daniels, the Word of God is connected with potential assistance in integrating into the world of material welfare, the starkest example being his prayer to Jesus to help make a profit on gambling machines, while Ēriks' acts reveal his wish for unconditional fulfilment through faith. True, just like their attire when they perform on the big stage, nothing is purely black and white. The materialist Daniels, with his childish naïvety, arouses sympathy even through those actions where he strives to place himself above Ēriks, for example in refusing to hold Ēriks' things for him, or at another occasion trying to foist on Ēriks the carrying of his umbrella, and often it seems that this disarming infantilism is closer to the essence of his being than his self-declared concern for achievement and welfare. Ēriks, on the other hand, surprises the viewer with the quite schizophrenic dualism of his activity in the episode he has filmed himself, where he feeds a flower to his dog and then scolds his four-legged friend for eating it, crowning this episode by feeding the dog a snail. In view of the idiosyncrasies of the two main characters, their decision to participate in the "Song for my generation" competition with the self-composed song "The Hour is Near" seems an entirely logical step. It is significant that this performance can be described both as preaching and as self-expression in front of an entertainment-oriented audience. The question logically arises - can preaching the Word of God be combined with mass entertainment in a single act. In the world encountered by Juris Poškus the answer is certainly "yes", and proof of this is seen not only in the concert, at the end of which Ēriks' and Daniels' "Christian rap" is organically transformed into an ode to the sponsoring sausage manufacturer, but also at the many meetings of non-traditional congregations, which in formal terms differ very little from the "Song for my generation" concerts. Remaining unanswered is only the question of the exit from the "Matrix", a question that seems to follow even where the possibility of freedom appears to exist. Poškus' film does not give an unequivocal answer, pointing to some sort of right way. It is evidently easier for the viewer to be told what is good and what is bad; that the cause, for example, lies in childhood deprivation, harsh social conditions or psychological trauma. Poškus' film has no trace of such simplistic generalisation. It cannot even be said that "The Hour is Near" is a denial of the charismatic way. For Juris Poškus, the world of the preachers remains Otherness, which cannot be judged without annihilating this Otherness. Perhaps it seems only somewhat strange to him that it is connected so closely, outwardly at least, with those same illusory principles of the material world that make people participate in product prize draws, play gambling machines, spend their time in front of the TV or buy new mobile phones. But what does Juris Poškus himself do? He is quite simply wondering at it all - at Ēriks and Daniels, at the city streets, the evangelists and their interpreters, the down-and-outs, the gambling machines and the cheap cafés. Through this wonder, something breaks into the film at times that makes one feel, much more potently than any evangelist rituals, the presence of another, more refined and much more powerful reality. It is usually something apparently insignificant - the wind in the city, the outlines of trees against the sky, bathing in a forest lake, Daniels emerging from the sea, still life with mats on the walls and a cat sleeping on the sofa etc. But, as Ēriks says in the film, everything "begins with small things". All this reveals why, alongside convinced admirers of the film "The Hour is Near" there are also those who have a variety of reasons for finding the film unacceptable. Some are annoyed by the absence of any attempt on the part of Juris to give the viewers a definite interpretive model, others are aggravated by its rough style, not in accord with some imagined aesthetic criteria, and still others see it as sneering at the heroes of the film and at religious people in general. None of these arguments hold water and only reveal a wish to avoid the issues presented in the film, without looking at it as a whole and placing oneself outside the film's sphere of influence. In the end, the film is about us all - about the setting we live in and the illusions that we, through deft self-deception, regard as the truth, or which we otherwise simply permit to lead our lives, without ever stopping and asking the question - why am I doing what I'm doing? In this context, illusions have no connection with religious faith. True faith is always transcendental by nature and cannot be confirmed or denied through the body of facts and proofs deriving from the material world. Faith is a deeply individual process, and Juris Poškus knows this very well, leaving the area of Faith untouched. This is an absolute Otherness, which it is pointless to judge in any way. True, the film undoubtedly does speak of the secularisation of religion, of an attempt to draw into the outward expressions of faith the forms acceptable to the material world, as seen in Daniels' repeatedly declared link between Christianity and material welfare, and likewise by the incarnation of the spirit performances among the charismatic sects. It should be said that the Western world has never been particularly comfortable with radical breaks in the rationally explained paradigm of perception, such as true faith and art. Leaving analysis of this phenomenon for some major piece of writing, it should be mentioned only that with the increasing secularisation of everyday life, this question has come to the fore in the spheres of both religion and art. Thus, for example, the representatives of traditional religions are forced to plan how to emphasise their advantages, when they encounter the manifest miracles of the non-traditional denominations, while the transformation of art into a consumer product has created a whole industry of institutionalised art, whose initially conceived anti-commercial essence has changed into promotion of one particular theme, which does not, and cannot, have any connection with art, since its pre-aligned boundaries run counter to the essence of true art. Both faith and the process of creativity are indissolubly linked with trust in the Unknown, with openness both to oneself and to the surrounding world. In this regard, we may say with conviction that this has been Poškus' approach in creating this film. Relinquishing any previously programmed concepts, he has observed with interest, with an almost childlike view, the Otherness of two people, permitting himself to be transported into a region that can quite certainly be called the Unknown. As a result, a film has been created that was undoubtedly a revelation even for its creator, and, one hopes, for many a viewer too, if they have, with openness and love, approached the world of this film, and, most importantly, themselves. | |
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