Rating C｜DAU: Such a cruel social experiment should not exist

In 2009, some scholars met in Russia, including physicists, mathematicians, stage directors.

They came here for an event in DAU Institute, a project named after the last three letters of Soviet physicist Lev Landau's name. But what the DAU project valued was not Lev Landau's scientific achievements, but his eccentric personality.

And the uniqueness of this project has stunned the world.

The DAU project was led by Russian director and artist Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, who decided not to use actors and built a Soviet town in eastern Ukraine, recreating Soviet society in the 1950s, and invited 400 "actors" to live together here.

Participants must shed any items that do not belong to the era and sign a confidentiality agreement before entering. They used the old currency and spoke Russian of 1950s. In short, the participants felt like they had traveled back to the Soviet Union half a century ago.

These actors will live here from now on, and hidden cameras will record their activities. And these raw materials will be made into a DAU film series. In his plan, there will be 13 films released.

In 2020, the first film, DAU. Natasha, was selected for the main competition at the Berlinale and also won Silver Bear award that year.

In fact, The DAU has long been criticized for its real-life scenes of sexual abuse and violence, such as the actor being raped with a bottle, to which the director responded, "She was already a prostitute."

"You'll see more provocative and aggressive images in the film, and it will give you a completely different experience when you know it's real." – Ilya Khrjanovsky, the director.

After watching DAU. Natasha (2 hours) and DAU. Degeneratsiya (6 hours), I will share my full feelings about the series.

"Natasha": An unforgettable experience

The film DAU Natasha focuses on Natasha and Olga, two waitresses in the dining room of a Soviet research institute in the 1950s.We see them hosting scientists and police officers from research institutions during the day, while drinking at night.

The first novelty in this series is that the camera records the whole sex process between Natasha and a French scientist Luc. The experience is also very memorable when you see such scene in a hall that can accommodate thousands of people.

When I thought the film was just some life record, the twist caught me off guard

Natasha is suddenly taken to an interrogation room, tortured her about her relationship with Luc, and tortured by Vladimir, the head of the KGB – raped her with a bottle.

Please note that these are not acting, but what really happens in the shooting place, that is, all that violence and fear is real.

What kind of totalitarian rule is it that gradually drives people into such madness? Under the tremendous impact of the film, I almost walked out of the cinema as if I had lost my soul.

At the same time, I also have a question: if the audience are having difficulty recovering from the psychological trauma of the film, then what about the actors? What about Natasha, who was abused in the interrogation room?

her pain is not acting

At the press conference, director repeatedly explained that the actors had the freedom to leave the studio, and the camera was never hidden. It is their own choice to stay in the DAU world.

"Degeneration": pushing the boundaries of outrage

After watching "Natasha", I felt that this one might be just the tip of DAU universe. The main character of the project, the Soviet physicist Lev Landau, is still not mentioned in "Natasha" at all.

what will the other works be like? With great curiosity, I went to watch DAU: Degeneration, the second work of DAU series.

"DAU: Degeneration" is a six-hour film that intensively recreates the life of the Sovereign, including meetings organized by the agency and mysterious human experiments... it consisting of many complex scenes.

In these six hours, the film presented the depravity of human nature to the fullest.

The head of the KGB, Vladimir, who tortured Natasha in the last film, plays a bigger role in this movie. I saw many similarities of the dictator: power-obsessed, narcissistic and violent. He shaved the long-haired young man's head because he was unhappy with his dress. This scene is very familiar, right?

After the influence of KGB, people went from one extreme to the other, and in this isolated society, people began to become evil.

In fact, in the process of watching the film, my evaluation is good. Its description of the social system and human nature is too real and profound. In the real life of the actors, there is a sense of realism that cannot be achieved through performances that shocked me. I have never had such a viewing experience.

But I will never be able to forgive the scene near the end. It showed me pure evil, and it was all really happening.

The scene unfolded in this way: an American psychologist entered the institution to assess the psychology of the young people being tested. The group of youths had become an extremist group by this time, and tried to rape him. In the end, the violation did not succeed because others prevented it.

The American Psychologist Who Was Almost being raped

The youths must have felt unhappy and then went to the pigsty to get a pig. We saw that the pig's head was covered and its body was written with "shame". Suddenly, one of the youths picked up an axe to cut the pig's head off, and the pig was still struggling.

The restaurant worker went limp, and the rest of the crowd stood in astonished silence as they watched the youths tear the pig's leg off again.

The great physical and psychological discomfort came together at this point and overturned all my previous conclusions.

Sorry, I have no way to forgive.

The director claims that the abused actor can leave anytime, but why the pig can be abused? Where is your bottom line? I even wonder what the essence of this project is and what the director's motivation is. Is he really reflecting the violation, or is he allowing himself to become a God to satisfy his desire for control while filming this?

Contradictions in filming

After watching "DAU. Degeneration", I started to revisit the DAU from a new perspective.

First of all, it has gone beyond experimentation and really distorted the psyche of a group of people. These actors have modern values and lifestyles, but are distorted by this Soviet-style system.

They carry their own names but trap into the experiment, losing themselves and redefining themselves again.

When the border between truth and falsehood has been blurred, how will he/she react when being violated? Will you realize that you can escape at any time?

Admittedly, the director explained to the audience that they would communicate with the actors before filming to ensure that they know about the shooting schedule. The actors were not confined to the DAU institution. Natasha, for example, returned to her home in Kharkov every day after "getting off work".

Paradoxically, the director revealed in other interviews that the films were not scripted, but simply documented their lives and edited them into a film. The relationship between Natasha and Olga depicted in the film is their real relationship.

And some other reports have shown that many actors live in the project 24/7.

The actors' awareness of the camera is also a point of conflict.

During the filming, the cameras are visible, but the photographer shoots with a black cloth covering.

German cinematographer Jürgen Jürges mentioned in an interview: “Sometimes, I stand a meter away from a couple with my camera, and they argue with each other as if I'm not there.”

That is to say, perhaps the actors are already familiar with the camera, they do not feel that their "life" is being recorded, but are already integrated into this strange situation.

It is the attitude of the actors that makes me most suspicious. Natasha insisted at a press conference that she was "in control of her actions and has autonomy over her senses and emotions". But then I read the interview with the actor who played the American psychologist. He was so traumatized by the shoot that it's difficult to talk about what it was like.

He was almost raped in that scene. The "actors" who commit violence are real neo-Nazis invited by the director, including criminals who have been imprisoned for beating people up.

I think that the director, as the manipulator behind the scenes, probably won't admit that it is out of his control.

What is the future of DAU?

The social experiment did not end after the filming stopped.

The director was ambitious and ready to curate immersive art exhibitions in Berlin, Paris and London respectively.

In 2018, the DAU team came to Berlin. They were going to do something that challenged the German bottom line: rebuild the Berlin Wall.

They chose a neighborhood in the heart of Berlin to build a replica of the Berlin Wall that would give visitors an immersive experience of losing freedom during the Cold War.

This behavior was, of course, rejected by the government. After all, many people who lived through Cold War are still living with the trauma, not to mention creating it.

In early 2019, they came to Paris to reconfigure the world of DAU. As originally designed in Berlin, visitors must purchase a "visa" and surrender their cell phones when entering. The exhibition also features Soviet-era rooms and paraphernalia, and a 1:1 wax exhibit of film characters.

Handing over cell phones at the entrance of Paris exhibition

wax figure of DAU figure

Now the screening at the Berlinale has also accumulated much attention for the DAU project from all over the world. "DAU: Natasha" received the Award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement (Silver Bear for Cinematography) in the main competition, which created a huge controversy. However, it also gained attention for the launch of the remaining 11 films in the future.

Cinematographer Jürgen Jürges won the Silver Bear award

According to the director, in the future he will "build an experimental city of 5,000 people, everything in this city will be recorded, everything will be open and transparent".

Honestly, he will either go down in history, or be infamous, right?