Anti-Animation Textures of Eastern Europ

Ülo Pikkov Textures of Eastern European Animated Film
Dissertationes Academiae Artium Estoniae 25

Dissertationes Academiae Artium Estoniae 25
Ülo Pikkov
Anti-
Animation:
Textures of Eastern European
Animated Film
Doctoral thesis
Estonian Academy of Arts
2018
Ülo Pikkov Supervisior:
Prof. Raivo Kelomees
Anti-Animation: (Estonian Academy of Arts)
Textures of
Eastern European External reviewer:
Animated Film Prof. Robert Sowa
(Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow),
Doctoral thesis Michał Bobrowski PhD
Estonian Academy of Arts (Jagiellonian University)
2018
Opponent:
Prof. Robert Sowa
(Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow)
Public defence: 18.06.2018

(Tallinn)
English translation:
Eva Näripea
Copy editor:
Eva Näripea, Richard Adang
Design and layout:

Margus Tamm
Supporting instutions:
Cultural Endowment of Estonia,
Estonian Film Institute
Printed by: AS Pakett
Print run: 200
© Ülo Pikkov, 2018
ISBN 978-9949-594-61-0 (print)

ISBN 978-9949-594-62-7 (pdf)
ISSN 1736-2261
Table of contents
Introduction 9

1.1. About the dissertation
1.2. Points of departure
1.3. Sources and source criticism
1.4. Geographical scope
1.5. Thematic focus
1.6. Theoretical framework and terminology
1.7. Animation as a chronicle of its times
1.8. The artistic part of the dissertation
Summary of the
chapters 29

2.1. Dystopia and involuntary surrealism in
animated film
2.2. Surrealist sources of Eastern European
animation film
2.3. On links between caricatures and animated films
2.4. On the topics and style of Soviet animated films
2.5. Body Memory
Dystopia and
Involuntary
Surrealism in
Animated Film 41
3.1. Involuntary surrealism
3.2. Automatism
3.3. Duplications, repetitions and cycles
3.4. Compositing
3.5. Metaphysics
3.6. Oneirism
3.7. Woman as an abstract object
3.8. Conclusion
Surrealist Sources
of Eastern European
Animation Film 59
4.1. Introduction
4.2. The advent of surrealism
4.3. Surrealists and cinema
4.4. The surrealist essence of animation film
4.5. The consistency of surrealism
4.6. The uncanny as the measure of surrealism
in animation film
4.7. Who are considered surrealists by animation
film-makers?
4.8. The geography of surrealist animation
4.9. Conclusion
On Links between
Caricatures and
Animated Films
in communist
Eastern Europe 83
5.1. The nature of caricature
5.2. Caricatures start to move and turn into films
5.3. Developments of animated film in the Eastern Bloc
5.4. Aesopian language
5.5. Communist caricatures and cartoons as
visualised Aesopian dialectics
5.6. Peculiarities of Eastern European humour
5.7. Summary and contemporary situation
On Topics and
Style in Soviet
Animated Films 105
6.1. The Post-revolutionary period
6.2. The Stalin era
6.3. Visual form and style
6.4. The Khrushchev thaw
6.5. Animation industry in the Baltic republics
6.6. Brezhnev and stagnation
6.7. The positive effects of the planned economy
6.8. Animation, collective consciousness and
identity: between past and present
6.9. Gorbachev’s perestroika and the dissolution
of the Soviet Union
6.10. The image of woman in Soviet animated film
6.11. Conclusion
Body Memory 137

7.1. A Train to the Land of Fear: creating
Body Memory
7.2. Prof Richard Raskin’s interview (2014) with
Ülo Pikkov on Body Memory
7.3. A shot-by-shot breakdown of Body Memory
7.4. The shooting storyboard of Body Memory
7.5. Body Memory participation in festivals
7.6. Body Memory prizes and awards
Conclusions 201
Appendix 221

9.1. Apple Trees and Barbed Wire -
Estonian Memories of Soviet Occupation
in Body Memory
(Jakob Ladegaard)
9.2. Into What Future?
(Ruth Barton)
9.3. Perception of Sound in/as Body Memory
(Iben Have)
9.4. A Choreographic Analysis of Body Memory
(Yutian Wong)
9.5. Unravelling the Body Without Organs
in Body Memory
(Nicole Richter)
9.6. From concrete horror to symbolic significance
in Ülo Pikkov’s Body Memory
(Edvin Kau)
9.7. The Return of the Animated Dead in
Body Memory
(Vlad Dima)
Acknowledgements 262
Anti-Animation
Introduction
9
Introduction
1.1.
The purpose of my dissertation, Anti-Animation: Textures of Eastern

European Animated Film, is to provide an outline of the core elements
and characteristic features of Eastern European animated film between
the end of World War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989. From
the outset, my perspective is panoramic in its intention of mapping the
broader nature of Eastern European animated film. I aim to describe and
analyse its distinctive textures, i.e. characteristic structures, in terms of
industrial processes, authorial intentions, formal explorations, and various
flows of influence, exchange and interaction in the context of shifting
socio-political circumstances.
In this study, I have relied on several methods of data collection. Most

importantly, I have analysed autobiographies, artworks, texts and images,
as well as conducting interviews with key agents in the field. In content
analysis, I have prioritised authorial intention and the meanings of the
particular work as conceived by its author(s), considering the works
and their meanings in the spatio-temporal context that surrounded their
emergence. This dissertation is a product of inductive interpretation, a
qualitative research method.
The written part of my dissertation explores the development of – and

various conceptions related to – Eastern European animated film in the
framework of the region’s socio-political paradigm.
The title of the dissertation, Anti-Animation: Textures of Eastern

European Animated Film, is intentionally provocative, formulated in the
hope of stirring new discussions and debates on the topics it investigates.
By ‘anti-animation’ I mean all of the animated films produced under the
conditions of a totalitarian regime that, contrary to those made in the ‘free
world’, were shaped by the socialist command economy and political
censorship. One could say that anti-animations were made despite all of
the rules of logic.
10
Anti-Animation
The notion of anti-animation draws partly on Georg Griffin’s legendary

essay ‘Cartoon, Anti-Cartoon’, published in 1980, in which Griffin
describes animation as a ‘“naïve” fantasy’, contrasting it with anti-
animation as a ‘self-conscious examination of form and process’ (Griffin
1980: 197).
An animated film is not an isolated piece of audiovisual work, but part of

cultural production on a wider scale, directly related to various political,
economic and cultural aspects of a society. According to Yuri Lotman,
A film is part of the ideological struggles, culture and
art of its era. In these aspects it is related to numerous
aspects of life lying outside the text of the film, thus
giving rise to an entire series of meanings which are
often more important to a historian or a contemporary
than strictly aesthetic problems might be (Lotman
1976: 42).
Some of the following chapters have been published before as articles in

various academic journals and collections. Here they appear in an updated
form, accompanied by commentaries.
Body Memory (Keha mälu, Nukufilm, 2011), an animated film

accompanied by authorial annotation and documentation, forms the
practical part of this dissertation. Since its release, Body Memory has
been screened at more than 170 international film festivals and has earned
wide recognition and numerous awards. The breath of its distribution
and the myriad of commentaries it has inspired makes Body Memory a
good case study for examining how the trends described in the theoretical
part of this dissertation relate to actual practices. In order to provide a
more multifaceted account of Body Memory, a number of its analyses by
international experts have been reproduced as part of the dissertation.
11
Introduction
1.2.
By its very nature, animated film combines several art forms: a fact
that continues to pose challenges to any attempt to define its texture,
characteristic structure or ‘essence’. Most persistent is the question of
whether it belongs in the ‘category’ of film or in that of visual art. This,
in turn, has immediate ramifications for terminology. For example, the
emergence of surrealism in film is typically considered in relation to
the rise of cinematic impressionism, and both are frequently understood
as interlaced elements of the ‘French avant-garde of the 1920s’. In the
context of visual art, however, impressionism has a completely different
frame of reference (Aitken 2001: 85–87).
I examine animated film in firmly cinematic terms and hence rely on the
terminology of film studies. After all, during the Soviet era, animated film
undoubtedly belonged to the field of cinema: animations were produced
by state-funded film studios according to the rules and regulations devised
by ‘cinema committees’, governmental organisations that controlled
the Soviet film industry. At the same time, the majority of animation
artists were (and continue to be) trained in art schools, not film schools.
Hence, animated film is by nature, as well as in terms of the educational
background of its practitioners, a symbiosis of different disciplines.
This is also why art history remains a relevant frame of reference for the
discussions below.
(Re-)defining the texture and terminology of not only animated film but
film in general continues to be a challenging task, perhaps now more than
ever since the emergence and rapid development of digital technologies
have brought about a number of fundamental shifts in this field. For
example, Lev Manovich, one of today’s leading media theorists, has
suggested that in the digital age cinema ‘is no longer an indexical media
technology but, rather, a sub-genre of painting’ (Manovich 2016: 22, 42).
Thus, it appears that moving images, including animated film, are still in
search of their position among the visual arts.
12
Anti-Animation
Looking at film theoretically, my dissertation relies heavily on the auteur

theory, which emphasises the defining creative role and authority of a
film’s director both in the production process and with the other crew
members (Stam 2000: 83–110). ‘Auteur is the central creator of a film’s
meaning’ (Valkola 2015: 347).
At the same time, I am also interested in the position of animated film

in broader cultural and historical contexts. This introduces a dimension
of classical cultural studies to the dissertation, which, by drawing on
semiotics and other cultural theories, transcends the limits of strictly
medium-specific observations. One of the recurring themes of the
dissertation is the cultural-political history of Eastern Europe, and its
relations with and reflections in animated films of the region. In the
introduction to their recent edited volume, Obsession. Perversion.
Rebellion: Twisted Dreams of Central European Animation, Olga
Bobrowska and Michał Bobrowski have insightfully proposed that
the apparent simplicity and attractiveness of animation were exploited
by Eastern European animation artists (as well as by their Western
colleagues) in order ‘to mock the social and political reality’ (Bobrowska
& Bobrowski 2016: 9).
This dissertation focuses on the period between the end of World

War II (1945) and the fall of the Berlin Wall, i.e. the end of the Cold
War (1989), an era that has been described as ‘post-war’ or ‘Soviet’.
While concentrating on the socialist period, I have also analysed some
authors and trends before and after this time frame, in order to provide
comparisons and a more nuanced interpretation. It is also important
to emphasise that the Soviet period has been typically divided into
shorter eras, such as the repressive years of Stalinism, the Khrushchev
‘thaw’, stabilisation/stagnation under Brezhnev’s rule and beyond, and
perestroika, each of them characterised by slightly different sets of limits
and rules in terms of ideological surveillance and political constraints
on creative freedom. Despite these fluctuations, the post-war Eastern
European animated film can still be considered a relatively constant, state-
funded and carefully controlled artistic ‘ecosystem’.
The attentive reader will notice that the emphasis of this dissertation is
mainly on cultural, political and economic developments in the Soviet
Union. This is in part due to the dominant role of the Soviet Union in the
region, but it also reflects my own personal experience and background
as someone who was born and spent his formative years on the periphery
13
Introduction
of the USSR. The importance of the wider socio-cultural environment on

the work – and its results – of researchers of art has long been established.
For instance, Henk Borgdorff has aptly observed that
Artworks and artistic actions acquire their meaning
in interchange with relevant environments. Research
in the arts will remain naive unless it acknowledges
and confronts this embeddedness and situatedness in
history, in culture (society, economy, everyday life) as
well as in the discourse on art (Borgdorff 2010: 56).
1.3.
Careful consideration of sources is an essential aspect of any historical

study. The period under examination in this dissertation is accessible to
today’s researchers only through various ‘indirect’ sources, rather than
first-hand experience: historical records, personal memoirs, oral accounts
by its witnesses, as well as the animated films that form the main focus of
this dissertation. How to interpret these sources? What sources in general
are available for researching Eastern European animated films and how
representative are they?
Due to the methodology of ‘research in the arts’ and ‘art practice as

research’, I examine animation films as the primary sources and the rest
of the information as the secondary sources of the dissertation.
Some suggest that it is impossible to make sense of the Soviet period by

relying only on written (and published) sources, that these sources never
reveal the ‘double meanings’ typical of the era and that the Soviet times
can be fully comprehended only by people who experienced them and
their realities first-hand (Annuk 2003: 19).
14
Anti-Animation
While I do not fully subscribe to this opinion, I still consider it valid to

a certain extent. Hence, as well as due to the relative scarcity of written
sources, I have prioritised interviews with and commentaries provided
by animation artists active during the period of my study as vital sources
of information. In addition, having been born in the Soviet Union and
witnessed its realities first-hand, I am confident in my ability to evaluate
my sources with the necessary receptiveness and rigour.
The animated films under examination here can also be regarded
as indirect, secondary historical sources that might not be objective
portrayals of reality, but still provide material for gleaning observations
about the nature of the times and conditions in which they were produced.
To study the Soviet, i.e. the socialist, era today means analysing it from
a contemporary, post-socialist perspective. Taking on this task, one
has to consider which analytical categories and concepts, theories and
approaches are the most appropriate and the most productive. Would a
postcolonial frame of reference be a productive tool for investigating the
Soviet period?
The answer is yes, according to David Chioni Moore. In his 2001

article ‘Is the Post- in Postcolonial the Post- in Post-Soviet? Toward
a Global Postcolonial Critique’, Moore was one of the first to suggest
that the concept of postcolonialism, with its characteristic theorisation
of language, economics, politics, resistance and liberation, was indeed
an effective instrument for describing the condition of the countries that
used to form the Eastern bloc (Moore 2001: 115). He argues that the
post-World War II Soviet expansion into the Baltic countries, Poland,
Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Czechoslovakia, as well as the Russo-
Soviet domination over these territories until 1989/1991 fit the classic
criteria of colonialism: a ‘lack of sovereign power, restrictions on travel,
military occupation, lack of convertible specie, a domestic economy
ruled by the dominating state, and forced education in the colonizer’s
tongue’ (Moore 2001: 121). Encouraged by Moore’s observations, a
number of contemporary researchers have conceptualised the hegemony
of the Soviet Union in post-World War II Eastern Europe in colonial and
postcolonial terms (e.g. Mazierska et al. 2014: 6).
15
Introduction
Films and their authors are inseparable from a particular spatio-temporal

environment. The meaning and reception of different images change over
time, which means that an analysis of any film has to be accompanied
by an investigation of its broader socio-cultural context. According to
Jarmo Valkola, ‘No film has ever been produced in an isolated world that
consists only of the film crew and their equipment. [---] Film is shaped by
contemporary individuals who are affected by the surrounding time and
space’ (Valkola 2015: 456).
One might ask if such a broad approach, combining historical,

philosophical, phenomenological, cognitive and aesthetic angles, is
indeed necessary for studying, analysing and theorising about animated
film. In my opinion, it is unavoidable since animation, as well as
audiovisual culture in general, is shaped by various cultural, political
and social impulses. Only the widest possible analytical spectrum makes
it possible to achieve at least a certain degree of objectivity. In contrast
to the research objects in hard sciences, cultural objects yield poorly to
quantitative evaluation and a broad-based analysis is fundamental for
rendering objective results.
My study contributes to the still rather small body of surveys and histories
of animated film, in particular of Eastern European animation. This rather
conspicuous lacuna has been recognised, for instance, by Sonja Bahun,
who appropriately observes that,
Surprisingly, given the amount of public funding and
support they received in each of the countries under
consideration, the Soviet and Central and Eastern
European production of animated films regularly
tends to be sidelined in the discussions of cinema and
ideology in the region (Bahun 2014: 182).
16
Anti-Animation
1.4.
In this study, ‘Eastern Europe’ refers to those European countries that

after World War II shifted to the Soviet sphere of influence. Hence, the
region is defined politically rather than geographically. In academic
literature, this set of countries is also designated as the Eastern bloc,
Communist bloc, Soviet bloc, countries of the Warsaw Pact, satellite
countries of the USSR, etc. Most frequently, they are now referred to as
post-communist countries.
Piotr Piotrowski uses the term ‘East-Central Europe’ to describe the

part of Europe located ‘between the Iron Curtain and the Soviet Union’,
which, ‘due to the agreement signed between the Western powers and
the Soviet Union at Yalta’, was under the more or less strict control of
the Soviet Union until 1989 (Piotrowski 2009: 7). In her Cinema of the
Other: The Industry and the Artistry of East Central European Film,
Dina Iordanova describes the region as ‘the “other” Europe’, alongside
the more common labels of ‘Eastern Bloc’ and ‘East Central Europe’
(Iordanova 2003: 5).
For the purposes of this dissertation, the following geopolitical entities are
considered part of Eastern Europe: the Soviet Union, Poland, the German
Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria,
Albania and Yugoslavia.
The volume and quality of the animated film industry varied greatly in
different Eastern European countries. Inevitably, the following discussions
concentrate on the production and processes of the most significant and
active animation industries of the region. It is also important to emphasise
that, at times, these countries demonstrated vast variations in terms
of creative freedom, especially in relation to political and ideological
pressure exerted on animation artists (for example, in terms of to what
degree adherence to the paradigm of socialist realism was compulsory).
Despite variations, however, Eastern European animation in general
can be regarded as a product of largely similar creative processes. For
instance, while a number of unofficial or underground art movements
managed to gain some ground in spite of censorship, no comparable
practice of unofficial animated film emerged in Eastern Europe because
17
Introduction
the entire film industry was centralised and controlled by the state.
Unlike in live-action film-making, amateur practices remained extremely
marginal in animated form: (in part) due to the technological complexity
of the form, animation was simply not the main focus of film amateurs,
and the distribution of those amateur animations that were made was very
limited. Eastern Europe lacked non-conformist or unofficial animated
film; even the banned, censored and ‘shelved’ animations were funded
and produced within the state-supported system.
While the cultural traditions of different Eastern European countries may

be rather different, their largely similar political circumstances provide a
sound basis for analysing them comparatively. The following observations
pertain to Eastern European animated film in a more general sense:
• state-regulated production: the production of films, as
well as the industrial infrastructure, was funded and
ideologically controlled by state authorities;
• subject matter of the films: the narratives and characters
had to follow a certain ideology and express a certain
morality; films were often propagandistic and drew on
folklore and fairy tales or depicted certain historical
events;
• audiovisual style of the films: socialist realism and
vernacular art initially constituted the dominant stylistic
regime, which was later diversified by numerous
individual modes of auteur expression.
The aim of this dissertation is to highlight and analyse general

developments, currents and trends across Eastern Europe. This kind
of regional approach, which considers Eastern Europe as an integrated
whole, instead of focussing on film histories of individual nation-states,
is endorsed by Dina Iordanova, who in her Cinema of the Other Europe
(2003) approaches Eastern Europe as a common cultural space, as well
as by Ewa Mazierska (e.g. 2010: 14), the principal editor of Studies in
Eastern European Cinema (Routledge), a journal that has provided a
platform for a number of articles that are highly relevant to this study.
Drawing on this understanding, my dissertation follows the regional

path regarding the developments of post-war Eastern European animated
film as an integral system permeated by the politics of the era. After all,
Eastern Europe constituted an integrated cultural space that functioned
as a single market for the films produced across it by film-makers who
18
Anti-Animation
interacted in a professional regional network of film education, events,

festivals, publications etc. In Iordanova’s words,
The countries in the region have continuously shared
common values and traditions in literature and fine
and performing arts, as well as in wider tradition of
the role of critical and diasporic intelligentsia within
public discourse. For the long years of Communist rule,
intellectuals from the region were interested in each
other’s spiritual quests, reading each other’s novels,
watching each other’s plays and films. Hence the
symbiotic and synergetic phenomenon of East Central
European intelligentsia and their struggle to establish
the idea of Central Europe as a shared cultural sphere,
albeit one under constant revision and marked by
occasional divisions (Iordanova 2003: 12).
That said, it is equally important to keep in mind that the control of

the Soviet Union over different Eastern European countries varied in
intensity, ranging from military occupation (e.g. in the Baltic countries)
to indirect political-economic patronage (e.g. in Yugoslavia). Other
dissimilarities can also be observed; for instance, while Soviet authorities
typically discouraged religious practice, the Catholic Church continued to
play a prominent role in Polish society, forcing the secular authorities to
‘accept’ it.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989, the concept of the ‘return
to Europe’ quickly gained currency, and the understanding of Eastern
Europe as a single, integral cultural space was rejected in favour of
individual attempts to re-orient local culture(s) to Western European
traditions. The ‘return to Europe’ was a comprehensive pursuit, ranging
from culture to politics and economics. Liberated from decades of
isolation from and opposition to Western Europe, Eastern Europeans
were keen to embrace Western ideals and standards, and to leave behind
their common past. However, while variety can be observed now (as
before) amongst different Eastern European countries, they continue to
share certain similarities in their cultural, political and economic patterns
of development. And due to their shared socialist past, they will most
likely remain linked to the concept of ‘Eastern Europe’, at least for the
foreseeable future.
19
Introduction
1.5.
What are Eastern European films ‘about’? Is there a single theme or

narrative thread common to Eastern European animated film? Do Eastern
European animation artists have a similar story to tell?
In the broadest terms, it can be suggested that Eastern European films

– as with cinema and culture in general – are ‘about’ looking for and
preserving collective identities. As observed by Iordanova, ‘it is certain
that the films dealing with issues of history, memory and morality make
up the core of East Central European film’ (Iordanova 2003: 2).
However, due to its particular cultural and political context, Eastern

European animated film is characterised by a number of peculiarities,
such as a heavy reliance on Aesopian language and frequent surrealist
references, as well as strong pessimist undercurrents and recurrent
dystopian sensibilities. These idiosyncrasies can perhaps be explained by
the pressure exerted on Eastern European animation artists by political
censorship and a sense of instability that forced film-makers to rely in
their works on a ‘safety net’ of intricate double meanings, keeping open
multiple avenues of interpretation.
Shaped by the complex history and unique cultural situation of the region,
the fascinating tradition of Eastern European animated film holds a
significant position in the world heritage of animation. By analysing it, we
will hopefully develop our understanding of the region’s history, as well
as of the condition of its inhabitants.
20
Anti-Animation
1.6.
The developments of art history have influenced my analysis primarily

in terms of ‘vertical’ art history, understood as a hierarchical approach to
art history centred around Western metropolises, such as Paris, Berlin and
later New York. In this understanding of art history, Western (European)
art gives shape to the grand narrative and grammar of European art. In
Eastern Europe, the standing and reputation of animation artists depended
heavily on their prominence in the West, exemplified, for instance, by
their success at Western film festivals. Moreover, Eastern European
animation auteurs often drew inspiration from various discourses, styles
and practices of Western art movements. Importantly, artists adopted these
impulses individually, frequently in opposition to official cultural policies.
Hence, Western ideologies continued to influence the Eastern European
cultural sphere despite its apparent isolation.
The understanding that Western European art is the universal template

of ‘true’ art has been challenged from numerous perspectives. Indeed,
nowadays it is more appropriate to talk about cultural networks and
global culture formed by the symbiosis of different regions. The idea
of integrated animation networks is also the starting point for this
dissertation.
Due to its technology, animated film is a relatively recent art form, one
that was born in the wake of cinema and has developed in parallel with
it. At the same time, animated film relies on and conveys various ancient
traditions and practices. While the 20th century provided favourable
conditions for its proliferation, animated film has retained a firm
connection with its mythic roots (Pikkov 2010: 12, 17, 19, 36).
The rapid development of digital technologies has turned animation into

a widespread medium and a universal technique. It can be found across
the entire spectrum of contemporary audiovisual culture. Indeed, as Lev
Manovich has aptly observed, ‘[b]orn from animation, cinema pushed
21
Introduction
animation to its periphery, only in the end to become one particular case
of animation’ (Manovich 2001: 302). Paul Wells further details this in the
‘post-digital’ era,
…animation may be understood in three distinct
ways – traditional animation (Cartoon, Drawn, Cut-
Out, Collage, 3D Puppets, 3D Clay, Experimental
techniques etc.), computer animation or ‘digimation’
(Computer applications and processes to ‘affect’ and
‘effect’ performances and environments in quasi-
cartoonal form or visual effects), and as an interface
with traditional ‘live action’ (simplistically defined
here, as the photo-recording of ‘theatrical’ performance
and real, material environments) (Wells 2012: 10).
Here, the terms ‘animation’ and ‘animated film’ are primarily understood
in a traditional sense since the period under consideration largely
preceded the ‘digital turn’, when the animated form, in various traditional
or prevailing technical modes, was typically used for cinematic
storytelling.
Animated film is one category or type of animation. On the most general

level, there are two types of animated film: two-dimensional (2D) and
three-dimensional (3D). 2D animation includes such techniques as
hand-drawn animation, cut-outs or silhouettes, sand animation, direct
animation (animated films drawn directly on film) etc. 3D animation is
comprised of such categories as model or puppet animation, 3D computer
animation, pixilation, time-lapse etc. (Pikkov 2010: 18). However, the list
of animation techniques is always incomplete, as the existing technologies
can be combined in numerous ways and new technologies keep emerging.
In a sense, the work of each author is unique in terms of both style and
technique. However, for the sake of simplicity, I have chosen to rely only
on the traditional, prevailing terminology of animation techniques.
Animation essentially involves the presentation of still images in a

manner that creates an illusion of motion in viewers’ minds (Pikkov 2010:
14). The Encyclopaedia Britannica defines animation as ‘the art of making
inanimate objects appear to move’.1 According to the 1980 statutes of
ASIFA (Association International du Film d’Animation), ‘[t]he art of
1 https://www.britannica.com/art/animation
(accessed 26 March 2017).
22
Anti-Animation
animation is the creation of moving images through the manipulation

of all varieties of techniques apart from live action methods’.2 Norman
McLaren, the noted animation director and theoretician proposed that ‘[a]
nimation is not the art of drawings that move but the art of movements
that are drawn; what happens between each frame is much more important
than what exists on each frame’ (cited in Furniss 1998: 5). Yuri Lotman
has drawn particular attention to animation as a specific system: ‘[T]he
animated cartoon is not a variety of the feature cinema but represents a
quite independent form of art, with its own artistic language, opposed in
many ways to the language of the feature cinema or the documentary.’
According to Lotman, ‘[t]he basic property of the language of animation
is that it operates with a sign of a sign’ (Lotman 1981: 36–37).
As the definitions of animation offered by ASIFA and McLaren

demonstrate, animated film is frequently understood in terms of
movement and generating the illusion of it. However, Jan Švankmajer,
one of the leading Eastern European animation artists, has taken a step
further, suggesting that animation ‘isn’t about making inanimate objects
move, it is about bringing them to life’ (Hames 2008: 140).
Under totalitarian conditions, Eastern European animated film turned out

to be something much more significant than merely a practice for creating
the illusion of movement: it became an inseparable part of local identity
that conveyed significant shared meanings to broad audiences, which
granted animation a unique status. While elsewhere in the world animated
film tends to be regarded as belonging to the field of entertainment and
popular culture, in Eastern Europe it dwells firmly in the sphere of high
culture, together with literature, theatre, music and other cinematic forms.
In a way, animated film (and especially puppet animation), with its

manipulation of characters that are entirely at the mercy of film-makers,
is where the essence of totalitarian society comes to the fore most
expressively. A number of Eastern European animation artists have
accentuated these themes in their works, for instance Jiří Trnka’s The
Hand (Ruka, 1965) and Rao Heidmets’s Theatre Papa Carlo (Papa Carlo
teater, 1988).
2 http://www.asifa.net/who-we-are/statutes/
(accessed 26 March 2017).
23
Introduction
In addition, my reflections on Eastern European animated film will draw

on critical theory, in particular the idea of the culture industry as theorised
by the Frankfurt School (Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Herbert
Marcuse and Jürgen Habermas). Of special importance in the context of
my dissertation is their opinion that institutions, in particular the culture
industries that produce cultural texts and control the mass-mediated
flows of information, shape and manipulate large masses of individuals.
According to Horkheimer and Adorno,
The enslavement to nature of people today cannot
be separated from social progress. The increase in
economic productivity which creates the conditions for
a more just world also affords the technical apparatus
and the social groups controlling it a disproportionate
advantage over the rest of the population (Horkheimer,
Adorno 2002: xvii).
The Eastern European animation industry, funded and centrally controlled

by the state, was ideologically motivated and constituted a significant
part of the political propaganda machine. As such it is an example par
excellence of the culture industry as theorised by the Frankfurt School.
Compared to media and film theory, the amount of research and scholarly
literature in animation studies is still rather modest. Among other
studies, my dissertation relies most heavily on Giannalberto Bendazzi’s
Animation: A World History (2016), Yuri Lotman’s Semiotics of Cinema
(1976), Lev Manovich’s The Language of New Media (2001) and Paul
Wells’ Understanding Animation (1998; see Wells 2005). In addition, I
have conducted a series of interviews with animation artists, giving them
a prominent voice in this dissertation.
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1.7.
Animated films are often narrated by means of allegory. I earlier

suggested that the first animation theorist was Plato, whose Allegory of
the Cave captures perfectly the crux of animation (Pikkov 2010: 31). In
his famous allegory presented in the Republic (Πολιτεία, c. 380 BCE),
Plato likened the human condition to the situation of prisoners chained
in a cave. The only reality the inhabitants of the cave know consists of
shadows cast upon the walls in front of them. However, the real things
(‘Forms’ or ‘Ideas’ according to Plato) that cast those shadows are
actually outside of the cave. The ‘Ideas’, not the shadows cast by them,
constitute the highest, most fundamental reality: one that is not accessible
through sensation of the material world, but through intellectual
reasoning.
Essentially, animated film is the inversion of the Allegory of the Cave.

People see and hear the world of ideas on the screen because every
element of the film is an idea of something (a ‘bearer of meaning’
according to Béla Balázs,3 or ‘sign’ according to Lotman4). This is the
world outside Plato’s cave. Moreover, in our minds the ideas presented
in animation become related to certain experiences. Thus, different
experiences of the world can result in different interpretations of a film;
for example, adults and children arrive at contrasting readings of the same
film since their experiences of the world are dissimilar (Pikkov 2010:
129).
3 The famous film theorist Béla Balázs argues in his

Der sichtbare Mensch, oder, Die Kultur des Films
(Leipzig, 1924) that ‘in film every sign is a bearer
of meaning, everything becomes symbolic in film’
(cited in Lukkarila 1991: 163).
4 ‘Every image on the screen is a sign, that is, it has
meaning, it carries information’ (Lotman 1976: 31).
25
Introduction
Animated film functions as a chronicle of its time. While, in terms of

technology, an animation is an audiovisual work that relies on generating
an illusion of movement of inanimate objects, it is not merely a piece
of aesthetic form; it forms a part of a larger cultural structure. Animated
film is cultural text, a source of social knowledge and information.
Furthermore, animated film can be understood as a structured portrayal of
its time.
It is equally important to emphasise that by scrutinising animated films we

arrive at a better understanding of the social and human condition. After
all, the primary aim of visual culture is to represent our existence; and by
analysing animated film we also enhance our knowledge of ourselves.
Lotman has suggested that ‘[c]inematography is a teaching mechanism.

It not only provides information, it also teaches us how to extract
it’ (Lotman 1976: 96). Hence, animated films teach us how to better
understand ourselves: one only has to be interested and active enough.
1.8.
The practice-based component of this dissertation, which complements

and interacts with the written part, is the animated film Body Memory
(Keha mälu, 2011). My own artistic experiences, resulting in this film,
as well as the process of formulating my authorial position, have been
crucial for describing and arriving at a better understanding of the works
of other authors, as well as of the various processes and contexts related
to them.
Today, art practice has become an increasingly legitimate research tool,

and such concepts as ‘research in the arts’, ‘art practice as research’ or
‘research in and through the arts’ have gained more and more currency.
Henk Borgdorff, a leading theorist of artistic research, has suggested that
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Art practice qualifies as research when its purpose is

to broaden our knowledge and understanding through
an original investigation. It begins with questions
that are pertinent to the research context and the art
world, and employs methods that are appropriate to
the study. The process and outcomes of the research
are appropriately documented and disseminated to the
research community and to the wider public. (Borgdorff
2006: 16)
My film, accompanied by the necessary documentation (the description

of its making, technical metadata, contextual information, analyses,
illustrations, photos etc.), and the written part of the dissertation constitute
an integral piece of artistic research that aims to make a significant
original contribution to the earlier, mostly theoretical-historical, body of
research on Eastern European animated film.
27
28
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Summary
of the
chapters
29
Summary of the chapters
2.1.
The first chapter of the dissertation analyses the emergence and

development of dystopian sensibilities and involuntary surrealism in
animated film.
Compared to live-action narrative cinema, which creates dystopias mainly

by means of staged fantasies, animated film works exactly the other way
around: dystopia is typically based on realism. An animated film that
breaks with its essential paradigm of fantasy and strives to represent
reality or depict a documentary plot produces a dystopian view of the
world.
Today, surrealism has become understood as something broader and

more general, existing quite independently of the original birth of the
surrealist artistic movement, and its initial central figures, in the 1920s.
Also, in addition to intentional surrealism the appearance of ‘involuntary
surrealism’ has been detected (Hammond 1978; Richardson 2006).
Involuntary surrealism emerges when the author of a work of art did not
have the intention of producing a surrealist work or practising surrealism
but nevertheless the audience has acknowledged the work as surrealist.
Relatively free to experiment and to develop various auteur techniques,
Eastern European animation artists produced a remarkable number
of films that feature prominent elements of dystopia and involuntary
realism. In contrast to Western Europe, surrealism continued to hold
currency among Eastern European artists after World War II, becoming an
expression of underground thought and the spirit of protest.
This chapter is based on an article of the same title that first appeared in
Fantasmagoria. Un secolo (e oltre) di cinema d’animazione, an edited
volume published by Marsilio Editori in 2017 (Pikkov 2017).
30
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2.2.
The second chapter of the dissertation charts the terrain of Eastern

European surrealist animation and its authors.
Surrealism appeared on the global cultural map after World War I on the
initiative and under the leadership of the French writer André Breton.
Initially advocated by poets and writers, surrealist ideas soon spread to
the world of visual art. The heyday of surrealism as an art movement
was the inter-war period, yet it has retained its importance to the present.
Surrealism is not a style in the narrow sense, but rather an authorial
world-view and attitude, although even its creators and practitioners
were unable to define it completely. Hence, it was up to the surrealists
themselves to define who was a surrealist and who was not. Similarly,
this chapter takes a cue from the self-image of particular animation artists
when it proceeds to define and evaluate the nature of surrealist animated
film according to the testimonies of film-makers. I interviewed a number
of animation artists whose works have been regarded as surrealist, starting
with Jan Švankmajer, one of the most distinguished contemporary Eastern
European surrealists. I then interviewed the Quay brothers, Jerzy Kucia,
Igor Kovalyov, Priit Pärn, Raoul Servais and a number of other significant
figures. Every interview provided new information on surrealist animation
artists, leading to additional interviews. I asked the film-makers what, in
their opinions, was the nature of surrealism and how it emerged in their
works, as well as who else they considered to be surrealist animation
artists. Based on the interviews and my analyses, a ‘map’ of surrealism
in animated film was formed. In socialist Eastern Europe, surrealist
sympathies often communicated a certain statement: it was a form of
protest expressing opposition to official cultural politics.
31
The second chapter was initially published as an article in Baltic Screen

Media Review (Pikkov 2013).
2.3.
The third chapter examines the special relationship between animated film
and caricature. A number of prominent animation artists have been active
on both fronts, and in both media their works feature a plethora of coded
messages.
Socialist Eastern European animated film enjoyed steady state funding but
was strictly censored in terms of both content and form. Because of this,
Eastern European animated films often relied on double-coded Aesopian
language. The prominence of caricaturesque animated films in Eastern
Europe was also facilitated by the proliferation of humour magazines,
which provided an important platform for the still-image works of
animation artists. In addition, the enormous popularity of anecdotes
and ‘street jokes’ in totalitarian society prepared fertile ground for the
appearance of numerous caricaturesque animated films.
This chapter is based on a paper presented at Animation between Arts, a

conference organised by Ca’Foscari University of Venice in 2015.
32
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2.4.
The fourth chapter of the dissertation provides a survey of the most

common topics of Soviet animation and outlines its major stylistic
trajectories. Soviet animated film emerged and materialised in synch with
the fluctuations of the region’s political climate and was directly shaped
by it. A number of trends and currents of Soviet animation also pertain to
other Eastern European countries. For, as Dina Iordanova has said,
Between 1945 and 1989 ... the development of these
countries was ... dictated by Soviet policies in the
spheres of economics and culture. [---] Whatever
happened in the Soviet Union, directly influenced the
cultural climate in the countries of the Eastern Bloc,
and often events in the USSR were replicated in the
Eastern Bloc (such as the ‘Thaw’ that followed the
demystification of the cult of Stalin’s personality in the
late 1950s or the stagnation of the Brezhnev period)
(Iordanova 2003: 20–21).
However, it is also true that the cultural elite of the satellite states often
enjoyed a higher degree of artistic freedom than did their peers in the
Soviet Union, for example in terms of the extent to which adhering to the
tenets of socialist realism was compulsory. Also, the entire Soviet Union
cannot be measured with the same yardstick, because animated films were
produced in a number of different studios and in various Soviet Socialist
Republics, where the local circumstances affected both the industrial
practices and regulated the proverbial length of the leash. The smaller
republics in particular, such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, stood
out for animated works that were sometimes much more ideologically
complicated than the films produced in Moscow, reflecting either
33
intentional political digression or the recklessness of their authors.

This chapter was initially published as an article in Volume 4 of Baltic
Screen Media Review (Pikkov 2016).
2.5.
This chapter provides my authorial position in relation to Body Memory
and documents the inception and production processes of this film.
I see myself primarily as an animated film director and artist. As an

author, I am fascinated by the interface between animated films and real-
life events, by animated film as a collective reflection of society, and by
the opportunity to examine society and different historical periods via
animated film. I am interested in using the animated form to investigate,
and come to terms with, memories, dreams, ordeals and traumas. For me,
animated film provides a platform to re-create and document the past. The
medium also serves as a tool for meditation and self-discovery.
Hence I find myself returning to such topics as deportations and terror, as

seen in Body Memory, Empty Space (Tühi ruum, 2016) and Letting Go (in
production). I have also been drawn to certain personal items and objects
directly related to a particular story, and have used them as a connecting
link between films and real people and events, as in Body Memory, Tick-
Tack (Tik-Tak, 2015) and ZEBRA (2015).
The most important criterion for evaluating an animated film is, in my

opinion, the degree to which it affects its author personally. The director
as the author of the film, and her/his authorial position, is inseparable
from the film. Over the course of my directorial career of two decades,
I have used almost all of the most common animation techniques. I am
convinced that each animated narrative requires a specific technique, and
that the technique and the form are determined by the story.
34
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I continue to be fascinated and challenged by various experimental

techniques, most importantly direct animation (drawing directly on film).
I have applied this technique on several occasions, as exemplified by
Dialogos (2008), The End (2015), Re-cycling Project (2014) and Zebra
(2015).
Body Memory, the animated film presented here as part of my doctoral

dissertation, was produced by Nukufilm in 2011. The film examines
Stalinist repression and deportations: one of the most tragic periods of
Estonian history. The associative narration, reconstruction of and struggle
between various realities renders the film essentially abstract. During the
pre-production process, I noted in my journal (17 January 2010):
Snow, bare trees, the waste revealed as the snow
melts: all of this needs to be natural, just as offered
by nature. It would be conceptually misguided to
use contemporary film techniques in order to create
artificial snow, artificial trees: an artificial March that
would hide its virtuality from audiences. Sometimes
cinema, a great illusion by nature, requires the natural
as a contrast to animated sequences that portray
metaphysical body memory. The final episode of the
film, with its natural quality, refers to the documentary
origin of cinema. [---] The last episode, technologically
standing in opposition to the rest of the film, serves
to connect the non-rational memory of the body with
history.
Indeed, one of the initial ideas of Body Memory was to bring together
different worlds. This led to a combination of live-action footage and
animated sequences that sought to express the inevitable interdependence
and interplay of the past and the present, the mythic and the real world.
Another important point of departure was the bodily experience of these

historical events. Despite not having an immediate relationship with
Stalinist repression and deportations due to my age, evoking a sense of
intimate, bodily experience was extremely important to me. In 2011, I
wrote in the initial synopsis of the film,
The body remembers more than we can expect and
imagine. It remembers the sorrow and pain of our
predecessors. Hence, each body holds all the stories
35
in the world. Our bodies keep alive the stories of our

parents and grandparents, as well as of their ancestors.
But how far back is it possible to go in bodily memory?
Can memories and traumatic experiences be passed on to successive

generations?
My aim in the film was to scrutinise the past by means of mediating an

unconscious experience (body memory), not by means of interpreting
history. In this context, body memory can also be seen as cultural
memory, social memory or collective remembrance, which harks back to
the topic of myth and mythology.
John Halas and Joy Batchelor, legendary British animation artists,

have stated: ‘If it is the live action film’s job to present physical reality,
animated film is concerned with metaphysical reality – not how things
look, but what they mean’ (Wells 2005: 11).
The animated film presented here as part of my dissertation has given

me an opportunity to consider the questions and themes examined in the
written part of the dissertation, not only as an observer and researcher
but also as an author and animation artist. My own artistic experience
and the need to define my position as an author have helped me to
better understand and describe the works of other authors, as well as the
processes and contexts related to them. Not only the production of the
film itself but also its subsequent distribution and the critical feedback it
has received have provided invaluable insights into the creative processes
of animation film-making.
Body Memory has been screened at more than 170 international animation
film festivals and has received over 30 international awards.
36
Anti-Animation
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Hammond, Paul (ed.) 1978. The Shadow and Its Shadow: Surrealist
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elokuvateoriansa. Oulu: Pohjoinen.
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MIT Press.
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Theorizing 21st-Century Film. Eds. Shane Denson, Julia Leyda.
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Pikkov, Ülo 2010. Animasophy: Theoretical Writings on the Animated

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Dystopia
and
Involuntary
Surrealism
in Animated
Film
41
Dystopia and Involuntary Surrealism in Animated Film
From very early on, two conventions, a dichotomy of styles, developed in

cinema – the realism of the Lumière brothers and the fantastic renderings
of Georges Méliès. Animation, with its non-realistic stories, characters
and movements, has commonly been regarded as drawing on Méliès’s
tradition, while realism has been reseved for the documentary realm.
Invention of fantasies and utopian universes has gradually become a
standard for animated film that has become associated with irreality,
rejection of the laws of physics, antigravity, strange characters, bizarre
environs etc. Mainly due to the immense popularity of Disney and the
animated utopias for which his studio advocated throughout the ‘century
of cinema’, the fictional world of fantasy has become an integral part
of the animated film. The development of utopian fantasy worlds has
gradually become the essense of animation. Compared to live-action
narrative cinema that creates utopias mainly by means of staged fantasies,
animated film works exactly the other way around – its dystopia is based
on realism. An animated film that breaks with its essential paradigm of
fantasy and strives to represent reality or depict a documentary plot is at
the same time producing a dystopian view of the world.
In 1912, Ladislav Starevitch (1882–1965), an animation artist

of Polish descent, makes his The Cameraman’s Revenge (Miest
kinomatograficheskovo operatora). Starevitch uses dead insects in the
film, replacing their legs with wires so that they can be animated. The
Bug Trainer (Vabzdžių dresuotojas, 2008), a biographical documentary on
Starevitch, explains that the animated insects came across so life-like that
even the film critics of the time thought that it is possible to train them
to perfectly obey the director’s instructions and to make them perform
in an orderly manner. It is exactly the elements of realism that make The
Cameraman’s Revenge an untraditional animation and that introduce a
sense of dystopia.
Animated film evokes dystopia primarily by giving a ‘life’ to real events,

things and objects. The technique that makes most use of ready-made
objects is puppet animation and Eastern Europe is the region particularly
known for dystopian puppet animations. Jiří Trnka’s Hand (Ruka, 1965)
is a characteristic example, as are Jan Švankmajer’s and Mati Kütt’s films
that throw a new, metaphysical light on ordinary, ready-made objects.
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Similar decontextualisation of ready-mades and their presentation in a

way that their connotational meanings derive from their own materiality
is also typical to the practice of surrealists: ‘Surrealism supercharged
objects, endowing them with energy, autonomy and life’ (Leslie 2004:
91).
Jan Švankmajer has noted that ‘[a]nimation isn’t about making inanimate
objects move, it is about bringing them to life’ (Hames 2008: 140).
In his Manifesto of Surrealism, André Breton writes that ‘the marvellous

is always beautiful, everything marvellous is beautiful, only the
marvellous could be beautiful’ (Breton [1924] 2010).
Both dystopian universes and surrealism are based on experiencing

something familiar in a new and uncanny way (for example, associating
the world as we know it with catastrophies, wars, epidemics, apocalypses
etc.). Any animated film that strives for the realist paradigm but that is
conceived by the audience as even slightly deviating from it or being less
than perfect in achieving it, will automatically evoke a tinge of dystopia
and/or the uncanny (as if when something is familiar, yet also strange).
43
3.1.
By now surrealism become regarded as something broader and more

general that exists independently of its original age of birth and its
initial central figures; also, in addition to intentional surrealism so-called
‘involuntary surrealism’ (Hammond 1978) has emerged.
fig. 1
Involuntary surrealism emerges when the author of a work of art has
not had the intention of producing a surrealist work or practicing
surrealism but when nevertheless the audience has acknowledged the
work as surrealist. The audience assumes that the work is surrealist even
though the author’s worldview and intentions were in no way related to
surrealism. According to André Breton, in those cases the authors had
‘failed to hear the surrealist voice’ (Breton [1924] 2010).
Hence, even the founder and initiator of the surrealist movement

recognized that being a surrealist did not require intention from the part of
its practitioner, or even acceptance of surrealist tenets:
Swift is surrealist in spitefulness.
De Sade is surrealist in sadism.
Chateaubriand is surrealist in exoticism.
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Constant is surrealist in politics.

Hugo is surrealist when he is not being stupid.
Desbordes-Valmour is surrealist in love.
Bertrand is surrealist in the past.
Rabbe is surrealist in death.
Poe is surrealist in adventure.
Baudelaire is surrealist in morality.
Rimbaud is surrealist in his way of life, and elsewhere.
Mallarmé is surrealist in his confidences.
Jarry is surrealist in absinthe.
Nouveau is surrealist in the kiss.
Saint-Pol-Roux is surrealist in symbolism.
Fargue is surrealist in atmosphere.
Vaché is surrealist within me.
Reverdy is surrealist at home.
Saint-John Perse is surrealist at a distance.
Roussel is surrealist in the anecdote.
Etc. (Breton [1924] 2010)
While it is difficult to point out the particular mechanisms of involuntary

surrealism, it appears that it is evoked by certain ‘surrealist’ images,
formal elements and tropes. A characteristic example of early involuntary
surrealism in animated film is Bob Clampett’s Porky in Wackyland
(1938). The film’s visual design, in particular the landscapes and
melting forms, is clearly influenced by Salvador Dalí. Of contemporary
animation artists, Ivan Maksimov’s works, with their bizarre characters
and endless metamorphoses, strike the cords of involuntary realism. In
fact, Maksimov himself has admitted his sympathy towards surrealist art,
although he does not consider himself a surrealist (Pikkov 2015a).
Several of Priit Tender’s animated films (such as Kitchen Dimensions

[Köögi dimensioonid], 2008; House of Unconsciousness [Alateadvuse
maja], 2015) clearly betray surrealist traces by mixing the world of
nocturnal dreams with daytime realities, yet Tender does not consider
himself a surrealist either (Pikkov 2015b).
It has to be emphasized that determining involuntary surrealism

requires extreme caution and the element of surrealism has to be clearly
discernible because certain ‘surrealist’ features (unreality, oneirism,
mystery, antigravity, fantasy) are rooted in the technical processes of
animation-making.
45
‘In cinema, surrealists yearned for the impossible, the unexpected,

dreams, surprises that would wash away the sense of inferiority nesting
in their soul, and take them eagerly to the barricades, to adventures,
mysteries and miracles’ (Valkola 2015: 80).
In a sense, every animated film is involuntarily surrealist. By its very

nature, animation blurs the boundaries between the possible and the
impossible: ‘Virtually all animated forms may be seen as “surreal” in
the sense that many deliberately juxtapose unusual and unexpected
aspects within normally plausible, authentic and fictionally consistent
environments’ (Wells 2002: 37).
The notion of surrealism (the surrealist method) has changed considerably

since its inception in the 1920s – what once seemed surrealist may now
very well be a common, everyday practice. For instance, for the first-
generation surrealists it was a surrealist act to walk out of the movie
theatre in the middle of a screening and to go for a different screening
(Breton 2000: 73; Rees 1999: 54). Considering contemporary, ‘distracted’
modes of media consumption characterized by constant shifting between
different films and texts, thus consuming parallel streams of information
and ‘editing’ them in one’s mind, it is quite safe to propose that what once
was a unique surrealist experience has by now become a part of everyday
life. Equally, a number of avant-garde (including surrealist) creative
practices have become an essential part of the ordinary toolbox of digital
technologies. In his The Language of New Media, Lev Manovich observes
that ‘the avant-garde became materialized in a computer’, or, in other
words, the digital revolution embedded avant-garde aesthetic strategies
into ‘the commands and interface metaphors of computer software’
(Manovich 2002: 306). Thus several typically avant-garde techniques,
such as combining images with texts or several different image layers,
collage, processing photographic images with painting or graphic tools,
deletion and blurring of objects, now form an integral part of almost any
filmmaking software. Working digitally, most contemporary animation
artists make frequent use of the initially avant-garde methods without
recognizing them as such. To put it simply, the arrival of the digital age
in filmmaking has in part coincided with a return to the paradigm of
historical avant-garde and modernism.
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This ‘renaissance of avant-garde’, occurring in parallel to the

introduction of digital technologies, is not limited to the field of visual
art; it has also affected music. Anne LeBaron, a composer and music
scholar, observes that
[w]hile [automatism and collage] existed in isolated
examples of music before and after surrealism’s peak,
they blossomed into full-blown developments only
with the advent of postmodernism. Technological
tools used to record and process music … provided an
environment for such surrealist techniques when placed
at the disposal of composers. (LeBaron 2013: 33)
Despite the short, yet intensive, life span of the surrealist movement
initiated by Breton, its influence is still strong. A. L. Rees has described
the scope of its impact, writing that
[s]urrealism has a cult value in variety of subcultures,
from modern myth-and-magic (based on surrealism’s
appeal to the occult) to MTV. Surrealism is not only
the most popular and widely known of all modern
movements, but also one of the most influential on the
fashion, advertising and cinema industries.
(Rees 1999: 44)
Yet the effect of surrealism on society is even broader than this, extending
to almost every walk of life. For example, surrealists were among the
first to bring out into the open several favourite topics of contemporary
tabloids, such as sexuality and desires, that had been socially outlawed
at the time of surrealism’s birth. Today, however, public debates related
to subconsciousness and sexuality have hardly anything to do with
surrealism and have instead become a part of everyday life in the West.
Surrealism has always picked a fight with dominant politics, traditions

and norms, yet in post-World War II Eastern Europe surrealism provided a
considerable platform for social and political protest: ‘In post-war Eastern
Europe – and especially in Poland and Czechoslovakia, cut off from the
developments of Western visual arts – Surrealism remained a vital force, a
semi-clandestine cultural opposition’ (Russo 2015: 251).
At the same time, there are certain differences between the so-called
‘original’ French surrealism and its later Eastern European manifestation.
One of those is the relationship with realism. While Parisian surrealists
47
preferred to keep a distance from physical reality and instead emphasised

the role of subconsioucs, their descendants in Prague saw reality as a
necessary point of gravity. Vratislav Effenberger, one of the ideologues of
the surrealist movement in Prague, insisted that ‘[i]magination does not
mean turning away from reality but its antithesis: reaching through to the
dynamic core of reality’ (Hames 2008: 34).
Although the first-generation surrealists were fascinated by cinema,

their own achievements in the field of filmmaking remained modest
(nevertheless, the movement still produced a number of cinematic works
the effect of which on culture in general cannot be overestimated). In
Dictionnaire abrégé du Surréalisme (1938), André Breton lists only six
films: Man Ray’s Emak-Bakia (1926), Man Ray and Robert Desnos’s
L’étoile de mer (1928), Marcel Duchamp’s Anémic cinema (1925),
Georges Hugnet’s La Perle (1929), Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí’s Un
chien Andalou (1929), and Luis Buñuel’s L’Age d’or (1930).
Breton’s own relationship with his fellow-surrealists was often extreme,

oscillating between love and hate, and undoubtedly his classification
of surrealist films was affected by this, as well as by the struggles of
power within the movement. Yet, taking a dogmatic position, one has to
admit that only those six films can be considered truly ‘surrealist’. While
Breton indeed listed only films made by the members of the surrealist
group, he also saw surrealist impulses in a variety of other works, thus
acknowledging the legitimacy of ‘involuntary surrealism’.
Surrealism and the historical avant-garde are still significant for the
contemporary discourses of animaton and film. First, as an art movement,
surrealism has inspired many animation artists. Secondly, the ‘renaissance
of avant-garde’ that emerged in relation to the development of digital
technologies is to a large extent based on century-old ideas and concepts.
Third, the ‘involuntary surrealism’ of many animated films derives from
the very essence and technology of animation.
In what follows I will present some specific examples of involuntary

surrealism.
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3.2.
Automatic writing has always been a core surrealist method. According
to André Breton, ‘pure psychic automatism’ forms the backbone of
surrealism (Breton [1924] 2010).
Surrealists borrowed the concept of automatism from psychoanalytic

therapy that allows patients to speak out loud whatever comes to their
mind in order to open the patient’s flow of thought and access her/his
unconsciousness. Adopting the same method to writing and drawing,
surrealists hoped to release a stream of creativity. In Robert Stam’s words,
The Surrealists, for their part, stressed what they saw
as the deep affinities between moving images and
the metaphor of processes of écriture automatique,
in a movement defined by André Breton as “psychic
automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to
express … the actual functioning of thought.” (Stam
2000: 56)
Animated filmmaking has always been a highly controlled process,

usually involving a long planning period (screenplay, designs, sketches)
and also entailing additional testing as the work progresses (linetest,
camera tests, preview). The animation technique closest to the surrealist
concept of automatic writing is perhaps direct animation where the
creative process is spontaneous and the results are largely out of
the immediate control of the author. Len Lye’s (1901–1980) works
demonstrate well the spontaneity of this techique and the haphazardness
of its outcomes. At the same time, Norman McLaren’s (1914–1987)
version of direct animation can hardly be compared to automatic writing
as he tended to stay in total control of the process. The end results of Man
Ray’s (1890–1976) ‘rayographs’ (images produced in exposing to light
objects that were placed directly on film) were again completely open to
chance.
Hence one could argue that in animation the method of automatic writing
(its spontaneity and unpredictability) is not related to technical choices
but rather to the methods of a particular author.
49
Modern digital technologies have automated many creative processes and

‘[t]hus human intentionality can be removed from the creative process, at
least in part’ (Manovich 2002: 32).
In the digital age, automatic writing has become, at least partly, a common
practice and an integral part of the creative process. In a way, this has
realised one of the goals of surrealists – to remove human consciousness
from the creative process.
•
3.3.
Automatism, which has been briefly described above, is closely related

to the question of duplications, repetitions and cycles. In animation,
repetitions and cycles are widely used to increase the length of animated
sequences, while duplication of different elements enriches and intensifies
the result. Most movements in animation, mainly in hand-drawn
animation, are created in cycles – the main reason for this is to economise
on the cost of labour (it is easier, hence cheaper, to produce duplications,
repetitions and cycles), yet it also introduces an element of ‘automatism’
to the animated film. Zbigniew Rybczyński’s (b. 1949) Tango (1983)
exemplifies well the use of repetitions and cycles. It is a film that (re)
presents the course of human life by means of rhythm and repetitions.
Repetitions and cycles turn its characters into mechanisms that operate
according to a certain inevitable rule, thus reducing them to a clock-like
automatic machine.
A similar motif of repetition also underlies Repete (1995), a hand-drawn

animation by Michaela Pavlátová, that repeats and mixes ordinary,
everyday situations, transforming them into surreal hallucinations.
Many of Švankmajer’s works are also based on cycles and repetitions that
come across as inescapable vicious circles. The characters of The Flat
(1968), Dimensions of Dialogue (1982) and Et Cetera (1966) are trapped
in a series of destructive repetitions, while A Game with Stones (1965)
presents stones in a similar situation.
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Surrealists frequently portrayed the human body as a mechanical object.

In a certain sense, the animated film also creates hybrids of human
flesh and artificial mechanisms – the characters are brought to life by
mechanical movement. Both the surrealists and animation treat (human)
body as a mechanism.
•
3.4.
Compositing – the combining, layering and dissolving of different
elements (visual images, texts, special effects) is increasingly typical
in contemporary digital image-making processes. While early classical
montage theories (Kuleshov, Eisenstein, Pudovkin) treated films (and
editing of them) as train-like pictorial narratives where time was
determined horizontally, contemporary animation and digital processes
add a vertical axis – a single frame might incorporate extremely varied
spatiotemporal dimensions.
For instance, Luncheon on the Grass (1988) by Priit Pärn includes a

sequence with two distinctive, yet parallel temporal orders. In the scene,
a child is pulling at a table cloth, and while it moves, the seasons change
behind the window. Hence the image brings together at least two parallel
temporal orders, introducing a multitemporal regime.
Surrealists were also fascinated by a similar kind of ‘compositing’,

representing vastly different elements of time and space on a single
picture. Salvador Dalí’s paintings are the first to come to mind here
– technically speaking, most of them are multi-layered ‘composites’
combining elements with no direct spatiotemporal connection. Collage,
a technique frequently used by surrealists, is also based on the idea of
compositing.
51
3.5.
Surrealist experience is typically uncanny and metaphysical. Metaphysics
and rejection of logic can be seen as referring to surrealism, although
they most certainly not guarantee it. Films that defy the structure
or cause-effect logic of classical narrative are all too frequently and
casually defined as surrealist works. But simple unconventionality is not
surrealism! Surrealist sense of cinema manifests first and foremost in
extra-cinematic categories, such as context and authorial stance that, in
turn, are intertwined with the social and the political. At the same time,
Robert Short aptly indicates that the widespread use of the adjective
‘surrealist’, not only in the context of cinema but also in relation to
unexpected, bizarre experiences in general, testifies to a certain extent that
the objectives of the surrealists have been accomplished – after all one of
their goals was to merge the domains of art and everyday life (Short 2008:
184).
In a similar manner, the experimental animated films of the Hungarian

György Kovásznai (1934–1983) intermix everyday life with artistic
abstractions. In his films Kovásznai processed documentary live-action
sequences and combined them with animation.
3.6.
The first-generation surrealists were tremendously inspired by dreams and
the subconsciousness, primarily via Sigmund Freud’s The Interpretation
of Dreams (Die Traumdeutung, 1899). By experimenting with dreams and
the methods of psychiatry, the surrealists sought to escape the constraints
of consciousness and unblock the world of subconsciousness and desires.
Importantly, according to Freud, whose psychoanalytic method of dream
interpretation was of central importance to the surrealists, ‘ideas in
dreams are expressed as images or pictures, rather than in words’ (Coon
and Mitterer 2008: 193).
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By its very nature, the art of film bears a great resemblance to a dream –
in cinema, dreams can be re-staged and presented; and the act of watching
a dreamlike sequence of images in a darkened room and in a relaxed
position is similar to what we experience at night, lying in our bed.
Valkola summarises,
[e]ven though a dream-watcher is more active than
a movie-watcher, the first is usually not aware that a
dream is a dream; as a result of this (on the level of
consciousness) both the dream-watcher and the movie-
watcher feel themselves as rather passive observers
taking part in a fictive, pseudo-anatomical world of
images. (Valkola 2015: 89)
Dreams and films share further similarities, such as unexpected camera

angles, distorting lenses and fragmentary course of events.
Surrealists were attracted to cinema precisely due to its resemblance of

dreams, its ability to reflect the unconscious urges and hidden desires.
The way reality echoes in our dreams and the impact of surrealist art on
us is indeed similar – both make us feel uncanny. Yet in our dreams we
are not merely spectators, but often active participants. Hence, if one is to
draw parallels, the dream is closer to interactive cinema that can be partly
influenced by its audience.
Robert Desnos wanted to be able to shoot an unpleasant character on the

screen or to go and give a kiss to the screen (Williams 1978: 46). Isn’t
this an idea – ahead of its time – that has now been realised in interactive
media and computer games? In any case, it is yet another example of the
‘renaissance of avant-garde’ in the digital age.
53
3.7.
Even though we know several successful female surrealist artists, such

as Méret Oppenheim, Germaine Dulac, Nelly Kaplan and a number
of others, surrealism has still been dominated by male figures. When
the topic of surrealists and women comes up, the latter are usually not
artists but the charismatic companions of male surrealists, such as Gala
and Peggy Guggenheim. A number of studies of surrealism (mainly
by feminist scholars) have indeed sharply criticised surrealism for its
essential chauvinism and masculinity. For the surrealists, a woman was
primarily an abstract, fetishized object whose main purpose was to
inspire men, leading them to occasional bursts of madness. Man Ray, for
instance, was strongly drawn to the form of female torso, depicting it as
an idealized, erotic and often headless figure (Brandon 1999: 384).
The surrealist l’amour fou, crazy love, an extreme longing for romance,
has found countless outlets in animated films that often represent
heterosexual intimacy in a remarkably oversimplified and emotionally
excessive manner.
3.8.
Over time, the traditional role of animated film has been shaped as one
centred around representation of fantasies, fairy tales and utopian worlds.
All attempts to modify this paradigm only render results that come across
as dystopian-surrealistic. Increasingly popular animated documentaries,
realistic computer games and a number of virtual reality practices (3D
maps, architectural renderings, instruction videos, user interfaces etc.)
have already significantly broadened the traditional domain of animation
with the effect that, as a technique, it is less and less seen as a mere
aid for visualising fantasies. The more the focus of animation centres
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on documentary representations (of the immediate reality), the less

traditional and closer to live-action narrative cinema it becomes. While
continued development of digital technologies facilitates the production
of increasingly perfect virtual reality, the precondition of dystopia in
animation is still the production of direct reality. In live-action narrative
cinema, dystopia is evoked by means of staged fantasy. In animation,
attempts to represent the real world or to use real (ready-made) objects,
foster a connection with surrealism, in addition to producing a sense of
dystopia.
Nowadays, our understanding of surrealism is broader, compared to

Breton and his fellow surrealists. By drawing on oneirism, metaphysics,
automatism, decontextualisation of ordinary objects, disregard of the
common rules of logic, compositing, repetitions and duplications,
fetishisation of women and many other surrealistic elements works of
art become involuntarily surrealist. Involuntary surrealism, while clearly
discernible in animated film, is a problematic and ambiguous concept,
which defies exact definitions. A lot has changed throughout the century
that has passed from the advent of surrealism – we now have new
technical means and possibilities at our disposal, the political framework
of the art scene is different and so are the expectations of the audience.
The development of digital technologies has given rise to the renaissance
of avant-garde that has transformed many surrealist ideas into necessary
creative tools of animation artists.
55
References
Brandon, Ruth 1999. Surreal Lives: The Surrealists 1917–1945. New
York: Grove Press.
Breton, André ([1924] 2010). First Manifesto of Surrealism – 1924.

Translated by A. S. Kline. http://poetsofmodernity.xyz/POMBR/
French/Manifesto.htm.
Breton, André (1978). ‘As in Wood’, in: The Shadow and Its Shadow:
Surrealist Writings on Cinema. Ed. Paul Hammond. London:
British Film Institute, pp. 72–77.
Coon, Dennis; ‎Mitterer, John O. (2008). Psychology: A Journey. 3rd

edition. Belmont: Thompson Wadsworth.
Hammond, Paul (ed.) (1978). The Shadow and Its Shadow: Surrealist
Iordanova, Dina (2003). Cinema of the Other Europe: The Industry and
Artistry of East Central European Film. London and New York:
Wallflower Press.
LeBaron, Anne (2013). ‘Reflections of Surrealism in Postmodern

Musics’, in: Postmodern Music/Postmodern Thought. Studies in
Contemprary Music and Culture, vol. 4. Eds. Judy Lochhead and
Joseph Auner. New York and London: Routledge, pp. 27–74.
Leslie, Esther (2004). Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory

and the
Avant-garde. London and New York: Verso.
Manovich, Lev (2002). The Language of New Media. Cambridge, Mass.,

and London: MIT Press.
Pikkov, Ülo (2015a). Interview with Ivan Maksimov, 7 March. Recording

in author’s possession.
Pikkov, Ülo (2015b). Interview with Priit Tender, 29 September.

Recording in author’s possession.
Rees, A. L. (1999). A History of Experimental Film and Video. London:

British Film Institute.
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Russo, Giovanni (2015). ‘Jan Švankmajer’, in: Animation: A World

History. Volume II. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Short, Robert (2008). The Age of Gold. Dali, Bunuel, Artaud: Surrealist
Cinema. London: Solar Books.
Stam, Robert 2000. Film Theory: An Introduction. Malden: Blackwell.
Valkola, Jarmo (2015). Filmi audiovisuaalne keel. Tallinn: Varrak.
Wells, Paul (2002). Animation: Genre and Autorship. London and New
York: Wallflower Press.
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Surrealist
Sources of
Eastern
European
Animation
Film
59
Surrealist Sources of Eastern European Animation Film
This article investigates the relationship between surrealism and

animation film, attempting to establish the characteristic features of
surrealist animation film and to determine an approach for identifying
them. Drawing on the interviews conducted during the research, I will
also strive to chart the terrain of contemporary surrealist animation film
and its authors, most of whom work in Eastern Europe. My principal aim
is to establish why surrealism enjoyed such relevance and vitality in the
post-World War II Eastern Europe. I will conclude that the popularity of
surrealist animation film in Eastern Europe can be seen as a continuation
of a tradition (Prague was an important centre of surrealism during the
interwar period), as well as an act of protest against the socialist realist
paradigm of the Soviet period.
4.1.
Surrealism in animation film has been an under-researched field. While
several monographs have been written on authors whose work is related
to surrealism (Jan Švankmajer, Brothers Quay, Priit Pärn, Raoul Servais
and many others), no broader studies on the matter exist. Most likely it
is the result of the relative marginality of animation film as compared to
mainstream cinema and its main agent, the feature length narrative film,
which is the focus of the majority of work on surrealism in cinema (with
an exception of Jan Švankmajer’s oeuvre, which has recently attracted
remarkable interest among film scholars). In addition, the activities of
surrealists and their circles are rather poorly documented, which sets
additional limits to research.
My investigation adopts qualitative research methods, providing inductive

reasoning and interpretation of the subject (surrealism in animation film)
and drawing on semi-structured interviews. The content analysis of films
concentrates on the meaning assigned to the work by its author, keeping
also in sight the spatiotemporal context of production.
It must be established from the outset that there are many ways to
understand and interpret the notion of “surrealist animation film”.
In everyday use, “surreal” often stands for something obscure and
incomprehensible. In art history, however, it signifies a set of practices
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and theories of a certain 20th-century avant-garde movement. In studying

surrealism in animation film I will subscribe to this art historical frame
of reference. Raphaëlle Moine and Pierre Taminiaux observe in their
2006 study that attempts to establish surrealist film as a genre lead to
simplification and institutionalization (Moine, Taminiaux 2006: 114).
In order to avoid excessive simplification and institutionalization
of surrealist animation film, I will focus on surrealism in animation
film, rather than surrealist animation film as a genre. I understand
animation film as an audiovisual work recorded frame by frame, which
aesthetically or at least formally conforms to the classical concept of
cinema. Animation essentially involves the presentation of still images
in a manner that creates an illusion of motion in viewers’ minds. (Pikkov
2010: 14) By Eastern Europe I mean the geopolitical region that after
World War II was under Soviet rule or influence.
4.2.
Surrealism is one of the most often described and reproduced phenomena

of the 20th-century art. Who is not familiar with Dalí’s melting watches,
Magritte’s men with top hats or the shots of an eye sectioned with a knife
in Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou – these and many other “surreal” images
have become the staple of modern popular culture. Barbara Creed (2007:
116) argues that “[t]he surrealist movement of the 1920s was short-
lived, but it continued to exert a marked influence on artistic practice
and popular culture.” Surrealism appeared on the global cultural map
after World War I on the initiative and under the leadership of the French
writer André Breton (1896–1966). While dadaism and futurism should
be mentioned as forerunners of or at least influences on the movement,
surrealists themselves had the habit of emphasizing its uniqueness and
independence: “Surrealism began among poets whose aim was to create
a revolution, both political and artistic, combining the visions of Freud,
Marx, Sade and Lautréamont.” (Brandon 1999: 3)
61
The heyday of surrealism as an art movement was the interwar period,

yet it has retained its importance to this date. Surrealism is not a style in
the narrow sense, but rather an author’s worldview and attitude, although
even its creators were unable to define it exhaustively. Surrealists
considered society and culture as oppressive of human freedom and true
needs, attempting to liberate the concealed powers in people, particularly
their spontaneous and subconscious faculties of expression. Doing this,
they drew on the teachings of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), the founding
father of psychoanalysis. Surrealists aimed at blurring the boundaries
between art and life, and replacing the old, oppressive society with one
that would meet people’s true needs. Surrealists regarded spontaneity and
expression of subconscious urges as an instrument to liberate people from
the reins of reason-based society.
The first Surrealist Manifesto was published in November 1924, a

moment now considered the “official” birth date of surrealism. In the
Manifesto, Breton defines surrealism in following terms: “Pure psychic
automatism by means of which one intends to express, either verbally,
or in writing, or in any other manner, the actual functioning of thought.
Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason,
free of any aesthetic or moral concern.” (Breton [1924] 2010)
Surrealism is based on a belief in a higher reality of certain neglected

forms of association, the omnipotence of dreams, the idle play of
thinking. The Manifesto is in fact more a call for a new understanding
of art (life) than a definition of a new modernist art movement. The
surrealists sought to transcend the boundaries of the traditional field of art
and were interested in transforming the people and society at large.
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4.3.
According to Linda Williams (1981: 51), “[s]urrealist … filmmakers were

… the first to take seriously the striking resemblance between the film’s
imaginary signifier and that of the unconscious.” Surrealist filmmakers,
as surrealists in general, do not divide the world into the inanimate and
the alive, for them everything is animist, i.e. related to everything else
and in possession of a soul. As Williams (ibid.) explains it, “[i]nstead
of showing what a character thinks, the Surrealist tendency in film was
to show how images themselves can “think””. As a mirror of modern
times and lifestyle, cinema quickly caught the attention of surrealists,
becoming an object of discussion and a field of experimentation. “Many
of the early Surrealists (Luis Buñuel, André Breton, Jean Goudal, Ado
Kyrou, Jean Ferry and others) fell in love with the fledgling cinema and
its power to … follow the movements of the dream-world.” (Creed 2007:
118) Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel collaborated on two films (Un Chien
Andalou, 1929; L’Age d’Or, 1930), which have become landmarks of
both surrealism and cinema; film as a medium also fascinated Man Ray,
Robert Desnos, Marchel Duchamp and many others, yet in contrast to
painting cinema was never properly theorized by surrealists, they “did not
have, properly speaking, a cinematographic doctrine”, as Georges Sadoul
put it (ibid.). The first more comprehensive analysis of surrealist cinema,
Le Surréalisme au cinema (1953, updated 1963), was written by the critic
and surrealist filmmaker Ado Kyrou (1923–1985).
The tenets of contemporary animation film developed in parallel to the

advent and evolution of surrealism, as the initial isolated experiments
gradually accumulated into a separate film form and an industrial branch.
Animation film became one of the corner stones of popular culture and
had maintained this position to this date. The interwar period has also
been designated as the “Golden era” of animation film (Wells 2002:
2). During these years the first major studios were established (Disney,
Fleischer, Walter Lantz) and several still popular characters launched their
screen careers. The aesthetic framework and spectatorial expectations
were also shaped during this golden age of animation, largely based on
Disney’s popularly successful work. The period also saw the birth of
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Destino,1 perhaps the most legendary surrealist animation film, which,

however, remained uncompleted until 2003. Salvador Dalí met Walt
Disney in 1945 (King 2007: 87), in order to collaborate on a six-minute
animation film (ibid.: 88). Yet in 1946 Disney, unconvinced of its
potential audience appeal, halted the production on its tracks, although in
the hope of returning to it at a later date (ibid.: 91). In 1999 the Disney
corporation discovered that the copyright of Dalí’s designs for Destino
(about 135 drawings and 32 paintings), worth at that point approximately
10 million USD, did not belong to Disney after all, since the film was
never completed (ibid.: 92). Disney restarted Destino’s production,
assigning Dominique Monfrey as its new director, and the film premiered
in 2003. This way Disney managed to re-claim the copyright of Dalí’s
original designs. Created as a computer animation, Destino includes and
builds upon Dalí’s images, 15 seconds of which were part of an initial
screen test by Dalí (ibid.).Yet even if Destino is based on the work of
one of the most famous surrealists, the question remains whether it is an
essentially surrealist film. For designating an animation film as surrealist
is it enough to use Dalí’s images, or does it take something more?
4.4.
Modernist art movements, including surrealism, are defined by a strive

towards creating something completely new and unprecedented, an
impulse of qualitative progress. Similarly, the first animation films quite
noticeably attempted to surprise the audiences with something original
and extraordinary. In addition to this gravitation towards novelty,
animation film and surrealism share other common traits. Although 1924
1 Destino is available at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w38cerphic4.
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is acknowledged as the birth date of surrealism, certain surrealist ideas

circulated in the art world even earlier, exerting certain influence on the
development of animation film. For instance, describing the work of one
of the earliest animation filmmakers, Winsor McCay (1869–1934), Judith
O’Sullivan observes that his art nouveau comic strips, as well as his later
films, reveal several surrealist features – anxiety, hostile atmosphere,
objects coming together in irrational conjunctions, constantly threatening
mechanical devices (Wells 2002: 31). From today’s point of view, several
pioneers of animation film, such as Ladislas Starevich, Émile Cohl,
James Stuart Blackton and many others, can be considered proponents
of surrealism. The abstract animation films of Viking Eggeling, Hans
Richter, Walter Ruttmann and Oskar Fishinger from the interwar
period also betray dadaist and surrealist impulses. Furthermore, “proto-
surrealist” authors such as Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Hieronymus Bosch,
Marquis de Sade and Alfred Jarry have influenced and inspired several
animation filmmakers. In order to determine which animation films are
surrealist and which not, a determining set of characteristic features has to
be established. What is it that makes an animation film surrealist?
Surrealist filmmaker Jan Švankmajer (b. 1934) insists that “Surrealism

is everything but art: ‘world views, philosophy, ideology. psychology,
magic’. (Owen 2011: 4) Independently of any assumed influence of
surrealism, the technical execution of animation films alone invests
them with certain surrealist elements: irrationality, dreaminess, mystery,
anti-gravity, fantasy. Collage, a technique highly characteristic to
surrealist practice (Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Francis
Picabia etc.), is commonly used in animation film in the form of cut-out
(silhouette) animation (Jan Lenica, Walerian Borowczyk, Terry Gilliam,
Yuriy Norshteyn etc.). Art historian Roger Cardinal observes that “the
whole idea of the animated film is to suppress the categories of normal
perception … [and to] annihilate the very conditions of rationality” (Wells
2002: 5). Hence every animation film is encoded with a certain surrealist
undercurrent, irrationality. Animation film is essentially about creating
an illusion (Pikkov 2010: 14). “The cartoon format has continually
propagated this restatement of Surrealism as somehow being that of the
‘wacky’ and the ‘weird’ merely for its own sake.” (Norris 2007: 86) Thus
animation film features a number of typically surrealist characteristics, yet
it is not regarded as surrealist in general. At which point does animation
film becomes more surreal than “normal” and hence “properly” surrealist?
How to measure the degree of surrealism in animation film?
65
4.5.
Among other things, surrealism has been described as a certain form

of realism: sur-realism. According to animation theorist Paul Welles,
the illusion of realism induced in animated film is hyper-reality. The
term “hyperrealism” was introduced by the French cultural theorist
Jean Baudrillard to designate “a hyperreality, a simultaneity of all
the functions, without a past, without a future, an operationality on
every level” (Baudrillard 1994: 54). Semiotician Umbert Eco employs
the notion of hyper-reality to describe Disneyland where absolutely
everything is artificial, yet seems more real than reality itself. In
Understanding Animation (1998) Wells attempts to map the essence of
realism in animation film. In the study of realism, he proposes Disney’s
films, which he calls hyper-real, as a central point of reference (Pikkov
2010: 99). Thus, following Welles, we should move along an axis which
has realist films on one end, non-realist (abstract) films on the other end
and hyper-real Disney’s films in the middle. On the diagram below (fig. 1)
I have depicted the scale of realism suggested by Wells.
fig. 1
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When discussing realism in animation film, it should be borne in mind

that animation is a symbiosis of fine art and cinema, which also defines
the paradigm of realism in animation film – it is not about the copying
of reality, but about portraying it as truthfully as possible; an attempt to
represent the real world as closely to the original as possible.
Returning to surrealism as a form of realism, we can add a vertical axis to

Wells’s diagram that defines the degree of surrealism in the paradigm of
realism (fig. 2).
fig. 2
Surrealism can thus be realist (as in Magritte’s style), hyper-realist (Dalí’s
style) or abstract (Miró’s style).
fig. 3
67
As the Magritte–Dalí–Miró axis demonstrates (fig. 3), surrealism can

manifest in all forms of realism. Surrealism is not the opposite of realism,
it is a degree of dislocation in realism. Following again Wells’s train
of thought, which draws on Disney’s style as an example of the most
familiar degree of abstraction in animation film, we should use Dalí’s
style (as the most famous example of surrealism) as a central point of
reference in mapping surrealism.
The basic structure of film was formed and developed soon after the birth
of cinema (with the exception of sound that was added later) and has
eversince remained basically intact. More precisely, film, by combining
a number of independent basic elements (art forms), consists of several
different structures: we can talk about the structure of story, of image, of
sound etc. On closer observation, it is a multi-patterned pattern. (Pikkov
2010: 60) Hence film consists of a number of independent “disciplines”,
each of which can be individually assessed as to their degree of
surrealism. In animation film we can consider surrealism’s effect on:
• visuals (visual design of film);

• sound (aural design of film);
• movement (rhythms and pace of film);
• storytelling (rationality and logics of film’s plot);
• relations (connections between film’s characters).
fig. 4
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In Destino, only visuals are surreal, at least when judged against

the context of “average” animation films. The sound, movements,
storytelling and relations between characters follow rather traditional and
commonplace patterns of animation film. When the various disciplines of
Destino are considered in terms of their degree of surrealism, the average
result is “moderately surreal” (and this only due to Dalí’s images in the
visuals of the film). Surrealism is only an external style in Destino (fig. 4).
However, in any given animation film the disciplines are usually not of
equal importance, and each animation film has a dominant – e.g. music
in a musical film. Thus, the median value of surrealism in all disciplines
of an animation film might not lead to a correct assessment, since the
dominant of the film has to be considered as well. At the same time it
is quite obvious that an excessively intricate analysis might loose track
of the film as a whole. In Surrealism and Cinema, Michael Richardson
(2006: 3) also emphasizes that precisely the film as a whole should
provide the basis for defining surrealism.
Hence, an examination of surrealism in animation film should not

proceed from individual disciplines; rather, a film should be considered
as a whole in order to detect the degree to which it contains the various
forms of surrealism. A study of surrealism in animation film should not
be based on the physical properties of surrealism (dislocated realism),
it should rather take into account the experience of the audience and the
context of the filmmaker. The spectator’s perception of the film is of
utmost importance, and perhaps the only actual criterion of judgment.
In other words, if we set aside the essential surrealism of animation
film, a film can be thought of as “properly” surrealist only when it is
perceived as a surrealist whole. It should be noted, however, that the
perception of surrealism itself has changed over time. For example, what
appeared scandalous in the surrealism of the 1920s, has by now become
a normal part of the paradigm of contemporary art and lost its shock
value. Returning to Destino, I suggest that for me as a spectator the visual
images of the film come across as surrealist, yet the film does not succeed
in creating a surrealist whole. The surrealism of Destino is limited to the
surrealist visuals, and the sound, movement, storytelling and relations
lack surrealist qualities. Destino does not manage to create the feeling of
the uncanny that is essential to surrealism.
69
4.6.
What, then, is it that makes an animation film surrealist? Art historian

Hal Foster (cited in Creed 2007: 116) argues that “no given categories,
aesthetic or Surrealist, could comprehend Surrealism conceptually”, yet
“there is one term that comprehends Surrealism – the uncanny”. Sigmund
Freud suggests in his 1919 essay Das Unheimliche that heimliche relates
to home, house, family and everything familiar, as opposed to heimliche,
which is a sense of uncanny foreignness, partly reminiscent of what has
been experienced before (Freud 1919: 2).
In order to establish the criteria by which to assess the degree of

surrealism in animation film, we should concentrate on the notion
of “uncanny” and “creating uncanny” or, in other words, on the
subconscious uneasiness caused by the dislocation of realism. In this
context, realism should be considered as something traditional, previously
experienced, which, when dislocated (presented in an unfamiliar
manner), creates an unconscious sense of the uncanny. An unexpected
metamorphosis in a film’s expected presentation of visuals, sound,
movement, storytelling or relations engenders a sense of the uncanny and
defines the degree of surrealism in the film.
The notion “uncanny valley” was introduced by Masahiro Mori, a

Japanese roboticist (b. 1927). Mori suggested that the more realistic
“living” artificial bodies (i.e. of robots, animated characters etc.) appear,
the more emphatic they seem to real human beings (who consider them
credible), up to the point where artificial creatures become too human-like
and suddenly evoke eeriness instead of empathy. (Pikkov 2010: 80)
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fig. 5
Mori’s concept of the “uncanny valley” considers only characters and
the spectatorial take on them, but as the uncanny is a defining feature of
surrealist animation, the film has to be located in the uncanny valley as a
whole – the entire experience of the film must be uncanny (fig. 5).
71
4.7.
Surrealism is far from being understood in a single and straightforward

way, “[s]urrealism is not one thing, and there are as many manifestations
of it as there are surrealists.” (Richardson 2006: 171) Throughout history
the surrealist community has determined on its own who is a surrealist
(whose work can be regarded as surrealist) and who is not; during the
earliest days it was mostly done by their spiritual leader Breton. In
order to map the terrain of surrealist animation filmmakers, I applied a
similar technique, asking animation filmmakers themselves to identify
the surrealist community. I began by approaching them with a short
questionnaire, asking to name surrealist authors. I then contacted those
(surrealist) filmmakers that were mentioned and posed the same questions
to them.
fig. 6
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First I interviewed Jan Švankmajer – “one of the most original and

productive of all surrealist film makers” (Richardson 2006: 121), a
versatile author who has become one of the leaders of the contemporary
surrealist movement. (He is not only a prolific filmmaker but also
serves since 1970 on the editorial board of the Analogan magazine and
participates in the work of Gambra Gallery in Prague, which is dedicated
to exhibiting surrealist art.) In its significance, Švankmajer’s contribution
to promoting surrealism is similar to Breton’s once leading role.
Based on the interviews with ten directors – Jan Švankmajer, Brothers

Quay, Priit Pärn, Jerzy Kucia, Igor Kovalyov, Raoul Servais, Piotr
Dumala, Koji Yamamura, Atsushi Wada and Mati Kütt – the following
diagram (fig. 6) of animation filmmakers was outlined; these are the
authors that the community itself defines as surrealists.2
The work of these filmmakers reveals a desire to not imitate life, but
rather to shed light on the metaphysical world. The personal internal
universe and visualisations of the subconscious are of prime interest
to them. In their films, numerous ready-made objects are animated,
rendering the entire cinematic space “alive”. According to Švankmajer,
“[s]urrealism is a journey into the depths of the soul, like alchemy and
psychoanalysis. Unlike both of these, however, it is not an individual
journey but a collective adventure.” (Hames 2008b: 112)
Collectivity has always been an essential facet of the surrealist project,

which does not necessarily manifest as artistic collaboration, but rather
as companionship of shared sensibility. The core group of contemporary
surrealist animation filmmakers know each other well and meet frequently
at film festivals. While not constituting a formal group, they can certainly
be regarded as a creative circle of friends. In addition to filmmaking,
most of them are also active in fine art, exhibiting prints, paintings and
sculptures. The respondents work in more or less equal measure in
such animation techniques as puppet animation, hand-drawn animation
and mixed media animation. None of them, however, use CGI, which
suggests that surrealism in animation film is primarily associated with
traditional techniques. “Surrealist movies do not use slow motion, they
do not present the images produced by the cinematic apparatus as yet
another illusion.” (Kuenzli 1996: 10) The works of these surrealist
2 The interviews were conducted between 2011 and

2013. The recordings are kept in the author’s archive.
73
animation filmmakers also rarely rely special effects and noticeable digital
postproduction, preferring the “natural” style that evokes the sense of
uncanny with dislocations in something familiar and traditional.
4.8.
Authors throughout the world were mentioned in the interviews, yet

the filmmakers whose names came up most often belong to the Eastern
European cultural terrain (the American-born Brothers Quay have also
made films in Poland and in Czech Republic and are the representatives of
the “Eastern European cinematic tradition”). The interviews established
that the community of animation film directors is rather clear-cut, and
a number of authors were mentioned repeatedly (Švankmajer on seven,
Brothers Quay on six, Pärn, Kovalyov, Borowczyk and Servais on two
occasions). The fact that the point of gravity of surrealist animation
appears to be in Eastern Europe can be explained as a continuation
of a pre-existing tradition, as a strong surrealist group was active in
Czechoslovakia during the interwar period, on whose invitation, for
example, André Breton visited Prague in 1935 (Bydžovská 2005: 6).
“After Paris and Brussels, Prague was one of the most important centres
where surrealism was developed by several generations of artists”
(ibid.: 1). “[P]aradoxically, surrealism greatly expanded in the Czech
lands during the war, when it was banned. In the stifling atmosphere of
the Protectorate, it represented, for the young generation, an alluring
challenge to engage in free creative thought.” (ibid.: 9). Even after World
War II, under the conditions of enforced socialist ideology, surrealism
retained its sound footing in Eastern Europe. Jonathan L. Owen observes
that “[s]urrealism, in its authentic form, has forever been in revolt against
existing ideological and social systems” (Owen 2011: 218). There is a
direct correlation between the popularity of surrealism and the degree of
74
Anti-Animation
personal and creative freedom in post-war Europe. Michael Löwy, one of

the most prominent contemporary theorists of surrealism, argues that
“[s]urrealism is not only a stream of Modernism or a chapter in
the history of the 20th century avant-garde, but it is also a kind of
‘anthropology of human freedom’” (Majmurek 2010: 165). The Surrealist
movement has always demonstrated political ambition and in post-war
Eastern Europe it also functioned as an act of protest and resistance.
“The Platform of Prague”, the Czechoslovakian surrealist manifesto,
stated that “[s]urrealism must oppose itself to both Stalinist Communism
and Western capitalism” (Owen 2011: 191). In socialist Eastern Europe
surrealist thought was in the constant process of development and
conceptualization, as demonstrated by the animation films produced
in the region. “If no branch of any national cinema has ever succeeded
in establishing an uncontaminated Surrealist tradition, Surrealism has
nonetheless remained an enduring tendency of both Czech and Polish
animation” (Owen 2010: 45). In Priit Pärn’s words, “in Soviet animation
film, adopting a surrealist point of view was a form of protest, since
the authorities preferred funny films with unambiguous messages.”3 By
the second half of the 1980s, the political pressures had started to ease
considerably in Estonia and, liberated from the clutches of censorship,
the artists were able to enjoy more creative freedom. In 1986, on Pärn’s
initiative, animation filmmakers Heiki Ernits (b. 1953), Rao Heidmets
(b. 1956), Miljard Kilk (b. 1957), Mati Kütt (b. 1947), Hillar Mets (b.
1954), Priit Pärn (b. 1946), Tõnu Talivee (b. 1951), Riho Unt (b. 1956)
and Hardi Volmer (b. 1957) formed the Tallinnfilm Surrealists group (see
also Laaniste 2009: 141), with Kalju Kivi (b. 1951) and Vahur Kersna (b.
1962) joining them at a later date. As the group included the majority of
Estonian animation filmmakers of the late 1980s, the Estonian animation
film of the time was decisively surrealist in nature. Although the
Tallinnfilm Surrealists lacked a written platform (manifesto, programme),
they had, for example, a logo that was printed on shirts and other items
for promoting the group. The Tallinnfilm Surrealists showed their art
works primarily at group exhibitions, but its members also continued to
make animation films, thus establishing a strong presence of surrealist
ideas and images in Estonian animation.4
3 Author’s interview with Priit Pärn, 6 May 2012.

Recording in the author’s archive.
4 Author’s video interviews with Tallinnfilm Surrealists
in the spring of 2013 in Tallinn. Recordings in the
archive of the author.
75
A good example of how surrealist-inspired art gave direct impulses to

animation film is Mati Kütt’s piece Smoked Sprats (Sprotid), featuring
a tin jar filled with female torsos (displayed at a group exhibition in
Vaasa, Finland, 1989), and his animation film Smoked Sprat Baking in the
Sun (Sprott võtmas päikest, Tallinnfilm, 1992). Both works are centred
around the image of an imprisoned female golden fish. The 23-minute
film is essentially an opera, or more precisely an underwater animation
opera. By intertwining the opposite worlds and urges (above the water/
under the water, two-dimensional/three-dimensional, fear of castration/
reproduction drive etc.), Kütt tells the story of a golden fish who in the
name of its freedom and happiness is ready to fulfill any three wishes.
Yet the freedom attained in this manner is more than questionable to
both the wisher and the freedom-seeker. Smoked Sprat Baking in the Sun
can also be interpreted as a series of monologues of the subconscious,
stemming from the collision of desires and norms. The film’s soundtrack
is composed of dramatic opera tunes with naïve libretto in German,
investing the story with a sense of the grotesque and pathos. The uncanny
– the primary condition of surrealism – is easily perceived in Smoked
Sprat Baking in the Sun. The film’s visuals present a fish with legs living
on dry land and a man inhabiting the underwater domain; the film’s sound
features traditional opera, presented in an overdramatized manner; the
movement and gravity are transformed into metaphysical underwater
weightlessness; the story is the well-known fairy-tale of Golden Fish
by Alexander Pushkin, yet the elements of the tale are over-amplified;
the characters of the film appear to be a fish and a fisherman, but their
relationship is interlaced with an unexpected lustful sexual innuendo.
Each discipline of the film presents familiar elements in a dislocated
atmosphere – Smoked Sprat Baking in the Sun employs surrealist forms
and imagery. Hence, according to the system of assessment introduced
above, the film is on average “very surrealist” (fig. 7).
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fig. 7
Other Estonian surrealist animation films of the period include Enchanted
Island (Nõiutud saar, Unt, Volmer, 1985), Papa Carlo’s Theatre (Papa
Carlo teater, Heidmets, 1988), Noblesse oblige (Pärna, Heidmets, 1989),
Labyrinth (Labürint, Kütt, 1989), Hotel E (Hotell E, Pärn 1992) etc.
“Sixty years after the birth of surrealism in France the Estonian animation
filmmakers declared themselves surrealists! Slightly weird, but art reflects
its times and surrealist ideas made a perfectly befitting mirror to the
crumbling Soviet Union.” (Pikkov 2011: 94)
Surrealism, born in the Paris of the 1920s, found a new hotbed in post-
World War II Eastern Europe, where it became a contra-culture in
opposition with the dominant cultural politics, inspiring many artistic
minds. Surrealism constituted one of the keystones of Soviet underground
avant-garde art (Laaniste 2009: 134). The surrealist animation film of the
post-war period was a confrontational art form, seeking to challenge the
boundaries of its field with absurd and irony. The common denominator
of cultural politics in the former Soviet sphere was socialist realism,
basically a form of realism. Similarly to surrealism it first manifested in
literature and subsequently gave impulses to other art forms. Drawing
primarily on Hegel’s thought, the Hungarian Marxist György Lukács
developed his theory of art, or more precisely of literature, that served the
needs of Stalinist Russia particularly well, as literature had traditionally
been a leading art form in Russian culture (Kangilaski 2013: 20). In
the early 1930s socialist realism became the dominant art paradigm
in the Soviet Union and in 1934 Andrei Zhdanov, the chairman of the
77
Supreme Soviet of the Communist Party, declared at the Soviet Writer’s

Congress that socialist realism is characterized by truthful and historically
concrete depictions of reality in its revolutionary development, by
party-mindedness (which meant illustration and justification of the party
politics), and by popular appeal (ibid.). At the same event, Karel Teige,
one of the leaders of the Czechoslovakian avant-garde, proposed to
combine the notions of surrealism and socialist realism (Hames 2008a:
22). Indeed, the ideology and propaganda of the socialist society, which
combined realism with fantastic images of a bright future, shared in part
the surrealist impulse to change reality, but it relied on the idealization,
not the dislocation of the reality.
Cultural forms have frequently developed in the process of contradictory

interaction, which also explains the popularity of surrealism in post-war
Eastern Europe – limited personal freedom and the officially endorsed
socialist realism called for the counterweight of surrealism (fig. 8). In
Western Europe, where such (cultural) politics did not exist, surrealism
was soon marginalized, and its former avant-garde thrust was safely
transformed into neutered symbols of popular culture and consumer
items.
fig. 8
•
78
Anti-Animation
4.9.
The study of surrealism in animation film facilitates a broader
understanding of impulses and interactions between filmmakers, it widens
interpretational horizons of particular filmic texts and enhances awareness
of authorial positions. Surrealism has always been intimately related to
authorial worldviews and attitudes, which are typically socially sensitive
and critical. Surrealism can also be regarded as an indicator of personal
freedom, and an examination of its spread and forms of expression sheds
light on patterns of social development.
Identifying animation filmmakers and their films as surrealist has little

value on its own, yet such classification helps to better understand
the conditions of the time and the political system under which these
filmmakers lived and produced their works. Instead of assessing the
individual disciplines of animation film, the films should be analysed
as integral wholes, in order to determine to what extent they contain
surrealist modes of expression. Surrealism in animation film should be
judged on the basis of spectatorial experience and authorial contexts.
As established by interviews conducted for this study, the central group of

contemporary surrealist animation filmmakers includes Jan Švankmajer,
Brothers Quay, Priit Pärn, Igor Kovalyov, Walerian Borowczyk and Raoul
Servais. While these authors do not constitute a formally established
group, they can still be regarded as a creative circle of friends. We saw
that most of surrealist animation filmmakers come from or have been
active in Eastern Europe. The popularity and wide spread of surrealism
in post-World War II Eastern Europe can be explained as a continuation
of a tradition (Prague was already a strong centre of surrealism during
the interwar period), yet it is partly also an act of protest against socialist
realism of the Soviet period.
79
References
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Brandon, Ruth 1999. Surreal Lives: The Surrealists 1917–1945. New

York: Grove Press.
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Trans. A. S. Kline. http://uploads.worldlibrary.net/uploads/
pdf/20121102214233manifestopdf_pdf.pdf.
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Group of Czechoslovakia’. – Papers of Surrealism, 3,
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Creed, Barbara 2007. ‘The Untamed Eye and the Dark Side of Surrealism:
Hitchcock, Lynch and Cronenberg’. – Graeme Harper, Rob
Stone (eds.), The Unsilvered Screen: Surrealism on Film.
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Freud, Sigmund 1919. ‘The Uncanny’. http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/

freud1.pdf.
Hames, Peter 2008a. ‘The Film Experiment’. – Peter Hames (ed.), Dark
Alchemy: The Cinema of Jan Švankmajer. London, New York:
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Hames, Peter 2008b. ‘Interview with Jan Švankmajer’. – Peter Hames

(ed.), Dark Alchemy: The Cinema of Jan Švankmajer. London,
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(ed.), Eesti kunsti ajalugu. 1940–1991. I osa. Tallinn: Eesti
Kunstiakadeemia, Sihtasutus Kultuurileht, 16–22.
King, Elliott H. 2007. Dalí, Surrealism and Cinema. Harpenden: Kamera

Books.
Kuenzli, Rudolf E. 1996. Introduction. – Rudolf E. Kuenzli (ed.), Dada

and Surrealist Film. Cambridge, London: The MIT Press, 1–12.
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Laaniste, Mari 2009. ‘Karikatuur ja/või kunst. Valdkondade vahekorrast

Eestis Priit Pärna loomingu näitel / Cartoons and/or Art: On the
Relationship of Two Fields in Estonia, Based on Priit Pärn’s
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111–150.
Majmurek, Jakub 2010. ‘Utopia, Dystopia, Escape: Surrealism and Polish

Science Fiction / Fantasy Cinema’. – Kamila Wielebska, Kuba
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Norris, Van 2007. ‘‘Interior Logic’: The Appropriation and Incorporation

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82
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On Links
between
Caricatures
and Animated
Films in
communist
Eastern
Europe
83
On Links between Caricatures and Animated Films in communist Eastern Europe
Animated film has long been closely connected with caricatures; pioneers
of animation, such as Emile Cohl, James Stuart Blackton, Winsor McCay,
John Randolph Bray, Paul Terry, Max Fleischer, and many others, were
first known as caricaturists, before turning to animation. In addition,
several animated characters were born, and won initial popularity, on the
humour pages of newspapers, travelling on to the world of cinema with
their authors.
In his book, Animated Cartoons, How They Are Made (1920), E. G.

Lutz observes that many pioneers of animation launched their career as
‘comic graphic artists’ (Lutz, 1920: 8‒10). A number of other authors
have also emphasised the importance of caricatures for the development
of animated film (e.g., Pikkov, 2010: 31; Solomon, 1987: 13; Wells,
1998: 188). Yet, despite admitting the significance of these impulses, no
exhaustive studies on the links between caricatures and animated film
have been written and this field remains largely unresearched. To some
extent, Donald Crafton has examined these issues in his Before Mickey:
The Animated Film, 1908‒1928 (1993) and Emile Cohl, Caricature, and
Film (1990), but his scope is limited to the pre-World War II period.
This article aims to map links between caricatures and animated film, as
well as their development, during the post-World War II era, concentrating
in particular on Eastern Europe (the terrain of which is considered here
less as a geographical area and more as a political space dominated by
the Soviet Union during the post-war decades that became known as the
communist sphere or the Eastern Bloc).
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5.1.
In the context of this article, I understand caricature as a simplified

graphic image that exaggerates certain distinctive features for the
purposes of comic or grotesque effect. The essence of caricature lies in
parody, drawing attention to human weaknesses or shortcomings of social
and political life. The concept originates from the Italian word caricare,
meaning ‘to charge’, ‘to load’, ‘to exaggerate’.
The history of caricature is comparable to art history, as simplified and

grotesque graphic images can be traced back to the medieval period. Still,
caricatures, in the modern sense of the word, took root in Germany of the
Reformation Age, spreading, alongside satirical literature, to neighbouring
countries in the first half of the 16th century. The wider spread of
caricatures, especially political and personal caricatures, was facilitated
by the development of graphic art and the invention of the printing press
in the late Middle Ages, while earlier the satirical songs of minstrels had
performed the same function (Wright, 1875: 347). When writing about the
‘caricaturesque’ in a wider sense, I mean the depiction of something in a
very exaggerated or simplified manner, a grotesque generalisation.
5.2.
The certain similarity between early animation and caricatures stems in

part from technical factors, i.e. from the fact that drawing (reproducing)
a character had to be easy and the figure itself sufficiently clear and high-
contrast, in order to stand out even if the quality of a film or a printed
85
page was low. Other similarities include highlighting satiric aspects and
simplification in creating memorable characters. Indeed, the earliest
drawn films (and namely those, since animated film in general also
employs many other techniques) are characterised by a strong emphasis
on the caricaturesque. For instance, Walt Disney taught his animators that
‘the first duty of the cartoon is not to picture or duplicate real action or
things as they actually happen – but to give a caricature of life and action’
(Barrier, 1999: 142).
The first films of Disney Studios were extremely caricaturesque and

mostly consisted of sequences of moving caricatures. Disney’s early
concept prescribed the creation of moving caricatures. In due course,
as the animated film developed and its technical arsenal expanded, the
production of Disney Studios, as well as other major studios, became
more epical and the initial cartoonishness gradually disappeared. In
addition to the introduction of more advanced techniques, the films also
changed in terms of their content. Romantic screen adaptations of fairy
tales became the norm for feature-length animated films (Snow White and
the Seven Dwarfs, 1937; Pinoccio, 1940; Bambi, 1942). Similarly, early
live-action filmmaking was heavily influenced by circus and vaudeville
and only later became an art form for telling stories.
From early on, the production of animated films in the United States
developed as a collective, studio-based, rather than an individual
enterprise. In America, the popularity of the first animated films and the
rapidly growing network of cinemas facilitated demand for new animated
films, which in turn created favourable conditions for setting up the
animation industry.
In contrast to the United States, where major animation film studios

flourished before World War II, European animation relied on individual
authors featuring diverse personal styles. Among them, we can find
filmmakers who were inspired mainly by caricatures (Emile Cohl,
Lortac, Cavé), directors who told epic stories (Lotte Reiniger, Vladislav
Starevich, Berthold Bartosch), as well as artists experimenting with
animated images (Walter Ruttmann, Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling,
Oskar Fischinger).
World War II halted the developments of European cinema in its tracks,

many filmmakers emigrated and the continuity of film production
was disrupted. In addition to filmmakers, a large number of European
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artists ended up in the United States, bringing with them the ‘spirit of
modernism’. America’s strong film industry was enriched by the creative
investigation and experimentation of various modernist art schools,
exemplified by Disney’s collaboration with Dali or Oskar Fischinger’s
American works.
‘US took the lead role in avant-garde film, as it did with painting when
New York replaced Paris as the cultural capital of modernism.’ (Rees,
1999: 57)
During World War II, the United States became the world’s leading film
producing country and the pioneer of audiovisual technical inventions;
Stephen Cavalier has written that ‘the history of animation is largely the
history of American animation.
[---] Western Europe led the way in the early days of cinema, and has
been a fertile area for experimental and avant-garde animation. Eastern
European animation was funded by communist states, which meant that
animators had more financial security than their Western counterparts, but
also that they had less creative freedom’ (Cavalier, 2011: 13).
5.3.
Compared to the rest of the world, the development of animated film in

Eastern Europe took a different route.
‘Between 1945 and 1989 … the development of these countries was

levelled to a significant extent and dictated by Soviet policies in the
spheres of economics and culture. [---] Whatever happened in the Soviet
Union directly influenced the cultural climate in the countries of the
Eastern Bloc, and often events in the USSR were replicated in the Eastern
87
Bloc (such as the ‘Thaw’ that followed the demystification of the cult of
Stalin’s personality in the late 1950s or the stagnation of the Brezhnev
period).’ (Iordanova, 2003: 20‒21)
After the October Revolution of 1917, Soviet Russian animated film

was extremely experimental. Dziga Vertov’s (1896‒1954) avant-garde
enterprises, Kino-Glaz (Кино глаз or Cine-Eye) and Kino-Pravda (Kino
Pravda or Cine Truth), employed several animators. The first Soviet
animated film, Soviet Toys (Советские игрушки, 1924), was made under
Vertov’s direction. This caricaturesque drawn animation depicted the
class struggle, portraying the fight of workers and peasants with a wealthy
capitalist. Cinema, including animated film, was seen in Soviet Russia
mainly as a tool of propaganda. The most well-known Soviet animated
film directors of the period are Vladimir Suteyev, sisters Valentina and
Zinaida Broomberg, Ivan Ivanov-Vano, Olga Khodataeva and Nikolai
Khodataev.
Soviet Russian animation filmmakers were relatively free to experiment,

just as the entire post-revolutionary society was open to various
innovations. New forms of expression and approaches were probed in
cinema, literature and theatre, as well as in art. Yet these artistic liberties
did not last for long.
‘Initially avant-garde and satirical, Soviet animation changed in the

middle of the 1930s with the establishment of Socialist Realism ...
Control was tightened, and Stalin-era animation concentrated on mostly
didactic animation for children.’ (Klots, 2013: 5)
Both Soviet animation and caricatures have often been regarded as

airbrushed. This is mainly because the tenets of Soviet visual culture
were formed on the basis of the so-called satirical Rosta (Российское
телеграфное агентство or Russian Telegraph Agency) windows –
propaganda posters accompanied by texts in verse. Soviet animation is
also characterised by a combination of folkloristic elements with new,
proletarian imagery. Frequently, traditional folklore characters were
represented in Soviet everyday setting, as in Valentina and Zinaida
Broomberg’s Ivashko and Baba-Yaga (Ивашко и Баба-Яга, 1938) or in
Gennady Sokolsky’s Ivashko from Pioneers’ Palace (Ивашка из Дворца
пионеров, 1981).
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Almost without exception, the post-World War II Soviet animated films

were didactic in nature and propagandistic in their message. Soviet
animation was directly influenced by the officially established tenets
of Socialist Realism, and the only way to avoid them was through
employment of clearly caricaturesque imagery.
‘For the first 15 years following World War II, animation in Eastern
Europe shared similar characteristics with 1930s Soviet animation: mainly
created for children, oriented towards moral and civic teaching, and
resistant to stylistic changes.’ (Bendazzi, 1994: 151)
Khrushchev’s Thaw, which began after Stalin’s death in 1953, relaxed

political pressure to some extent, and this also changed Eastern European
animation, which became more varied in terms of subject matter and
scope of technical devices. Khrushchev’s Thaw diversified the means of
expression available to communist cultural life, while communist society
in general remained very insular.
‘Soviet techniques shifted from Stalin-era Socialist Realist naturalistic

cartoons that often employed rotoscoping, towards innovative methods
(and rediscovery of the avant-garde aesthetics of the 1920s) causing a
more cartoonish, abstract, and even surrealist appearance.’ (Klots, 2013:
5)
Andrei Khrzhanovsky’s (b. 1939) Glass Harmonica (Стеклянная

гармоника, 1968) is a characteristic example of how the diminished
political constraints and aesthetic diversification influenced Soviet
animation. Glass Harmonica’s distinctly surrealist content and form (Ülo
Sooster (1924‒1970), a surrealist artist, participated in its production)
features hybrids of humans and animals, as well as metaphorical,
elongated perspectives. In its time of release the pictorial language of
Glass Harmonica came across as extremely innovative and modern, and it
would have been impossible to make such a film either before or after the
liberating breeze of Khrushchev’s Thaw.
In an interview Andrei Khrzhanovsky confesses that despite Khrushchev’s

Thaw Glass Harmonica was still a highly problematic film – it was
well-known due to word of mouth, but it hardly got any distribution. In
addition, its production process was complicated by delays and demands
for re-editing. (Pikkov, 2015)
89
Fyodor Khitruk (1917‒2012), a famous Soviet animation filmmaker

who also launched his career during Khrushchev’s Thaw, has argued
‘animation to be a synthesis of caricature and poetry.’ (Horton and Rapf,
2012: 506)
Glass Harmonica and Khitruk’s The Story of a Crime (История одного

преступления, 1962) can be considered the first (and for a long time the
only) post-World War II Soviet animated films that broke the strict codes
of Socialist Realism. While Khrzhanovksy and Sooster’s surrealist film
was made possible only by the temporary relaxation of constraints during
Khrushchev’s administration, Khitruk’s caricaturesque style allowed him
to evade the limits of Socialist Realism also in his later productions.
‘It is actually the permissive filter which has been enabling for the
animation film-maker working in comedy, because it foregrounds the
self-conscious nature of the joke, and the attitude informing the joke,
rather than a traditional aesthetic effect or a clear act of orthodox authored
art-making.’ (Horton and Rapf, 2012: 505)
Animation historian Giannalberto Bendazzi notes that the Iron Curtain

that divided Europe into the West and the East was much more visible in
animated film than in live-action cinema or any other art form (Bendazzi,
1994: 151).
The Western European animation industry concentrated primarily on

the production of feature-length films for children (that were frequently
mediocre copies of Disney) and, as in the United States, animated shorts
remained the privilege or obsession of only a few authors. In Western
Europe, the spread of television in the 1950s created a certain demand
for animated commercials, but even this did not lead to the establishment
of a tradition and industrial infrastructure comparable to that of live-
action cinema. By contrast, the Eastern European animation industry was
subsidised by the state, which resulted in proper production infrastructure
and created a stable environment of production. Short forms dominated
the field of animated film, but feature-length animations were also made.
Equally to live-action cinema, animated films were widely distributed on
both large and small screens. Studios employed a large amount of people
who were interested in a smooth production process and keeping any
subversion in acceptable limits. On one hand, state funding ensured the
stability of animated film production and established proper industrial
conditions, but on the other hand it created the need to compromise with
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the authorities. For this purpose, the position of script editor was set up at
studios whose responsibilities included both artistic guidance and control
over political correctness, and who ‘thorough editorial corrections … also
partially functioned as ideological cleansing methods’ (Klimova, 2013:
58‒59)
The censorship of art and other creative activities has a long history
in the Eastern Bloc that can be traced back to the pre-revolutionary
Russian Empire. Although the revolution of 1917 obliterated the imperial
apparatus of censorship, in 1922 Soviet authorities set up a new body
for censorship and the protection of state secrets, Glavlit (Главное
управление по охране государственных тайн в печати), which
operated, together with its sub-institutions, until the collapse of the Soviet
Union.
Film critic Jaan Ruus, who also had a long career as a script editor, has
described this role in Soviet Estonia as follows,
‘In bureaucratic jargon, the editor’s mission was to be the politruk

(политрук, ‘political instructor’) and to ensure that the artist would work
‘for the cause’ and move in the right direction without aberrations. Yet,
in Soviet Estonia’s cinematic system, the editor paradoxically took the
opposing role, by becoming literally the director’s advocate’ (Trossek,
2008: 40).
Limits were constantly challenged in the communist art system, and in

this struggle the script editor played a crucial part as the mediator between
the author and the authorities. Thus, a film director’s creative freedom
depended to a great extent precisely on the script editor under whose
custody s/he worked. Filmmakers, operating under tutelage of censorship
and script editors, developed a distinctive language of expression,
‘where allegory became a certain form of ‘straightforwardness’ and its
decoding in the reception of the public became the dominant means
of comprehension. Thus a situation emerged where an animated film,
for example, was not just a film, but also something else – a cultural
sign quite dangerous and meaningful for the existing power discourse.’
(Trossek, 2006: 102)
91
5.4.
Artworks created in communist conditions were often full of subtexts,

and the audience also actively engaged in both creating these subtexts and
looking for what had been written ‘between the lines’.
Instead of communicating their ideas directly, authors preferred to use

allegory and ambiguous references – so-called Aesopian language. Aesop
(Aisōpos, c. 620–564 BCE) was an Ancient Greek slave and storyteller
whose fables often relied on allegory. At the same time, his simple
tales, usually featuring animals as characters, were highly critical of the
authorities. Due to his works, criticising authorities (and their agents)
through allegory has been termed ‘Aesopian language’.
Robert J. Goldstein, the famous political scientist, has defined Aesopian

language as ‘critical commentary on the political regime in veiled form’
(Klimova, 2013: 25).
Aesopian language employs devices of communication that transmit

information indirectly rather than directly. Double-coded artworks created
under communist conditions are good examples of Aesopian language. It
is symbolic that Aesop himself was a slave and thus his free expression
was extremely limited.
‘One of the main differences between allegory and Aesopian language

is the presence of a censoring organ, which affects the authors’ writing
practices and the readers’ interpreting choices.’ (Klimova, 2013: 13)
Lev Loseff, known for his studies on Aesopian language, also emphasises
that Aesopian language requires three agents: an author, a reader and a
censor. Decoding of Aesopian language is not only the job of reader, it
also engages author and censor. According to Lev Loseff, the expression
‘Aesopian language’ was developed by the writer Mikhail Saltykov-
Shchedrin in the 1860s, and has been used since then by critics and
the intelligentsia. Originally a phenomenon of Russian literature, it
has gradually spread to other media, such as visual art, music and film
(Loseff, 1984: 3‒5).
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It is important to underscore that not all authors created political subtexts

intentionally, but as art was widely censored by the state, one can assume
that every author who was aware of censorship also carefully considered
any possible political references in her/his works, and used Aesopian
language at least unconsciously.
‘[B]y the early 1930, in addition to pervasive official censorship,

Soviet artists had unconsciously adopted even more effective control
mechanism – self-censorship. This means that the creative work of artists-
caricaturists, just like of other publicly acknowledged authors, followed
a principle that has been termed ‘the three U principle’ – угадать (‘to
guess’), угодить (‘to please’), уцелеть (‘to survive’).’ (Vseviov, 2013:
51)
5.5.
A number of humour magazines were published in post-war Eastern

Europe – Szpilki in Poland, Eulenspiegel in GDR, Dikobraz in
Czechoslovakia, Ludas Matyi in Hungary, Jež and Kerempuh in
Yugoslavia, Krokodil in Russia, Pikker in Estonia, etc. Compared to
Western Europe, the number of humour magazines was larger in Eastern
Europe due to state funding, and many animation filmmakers also worked
for them, earning extra income with publishing their caricatures. With
authors, ideas also moved between these two fields. In comparison to the
rest of the world, post-war Eastern European animation definitely had
more intimate connections with caricature, and this was at least partially
due to the popularity of humour magazines and their state funding.
93
In 1956, the caricaturists of the Yugoslavian humour magazine Kerempuh

established an animation studio under Zagreb Film studio (established in
1953). The caricaturesque style of animations produced at Zagreb Film
became to serve as the benchmark and trailblazer for the entire Eastern
Europe. Technically rather simple, yet caricaturesque, animated films
became the main production article of the studio and the critics started
to refer to their authors collectively as the Zagreb School. By now, this
term denotes all Eastern European caricaturesque animated films. In
1962, Dušan Vukotić’s Erzatz, produced in Zagreb Film, became the first
non-US animated film to win an Oscar. Examples of Eastern European
caricaturesque animated films produced outside Zagreb Film, but still
considered ideologically belonging to the Zagreb School, are …And Plays
Tricks (1978) by Priit Pärn (b. 1946) and Bartakiada (1985) by Oldrich
Haberle (b. 1951).
Among many other Eastern European animation filmmakers, Rein

Raamat (b. 1931) was inspired by the caricaturesque style of the Zagreb
School. Although Raamat did not draw caricatures himself, his The Water
Bearer (Veekandja, 1972), the first Estonian post-war drawn animation,
relies heavily on ‘Zagrebian’ absurd and humour. The Water Bearer was
produced at Tallinnfilm’s Joonisfilm Studio, established by Raamat in
1971. The film became a yardstick for a number of subsequent Estonian
animations, as well as directors-artists who joined the studio. Many of
the latter had previous experience as caricaturists and continued this line
of work in parallel to making films. In Soviet Estonia, the main platform
for publishing caricatures was the Pikker magazine, in addition to the
humour pages of several newspapers and magazines (Sirp ja Vasar,
Edasi, Noorte Hääl, Noorus). Caricaturists also participated in various
specialised competitions. Yet an ideologically incorrect concept could
create serious problems for both its author and the publication that
published the caricature. For instance, in 1979, Heiki Ernits (b. 1953), a
young animation director who studied in Moscow at the Higher Courses
for Scriptwriters and Directors, was expelled and received a ‘publication
ban’ because his caricature published in Pikker was deemed unsuitable.
The composition of the caricature resembled a famous photo of Lenin’s
family. (See Figure 1) Priit Pärn’s caricature Sitta kah! (literally Just
Shit!, but roughly Whatever! or I Don’t Give a Shit!), published in the
cultural weekly newspaper Sirp ja Vasar in 1987, depicted a man in a
padded jacket (the garment could be read as a symbol of Soviet mentality)
standing on a broken horse-led wagon and throwing a piece of manure in
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Anti-Animation
the shape of the geographical map of Estonia.. (See Figure 2) It caused

a political scandal and the case was discussed by the Central Committee
of the Communist Party of Estonia, which resulted in the dismissal of the
newspaper’s editor-in-chief.
fig. 1
fig. 2
•
95
5.6.
Compared to the contemporary democratic world, in communist Eastern

Europe caricatures and humour in general had a rather different content
and meaning.
Soviet jokes were special ‘because of the extremely repressive and

intrusive nature of the political and social system and in particular the
absence of freedom of speech. The jokes were far more important to the
people who told them than are the jokes told in democratic societies,
where jokes are merely a laughing matter, sheer entertainment.’ (Davies,
2011: 217)
So-called ‘official humour’ also existed in the Soviet system and it was
often referred to as satire, but here I talk about unofficial or ‘folkloric’
humour.
‘The many hundreds, quite possibly thousands, of political jokes told

by the citizens of the former Soviet Union and satrapies of its empire
constitute one of the largest bodies of jokes ever invented. [---] In the
Soviet Union, political jokes also routinely made fun of individual
leaders, but more important, they were jokes about an entire social and
political system.’ (Davies, 2011: 213-214)
Communist caricatures were primarily characterised by infrequent use

of words or speech bubbles – a word has a considerably more particular
meaning than an image and the use of a wrong word is not as easily
excusable as artistic play with forms and shapes! In case of a visual
image without word, the author could rely on the ‘safety net’ of ambiguity
and thus minimise the risk of political liability. It was the editors, not
authors, who usually added a general caption or an explaining text that
often accompanied caricatures. Eastern European caricaturists also used
absurd, self-irony and certain surrealist subject matter, which made it
difficult to assign a particular message to a picture. Caricaturists (as well
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as other artists) intentionally created works that could be interpreted

in various ways. Naturally, communist print media was dominated by
politically trustworthy caricaturists who produced ‘correct’ caricatures
either on commission by the political elite or at least with their approval.
Boris Yefimov (1900‒2008), one of the most prolific Soviet caricaturists,
has recalled in his memoir that in his practice there were occasions
where commissions came directly from Stalin who not only prescribed
a particular subject matter, but also interfered personally in the creative
process, correcting himself both the captions and sometimes even the
drawing. (Vseviov, 2013: 51)
Typically, the editorial board of a particular publication determined

the subject matter of caricatures, and it also gave general guidelines,
sometimes going to extremes in terms of reversing the intended message.
For instance, until the collapse of the Soviet Union, capitalists (the
bourgeoisie) were generally depicted wearing a top hat or a bowler hat
and smoking a cigar. Apart from the obviously distorted political joke,
this image also carried the message that Soviet caricaturists live in such
isolated conditions that they have no idea that no-one in the ‘free world’
wears the early 20th-century fashion any more. Official Soviet caricature
gradually turned into a parody of its own visual clichés.
Another peculiarity of Eastern European humour is the immense

popularity of political anecdotes, which spread by the word-of-mouth.
This genre was practically non-existent in the capitalist world, or at least
far less popular. (Davies, 2011: 300) The vast popularity of political
anecdotes eloquently illustrates the situation where jokes targeted at the
authorities provided a certain counterweight to the lack of freedom of
speech. Thus, conversations in the Eastern Bloc often started with the
question, ‘Have you heard the latest joke?’ And this usually meant a
political or in some way socially critical anecdote.
In the Soviet sphere of influence, a unified field of folkloristic humour, or

rather a system of underground humour, was established that expressed
a certain repressed collective identity. It was shaped in opposition to the
totalitarian propaganda and highlighted the shortcomings and absurdities
of the surrounding social reality. Taboo topics and threat of repressions
only fuelled the popularity of underground humour.
97
Christie Davies, a professor of sociology, observes that the great

popularity of jokes targeted at the authorities had a direct connection
with the collapse of the Soviet Union, or at least these anecdotes
undermined people’s loyalty to the communist system (Davies, 2010:
10). The massive spread of anecdotes has also been regarded as a form
of resistance (Obrdlik, 1942: 712; Pi-Sunyer, 1977: 182) or as a kind of
consolation (Cochran, 1989: 272; Hong, 2010: 61).
Eastern European literature has left an extensive legacy of humour

classics, but Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk (Osudy dobrého
vojaka Švejka za svétové valky, 1923) deserves a special attention. A
number of scholars (Ajanovič-Ajan, 2004; Tőke, 2008) consider this
novel, and particularly its protagonist Švejk, the epitome of Eastern
European humour. Švejk’s character draws on several folklore heroes
(such as the Czech Hloupy Honza (Dull Honza), Hungarian Ludas
Matyi (Mattie the Goose-boy) or Estonian Kaval Ants (Crafty Hans))
whose cunning cleverness permits him to succeed in any situation. The
‘ingenuously idiotic’ behaviour of Švejk, who stands for the lower class
in general, provides the key for understanding the protagonists of Eastern
European caricatures and animated films. The typical Eastern European
‘hero’ is a rather passive character with an ironic outlook, and instead
of initiating events he just gets mixed up in them against his will – ‘[u]
nder occupation, during wars or revolutions, his only shelter and shield
is a special kind of humor, full of pessimism, absurd and surrealism.’
(Ajanovič-Ajan, 2004)
Paul Wells, a theorist of animation film, observes, ‘Eastern Europran

humor like this may be viewed as black irony – the surreality is a
philosophic and political statement as well as the vehicle for humor.’
(Wells, 1988: 161)
In Animation and Realism, Midhat Ajanovič-Ajan argues that surrealist

irony and ironic black humour are inscribed into the history of Eastern
Europe. This preference for dark humour can be traced back to the days
of the Habsburg Monarchy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which
included many different small nations. The latter were practically cut off
from the highest ranks of authorities, which led to anecdotes and ironic
black humour targeted to them.
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Luigi Lombardi-Satriani has argued that folklore as a whole is a ‘culture

of contestation’, which defined itself in opposition to the official culture
of upper classes (Lombardi-Satriani, 1974, quoted in Krikmann, 2002:
840).
Similarly, post-war Eastern Europe was to a great extent under the

dominance of the Soviet Union and the relationship of the common
people with the central authorities was distant and one-sided. The anarchy
of authorities was compensated by jokes on them. In the communist
period, humour also became a certain social code – an anecdote was
enough to determine one’s interlocutor’s political attitudes and codes
of behaviour. Humour turned into a certain cryptic text, or, as Priit Pärn
observes in the film Pärnography (Pärnograafia, 2005), ‘Laughter
comforts the downcast.’
‘[T]he post-Stalinist Soviet regime was perhaps one of the most

productive hotbeds of anecdotes in the history of humour.’ (Krikmann,
2002: 840)
Surrounded by a society charged with political jokes, artists

unintentionally reflected folkloric humour in their works. In contrast to
political anecdotes that had no chance of being ever published in print,
animation filmmakers succeeded to express critical stances towards
the dominant system and its agents by means of artistic abstraction and
Aesopian language.
5.7.
The sources of animated film lay to a large extent in caricatures and

comic strips; many pioneers of animation were practicing caricaturists.
Animated film of the United States moved gradually away from this
ancestry and epic feature-length animations obtained the dominant
99
position. Meanwhile, in European animation the short format, which

is also characteristic to caricaturesque humour, took root. Compared to
feature films, shorts are cheaper and quicker to produce, hence providing
more room for taking artistic as well as economic risks. Concentrating
on short films, European animation developed into a diverse art form.
Following Disney’s achievements, American mainstream animation
continues to flaunt its technical novelties (aiming to defeat its competitors
with technical excellence) and to tell epic stories. Film production
depends heavily on distribution system, which is why mainstream cinema
focuses on making feature-length films.
The post-war division of Europe into the communist East and the
capitalist West also had an impact on animated film of those regions.
In Eastern Europe, animated film was funded by the state, but also
strictly censored, both in terms of content and form. Eastern European
animations often relied on double-coded Aesopian language. Doubtlessly,
the prominence of caricaturesque animations was also influenced by the
great number of humour magazines, as well as the co-operation of many
animation filmmakers with them. In addition, the enormous popularity of
anecdotes and other ‘street jokes’ caused the abundance of caricaturesque
animated films in totalitarian society.
Although the political system has changed, Eastern European animation

continues to feature remarkably strong caricaturesque elements, even if
the popularity of caricatures has waned and the humour magazines that
published them have mostly been marginalised.
Certain Aesopian language has also retained some of its importance in

Eastern European animation. Time and again, the Švejkian characters
reappear, and their misfortunes, as well as the conflict between their
human expectations and the random ways of the world still provide
inspiration for numerous directors. In Cinema of the Other Europe, Dina
Iordanova also emphasises that despite the change of regime Eastern
and Central European animation continues the tradition of lyricism,
surrealism, magical realism and avant-garde (Iordanova, 2003: 150).
At the same time, Eastern and Western European animated films have
become less dissimilar as film production and funding follows the same
principles across the European Union and films circulate in the same
the channels of distribution and are screened at the same festivals. The
European cultural sphere is increasingly integrated. In 1989, with the fall
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of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, the Eastern European
communist regime ceased to exist. Since 1989, ‘[t]here was a massive
emigration of animation professionals, many of whom are now employed
by companies across Western Europe, Canada and the US.’ (Iordanova,
2003: 32)
Over the last decades, many European and American art schools have
introduced curricula for animation, which has turned out a considerable
number of auteurist animation filmmakers. In addition to traditional
channels, new opportunities have been opened up by modern digital
solutions for film distribution, as well as for funding. In turn, digital
channels have created greater demand for animated films, especially
shorts, which include many caricaturesque animations.
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On
Topics and
Style in
Soviet
Animated
Films
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On Topics and Style in Soviet Animated Films
Soviet animated film took its shape alongside and was directly influenced
by the specific political developments of the region. While the focus
of this article remains on animated film in Russia after the October
Revolution of 1917 and in Soviet Union as it gradually broadened its
geographical span, the same trajectories and tendencies can also be
observed in other Eastern European (i.e. Eastern Bloc) countries. For, as
Dina Iordanova has suggested,
Between 1945 and 1989 ... the development of these
countries was ... dictated by Soviet policies in the
spheres of economics and culture. [---] Whatever
happened in the Soviet Union, directly influenced the
cultural climate in the countries of the Eastern Bloc,
and often events in the USSR were replicated in the
Eastern Bloc (such as the ‘Thaw’ that followed the
demystification of the cult of Stalin’s personality in the
late 1950s or the stagnation of the Brezhnev period).
(Iordanova 2003: 20–21)
At the same time it is also true that the cultural elite of the satellite states
often enjoyed a higher degree of artistic freedom, compared to their peers
in Soviet Union. This becomes especially evident in the choice of subject
matter and topics, as well as in the extent to which the animation artists
abided (or rejected) the tenets of socialist realism. In addition, the entire
Soviet Union cannot be measured with the same yardstick, as animated
films were produced in a number of different studios and in various
socialist republics where local circumstances affected both particular
industrial practices and regulated the proverbial length of the leash. The
smaller republics in particular, such as the Baltic countries, stood out
for works that were sometimes much more ideologically complicated
than the films produced in Moscow, reflecting either intentional political
digressions or recklessness of their authors.
Speaking about censorship in the Soviet Union, it is important to avoid

the simplified confrontation of the artist and the state – the filmmaking
community included both loyal servants of the Party and rebels against
the regime.
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So far, studies of Eastern European, and especially Soviet, animated film

have focused mainly on history and animation techniques (Bendazzi
2015; Pontieri 2012; MacFadyen 2005; Асенин 1986); on renowned
authors (Hames 2008; Капков 2007; Kitson 2005); and to much lesser
extent on critiques of ideology and totalitarianism (Moritz 1997) or
feminist discourses (Fadina 2016; Пироженко 2004a, 2004b; Kononenko
2011). In addition, several prominent Soviet animation artists have
published autobiographical texts explaining their methods and practices
(Ходатаев 1936; Брумберг 1979; Иванов-Вано 1950, 1962; Норштейн
1988; Хржановский 1983).
This article attempts to map the development of Soviet animated film,

highlighting some of its characteristic features, especially in terms of
topics and visual style. As the Soviet art scene was strongly shaped by
political climate, the political shifts provide a basis for this analysis. The
discussion is structured into sections based on historical periodization
and the developments in the field of animation are considered in parallel
to trasformations in the socio-political sphere. Obviously the scope of
the article is rather ambitious, not least in its temporal and geographical
dimension, which is the reason the following pages are only able to
scratch the surface of this broad and multifaceted set of issues, and
fully acknowledging the pressing need for further, in-depth studies.
Nevertheless, I hope that the survey below will not only contribute to a
fuller understanding of how the topics and style of Soviet animated film
was constructed and developed, but will also improve our understanding
of the past and people of this era.
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6.1.
Lucanus Cervus, arguably the earliest surviving Russian animated short,

was made by Ladislas Starevich in 1910. Born in Moscow to a family of
Polish origin, Starevich produced several animated films in tsarist Russia
until his emigration to France after the 1917 October Revolution where he
continued making of animated films.
After the October Revolution, Russian cultural and art scene was
immensely innovative and extremely susceptible to new ideas. Russian
animated film of the time was first and foremost inspired by modernist
thought, propaganda posters and caricatures. The filmmakers whose
practice, as well as both political and artistic visions, shaped the early
years of Soviet film were Sergei Eisenstein, Vsevolod Pudovkin,
Alexander Dovzhenko and Dziga Vertov. The latter was also the author
of the earliest surviving Soviet animated film, Soviet Toys (Советские
игрушки, 1924). Laura Pontieri has aptly pointed that ‘most of the early
Soviet animated films came out of political manifestos and satirical
vignettes; they were primarily caricatures and propaganda works
addressed to an adult audience’ (Pontieri 2012: 6). Ivan Ivanov-Vano,
one of the great figures of early Soviet animation, also confirms that
satire, political posters and pamphlets were of utmost importance for the
budding Soviet animation (Vano 1950: 18).
The post-revolutionary period was also characterised by the

implementation of state control and domination over the film production.
The state censorship has a long history in the Soviet Union and can
be traced back to the pre-revolutionary Russian Empire, but in 1922
the Soviet authorities set up Glavlit (Главное управление по охране
государственных тайн в печати), a new body for censorship and
protection of state secrets, which operated, together with its sub-
institutions, until the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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6.2.
After Lenin’s death in 1924, Joseph Stalin rose to the leadership of the
Soviet Union and his dictatorship lasted until his death in 1953.
In 1927, Senka the African (Сенька-африканец), the first Soviet

animated film for children, was made in collaboration of Yuri Merkulov,
Danil Cherkes and Ivan Ivanov-Vano. The film is based on a story by
Korney Chukovsky, one of the most popular Soviet children’s poets.
A vivid depiction of a child’s fantasy world, Senka the African became
an immediate success and was instantly followed by two other screen
adaptations of Chukovsky’s poems – Big Cockroach (Тараканище) and
Moidodir (Мойдодыр, both 1927).
1929 saw the release of Mikhail Tsekhanovsky’s Mail (Почта), an

animated adaptation of Samuil Marshak’s Soviet poem, which tells the
story of a letter addressed to the writer Boris Zhitkov. The letter follows
the writer around the world and finally reaches him when he returns to
Leningrad. Mail sports a highly modern visual and musical form shaped
by the post-revolutionary avant-garde mode of expression. Originally
made as a silent short, Mail became one of the first Soviet sound
animations when a soundtrack was added to it in 1930.
In the end of the 1920s the Soviet animation filmmakers began to

invent characters that would continue to appear in a number films, thus
producing the first animated ‘series’, featuring among many others such
legendary characters as Tip-Top, Bratishkin and Buzilka.
The Soviet animated films of the 1920s were mostly entertaining but
always with a ‘political or social message’ (Pontieri 2012: 18). In Soviet
Russia, animated film functioned primarily as an ideological tool for
shaping the mentality and behaviour of the masses. For instance, Samoyed
Boy (Самоедский мальчик, 1928) illustrates well how this ideological
education through animation worked. In the film, a Samoyed boy comes
to Leningrad for school and as a result of his studies realises how
backward the mindset and worldview of his native Nenets people is. The
film openly ridicules the beliefs of this group of indigenous people. Birgit
Beumers aptly observes that ‘[t]he boy is a model Soviet citizen: He gives
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up his family to become part of a larger Soviet family’ (Beumers 2007:

156). Samoyed Boy provides the first animated appearance of the ‘Soviet
person’, a comrade who has rejected his background and past. The film is
perhaps especially significant because in the late 1920s the creation of a
‘New Soviet Citizen’ typically involved images of children. In fact, ‘[t]he
Soviet state placed children’s affairs at the heart of its political legitimacy,
emphasizing that children were treated with greater care than they were
anywhere else in the world’ (Kelly 2007: 1).
The first Soviet puppet film, Aleksandr Ptushko’s The New Gulliver
(Новый Гулливер), was released in 1935. It is a combination of a full-
length feature film and puppet animation. The New Gulliver is a re-telling
of Jonathan Swift’s famous Gulliver’s Travels (1726). The Soviet version
features Petya, a young pioneer boy, a Soviet “Gulliver” who has landed
in Lilliput Island that suffers under capitalist inequality and exploitation.
Importantly, the fairy tale films that later became extremely popular,
even the ‘trademark’ of Soviet animation industry, did not emerge until
the mid-1930s when Fairytale about Tsar Durandai (Сказка о царе
Дурандае, 1934), the first Soviet animated film based on a classical
fairytale, was made by Valentina Brumberg, Zinaida Brumberg and Ivan
Ivanov-Vano. In the early Soviet period, fairy tales and folklore were
generally considered as atavistic remnants of feudalism. For instance,
Maxim Gorki vehemently called for the purification of literary language
and ‘expunging [of] all regionalism, earthiness, and folkisms from Soviet
prose’ (Fadina 2016: 65).
6.3.
Both the content and the form of animation were strongly affected
by the change of course that took place in Soviet culture after Andrei
Zhdanov, the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party,
prescribed socialist realism as the official canon of the Soviet art at the
1934 Soviet Writers’ Congress. The decision left no room for modernist
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experiments with form and designated children as the primary target

audience of animation. The latter is also evident in the name given to the
state animated film studio established in June 1936 – Soyuzdetfilm (‘det’
refers to дети – ‘children’). Even if the particle ‘det’ was dropped when
the studio became Soyuzmultfilm in August 1937, the target audience
remained the same and until the early 1960s Soviet animation focused
exclusively on children (Bendazzi 2015: 175).
The centralisation of Soviet animation industry under Soyuzmultfilm

put an abrupt end to the previous era of experimentation and stylistic
investigation. An important figure to consider in this turn of events is
Walt Disney who also aimed most of his films at children. Starting from
the mid-1930s, several Soviet animation filmmakers and high officials
made no secret of their admiration of Disney who by then had established
himself as one of the major animation producers of the world, and strove
to emulate both the style and the quality of his works on their home turf.1
In 1933, the delegates of the first All-Union conference of Soviet comedy
demanded: ‘Give us a Soviet Mickey the Mouse!’ (Pontieri 2012: 38)
The First International Film Festival in Moscow screened some Disney’s
animated films in 1935, receiving warm audience approval. From then
on, American productions had a great impact on the themes and style of
Soviet animated films (Pontieri 2012: 38).
According to Giannalberto Bendazzi, Stalin also took great pleasure with

Disney’s films sent to the Moscow International Film Festival, enjoying
them in the privacy of his own cinema in Kremlin. After watching them,
Stalin had even announced that this is what Soviet animation should
look like (Bendazzi 2015: 175). The film critic Anatoly Volkov suggests
that while Stalin’s approval was not the only force behind the wide
appreciation and emulation of Disney’s style in Soviet animation, the
cinema directors were well aware of the Leader’s sympathy, especially
for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Bambi (1942) (cited in
Pontieri 2012: 47).
1 It is important to note that Disney has of course

been admired and copied all over the world, not
only in the Soviet Union, because the Disney Studio
has been so productive and successful for so many
decades.
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Sergei Eisenstein, one of the most prominent Soviet filmmakers of the

time, is also known to be an enthusiastic supporter of Disney. Having
met Disney in person in Hollywood in 1930, Eisenstein became one of
his most significant advocates in Soviet Union. While Ariel Dorfman and
Armand Mattelart observe in their How to Read Donald Duck (Dorfman
and Mattelart 1992) that after World War II Disney became the tool and
emblem of American imperialism, Eisenstein considered his early work
to be profoundly communist. In Eisenstein’s words, ‘Disney’s films are a
revolt against partitioning and legislating, against spiritual stagnation and
greyness. But the revolt is lyrical. The revolt is a daydream’ (quoted in
Roberts 2007: 48).
Although certain strive for realism in narrative structure that characterises

Disney’s productions strikes some of the central cores of the socialist
realist paradigm the attempts of the Soviet animation industry to emulate
Disney’s style and quality were largely unsuccessful for several reasons.
For example cel animation (celluloid sheets system) which became
the industry norm in 1930s (Bendazzi 2015: 40; Furniss 2007: 19-20)
was invented, developed and patented in America and Soviet analog
was technically much poorer. Ivanov-Vano describes the difference:
‘The American cel sheets used at the end of the 1930s were of a good
transparent quality that could allow juxtaposition of a few layers, while
the Soviet cels had a slight grey or yellow tinge that would cause a
considerable darkening of the drawing when more than three layers were
used at the same time’ (Pontieri 2012: 39-40).
A limited number of layers in cel animation set the boundaries of the

complexity of Soviet animation. Also the practice and development of
animation industry came to a standstill during World War II in Soviet
Union, while in America animation production thrived on.
However, some distinctly Disney-esque features, such as round shapes

and plastic movement, became part of the toolbox of Soviet animators.
In addition to form, Soviet animation also imitated Disney’s fairy tale
narratives and cheerful stories, and following Disney’s example began
to draw on Russian national folklore and classical literature (Alexander
Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Krylov): ‘Animators turned to national
cultures, adapting classical texts, producing fairy tales, and utilizing the
figurative and plastic suggestions of popular traditions’ (Bendazzi 2015:
175).
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With the emergence of the Disney style, fairy tales regained popularity (as
well as a positive image) and became an increasingly important narrative
source for Soviet animation. But in general, the aims of the pre-World
War II Soviet animation can be summarised in Laura Pontieri’s words –
‘mythification of the past, exaltation of the present, and apotheosis of the
brilliant future’ (Pontieri 2012: 42).
In contrast to the 1920s and the better part of the 1930s, when the
authorities strove to forgot the past almost completely (with an odd
exception, few and far between, such as the above-mentioned Fairytale
about Tsar Durandai), the 1940s saw a significant return of a certain
part of it, namely in the form of Russian traditional tales and national
fairy tales, which resulted in animated films like Little Tower (Теремок,
directed by Pyotr Nosov and Olga Khodatayeva, 1945), Fairy Tale
about a Soldier (Сказка о солдате, directed by Valentina and Zinaida
Brumberg, 1948) and Geese-Swans (Гуси-лебеди, directed by Ivan
Ivanov-Vano and Aleksandra Snezhko-Blotskaya, 1949) (Fadina 2016:
78).
In addition to animated versions of fairy tales, byliny songs and children’s

stories, Soviet animation industry also produced didactic films with
‘stock’ characters from fairy tales, such as the cunning fox, the big bad
wolf, the strong yet simple bear etc. Examples of this kind of films
include The Fox and the Wolf (Лиса и волк, directed by Sarra Mokil,
1937), Cockerel – Golden Comb (Петушок – Золотой гребешок,
directed by Pyotr Nosov and Dmitri Anpilov, 1955) and Kolobok
(Колобок, directed by Roman Davydov, 1956).
During World War II Soviet film industry saw a severe decline as ‘[c]
inema in general was not on the priority list for the state, and evacuated
studios were not producing many films’ (Fadina 2016: 74).
After the end of the war, the animation industry recovered and continued
to find inspiration in the world of fairy tales and folklore, spicing the
traditional narratives with ideological or didactic messages. For instance,
Ivanov-Vano’s Stranger’s Voice (Чужой голос, 1949) was produced as a
part of the campaign against jazz music (and Western lifestyle in general).
In the film, a Soviet bird returns home from its trip abroad and performs
a concert. When it starts to sing a jazzy tune that it learned overseas, the
Soviet birds give it a whistle and expel the jazz singer from the forest.
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Folklore and fairy tales provided narrative material not only in Soviet
Union but across the entire Eastern Bloc, including in post-war
Czechoslovakia where Jiří Trnka produced a series of animated films
based on folkloric sources, such as The Czech Years (Špalíček, 1947), The
Emperor’s Nightingale (Císařův slavík, 1949) and Prince Bayaya (Bajaja,
1950). Adaptation of fairy tales and folklore provided filmmakers a safety
net, while anything too personal could have easily caused problems in
the tense political atmosphere of the post-war era. Indeed, as Antonín J.
Liehm has noted, ‘[i]t was much harder for the watchdogs to penetrate the
land of fairy tales, folk stories and poetic visions’ (quoted in Hames 2008:
24).
Trnka’s contribution to the development of Eastern European animated

film cannot be overestimated, as his mastery in puppet animation raised
the profile of this technique considerably, making it visible as a solid
alternative to cel animation and the Disney style.
In addition to his native Czechoslovakia Trnka also managed to establish

a school of puppet animation in the German Democratic Republic
(Bendazzi 2015: 236). Established in 1955, DEFA Studio für Trickfilme
was the largest animation studio in the GDR, producing about 2,000
works between 1955 and 1989. Despite this astonishing volume the DEFA
productions were typically conservative and primarily aimed at children.
According to Ulrich Wegenast, the diligent observation of the conventions
of socialist realism meant that in DEFA’s films ‘[p]uppets and cartoon
characters could not be too aloof. They had to be as natural as possible
so they were not associated with the negative rating “Formenhascherei”
(meaning, straining after formal effects)’ (quoted in Bendazzi 2015: 236).
As already suggested, the post-war Soviet animation followed in the

steps of the Disney universe. For instance, Leonid Amalrik and Vladimir
Polkovnikov’s The Little Grey Neck (Серая Шейка, 1948), with its
plastic movements and round shapes, emulates the Disney canon with
great precision. By comparison, Ivanov-Vano’s The Humpbacked Horse
(Конёк-Горбунок, 1947, remake 1975), while clearly influenced by
Disney, attempts to combine the features of this style with folkloric forms
and pieces of vernacular art (woodcuts, pottery, handicraft). In terms of
content, the film draws again on folklore tradition – it is based on Pyotr
Yershov’s poem of the same title that, in turn, makes use of various
classical fairy tales. It is interesting to note that just as numerous Soviet
animated films had to struggle with censorship Yershov’s 1834 poem had
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also been censored upon its publishing, and even banned for over two
decades due to the mortal sin of making the Tsar appear foolish. Ivanov-
Vano continued to mix folkloric and historical elements in his subsequent
films, such as The Lefthander (Левша, 1964), How One Man Fed Two
Generals (Как один мужик двух генералов прокормил, 1965) and Go
There, Don’t Know Where (Поди туда, не знаю куда, 1966).
Mikhail Tsekhanovsky and Vera Tsekhanovskaya’s The Wild Swans

(Дикие лебеди, 1962) is interesting for its synthesis of the classical,
‘spatial’ Disney style animation and flat backgrounds that imitate historic
book illustrations. While certain sense of disharmony arises from this
mixing of styles, the result comes across as modern and innovative for its
time. The Wild Swans, with its combination of three-dimensional world
of film and two-dimensional prints, demonstrates fascinating stylistic
investigations.
Valentina and Zinaida Brumberg’s Big Troubles (Большие

неприятности, 1961), although in several respects a conventional
post-war Soviet animation, rejects the Disney style decisively. While
the design of the film attempts to imitate children’s drawings and evoke
a ‘child-like’ style, it was not aimed at children – it was the first post-
war Soviet animated film to be targeted primarily to adult audiences.
Big Troubles thus marks the waning of Disney’s influence on Soviet
animation, which on the stylistic-aesthetic level had been unwavering
until the Thaw of the 1960s (Fadina 2016: 77).
6.4.
After Stalin’s death in 1953 Nikita Khrushchev took office as the head of
the Soviet Union. His tenure brought about the so-called ‘Khruschev’s
Thaw’ that ‘from a cultural point ... was characterized by a certain degree
of liberation in all spheres of Soviet life and culture’ (Fadina 2016: 83).
115
For the animated film industry, one of the most significant consequences
of this shift in power was the emerging ‘policy of decentralization
and balanced ethnic representation’, which led to the establishment of
new animation studios in Estonia (Tallinn), Ukraine (Kiev), Armenia
(Yerevan) and Georgia (Tbilisi) (Bendazzi 2015: 140). Despite setting
up new production centres, Soyuzmultfilm in Moscow retained its
importance as the largest and most important animation studio in Soviet
Union.
The rapid proliferation of television after World War II went hand in hand
with an increasing demand for animation production, which in turn gave
rise to a certain shift towards a simplified, ‘limited’ style of animation.
Limited animation or ‘modernist style’ (Amidi 2006: 18) is characterised
by reduced movement of characters, as well as by an emphasis on
uncomplicated forms and colour schemes; it prioritises design, colour,
line and composition. United Productions of America (UPA, established
in 1944) was the first studio to apply limited animation extensively, but
the filmmakers of the Zagreb school, such as Dušan Vukotič, Vatroslav
Mimica, Vlado Kristl and many others, are also known for preferring this
style.
In contrast with the UPA and the Zagreb school that utilised limited
animation in order to introduce a sense of modernity and the flair of the
times to their works, Soviet Union was mainly drawn to the functionality
of this technology. Round shapes and plastic movement of the previously
dominating Disney approach were replaced by more simple and
cartoonish designs that in a certain sense signalled a return to the roots
of Soviet animation – to the post-revolutionary cartoons and propaganda
posters. Limited animation was considerably easier to create than the
Disney style and it significantly reduced the need for resources in the
animation industry, leading to increased production volumes. In addition,
the rejection of Disney’s naturalistic style has in part been ascribed to the
escalation of the Cold War (Fadina 2016: 82).
Standing closer to caricature and poster art than to the Disney approach,
limited animation often highlighted contemporary living environment
and social relations. In addition to fairy tale universes and nature, Soviet
animation began to represent contemporary cityscapes and typical
characters of the period, as in Fyodor Khitruk’s The Story of a Crime
(История одного преступления, 1962) that is clearly set in modern-day
Moscow. Limited animation also attracted adult audiences who had been
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virtually excluded as a target group for quite a while. As the rise of limited
animation in Eastern Europe coincided with the Thaw, several films of
the period (and beyond) stand out for their cautious critiques of the Soviet
society and especially its bureaucratic apparatus. For instance, Valentina
and Zinaida Brumberg’s Big Troubles (Большие неприятности, 1961)
tackles social issues such as alcoholism, scorn of work and the Soviet
youth counterculture movement known as stilyagi (стиляги); Khrituk’s
The Man in the Frame (Человек в рамке, 1966) subtly denounces
bureaucracy and implicitly also the Soviet nomenklatura; Khrzhanovsky’s
Glass Harmonica (Стеклянная гармоника, 1968) introduces an entirely
new theme of philosophical existentialism to the Soviet animated film,
questioning Soviet social ethics by means of both content and form.
The object of Khrzhanovsky’s critique is no longer the narrow-minded
bureaucrat but the society that represses the artist and her freedom of
thought – here, the parallel with Soviet society is especially explicit.
The content and form of Glass Harmonica are strikingly unique and
this created a whole set of problems, including to its author – the film
fell victim of censorship and was ‘shelved’, while the author was
unexpectedly enlisted and spent the following two years serving in the
Soviet army (Pikkov 2015).
6.5.
While all three Baltic countries had taken their first steps in animation
during the interwar era of independent statehood, the post-war (re-)
emergence of animation industry had almost no ties with earlier decades
since World War II had severed all continuities. The first Soviet Estonian
animated film was Elbert Tuganov’s Little Peter’s Dream (Peetrikese
unenägu, 1958), based on Palle alene i Verden, a 1942 story by Danish
writer Jens Sigsgaard. In 1957, Tuganov became the founder of the
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puppet animation department at Tallinn Film Studio (later Tallinnfilm).

Subsequently, the department became the Nukufilm studio. In 1971, Rein
Raamat, who had assisted Tuganov in the production of Little Peter’s
Dream, set up Tallinnfilm’s hand-drawn animation department that over
the course of time became the Eesti Joonisfilm studio. Nukufilm and Eesti
Joonisfilm were Soviet Estonia’s leading animation studios, both of which
continue to define the field of Estonian animation to this date.
Joonisfilm and Nukufilm were under the control of Goskino
(Государственный комитет по кинематографии СССР; Госкино) who
approved their production plans, as well as signed off the completed
films. Silvia Kiik, a long-time employee of Tallinnfilm, has described the
peculiarities of the studios’ struggles with Moscow on several occasions.
According to her, ‘[c]ensorship (Goskino) officials could sometimes be
incredibly paranoid: back in 1975, the sight of a mechanic using a wrench
that had been randomly coloured red in Avo Paistik’s film Trifle (Pisiasi)
caused a scandal at the film’s approval screening’ (Kiik 2006 I: 104–105).
And, ‘[i]n 1978, a red vacuum cleaner in Paistik’s film Vacuum Cleaner
(Tolmuimeja) resulted in shelving the film for nine years’ (Kiik 2006 II:
92). Mari Laaniste adds that in the case of Priit Pärn’s Time Out (Aeg
maha, 1984), Goskino officials demanded that ‘two of the characters who
were originally stereotypically dressed Russian construction workers had
to be redrawn as circus clowns’ (Laaniste 2008: 54). Ironically, in doing
so, the censor herself gave a judgment on the Soviet work ethic.
Estonian animated films, especially those made under Raamat in

Joonisfilm, stood out for being, to a large extent, ‘artistic’ products
targeted at adult audiences (see, e.g., Trossek 2008: 34).
The first Soviet Latvian animated films, puppet animations Ki-ke-ri-gū!

(1965) and Pygmalions (1967), were made by Arnolds Burovs.
In Bendazzi’s words,
Pygmalions explored themes such as creation, the
artist’s relations to his work and difference between
abstract beauty and life. Pygmalions provoked an
ambiguous reaction – it was criticized in Latvia for not
following the conventions of Socialist Realism, but
Moscow officials showed it to non-Soviet guests to
prove the USSR had modernism too.
(Bendazzi 2015: 315)
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Anti-Animation
Puppet animation, as well as cut-out animation, became Latvia’s

‘trademark’ – Burov, who also worked in a puppet theatre, alone used this
technique in fourty films. The films typically drew on folkloric sources.
Soviet Lithuania produced its first animated film in 1966 – The Wolf and
the Tailor (Vilkas ir siuvėjas) by Zenonas Tarakevičius. Tarakevičius
was later employed by Soyuzmultfilm, which demonstrates that in
addition to ideas also people moved between different studios. However,
Lithuanian animated film never quite took off and in comparison to
live-action narrative and documentary films the production of animated
films remained marginal. Despite this, the Lithuanian studio managed
to complete some politically intriguing works, for example, Initiative
(Iniciatyva), a 1970 film by Antanas Janauskas, that has been seen as a
comment on the 1968 Soviet invasion to Prague (Bendazzi 2015: 317)
In contrast to Estonia and Latvia where puppet animation dominated

the animated film production, Lithuania nearly lacks its own tradition
of puppet animation. Lithuanian animation tended to come in drawn
form and the majority of Lithuanian animators had their backround in
caricature, architecture or design.
Within the context of Soviet Union, the Baltic republics enjoyed a special
status – they were collectively known as the ‘Soviet West’ – and, despite
censorship, this offered to the Baltic animation artists a slightly greater
degree of creative autonomy. As Andreas Trossek has observed, Goskino
also acknowledged this privileged state of affairs, the so-called ‘Special
Baltic Order2’ (Trossek 2008: 35).
It appears that the Soviet cinema nomenklatura accepted the concept of

the Baltic republics as the ‘Soviet West’. Indeed, many animated films
produced there, especially by Eesti Joonisfilm, flaunt relatively bold
experiments in line with contemporary Western art movements and music.
Furthermore, the thematic horizon was also broader compared to the
animation production of the rest of the Soviet Union. In Richard Mole’s
words, ‘[w]riters, artists, film-makers and scholars in all three republics
2 More correctly, the Baltic Landesstaat. This is a

reference to the historical arrangements in the
territories of today’s Estonia and Latvia where
Baltic German nobility retained its political power
and protestantism (German cultural domination)
was accepted.
119
were given greater freedom to assert national values and express national
sentiment, although they were still restricted by the outer limits of Soviet
nationality policy’ (Mole 2012: 63–64).
6.6.
When Khrushchev was removed from office, Leonid
Brezhnev, a much more conservative-minded leader,
took over. During his long term in office, which
has become known as the Stagnation, the screw of
censorship was tightened again but, apart from the
fact that nobody was shot any more for not painting or
writing as the supreme leader wanted, this censorship
was concerned with the text more than with the
aesthetics. This fact allowed artists, animation artists
included, considerably more freedom than they had had
for the last two decades. (Bendazzi 2015: 77)
After Brezhnev’s ascent to power in 1964, the Soviet animation industry

continued to produce films for children, as well as to keep a safe distance
from politically uncomfortable and/or contemporary subject matters.
The field was dominated by poetical-lyrical fairy tales. A number of
long-running animated series emerged, skyrocketing in popularity on
the television screens across the entire Eastern Bloc. Characters like
Cheburashka, Gena the Crocodile, Winnie the Pooh, Karlsson-on-the
Roof, and, of course, the Rabbit and the Wolf, became the greatest
animated stars of the small screen. Just You Wait! (Ну, погоди!,
1969–1993), an animated series by Vyacheslav Kotyonochkin, was
particularly well-received, not least due to featuring well-known pop
songs that secured the continued popularity of the series and made it
Soyuzmultfilm’s longest-running animation.
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Anti-Animation
In Czechoslovakia, the Mole (Krtek), Pat & Mat, Maxipes Fík earned
comparable fame in local animated series, while in GDR, the legendary
Little Sandman (Unser Sandmännchen) begun his screen adventures.
As most of these characters were introduced to their audiences, and

earned their enduring affection, on the small screen, it is also important to
highlight the increasing role of television for the era’s audiovisual culture
in general and for the animation in particular. Starting from the late
1970s, the development of television brought about a significant change
in the patterns of media (including animation) consumption – in addition
to cinemas, the audiences were now able to watch animated films in the
privacy of their home. As in the West, television became the prevailing,
and incredibly influential, media outlet – by the mid-1980s more than
90 per cent of the households in the Eastern Bloc owned a television set
(Stites 1992: 189). Animated films became a staple of everyday television
programme, which increased their popularity as well as production
volumes. In Russia, for instance, ‘a prime showcase for animations was
a children’s program called Spokoinoi nochi, malyshi (Good Night, Little
Ones), which immediately preceded the evening news’ (Kononenko
2011: 175) – a fact testifying of the high prestige and importance of the
animated medium in the televisual context. As to the production volumes,
children had the privilege to enjoy as many as 30–40 hours of new
animation annually (Bendazzi 2016: 194).
An interesting example between different ideological approach between

Disney (western) and Soviet animation is adaption of Rudyard Kipling’s
The Jungle Book (1894). While Disney’s produced and Wolfgang
Reitherman directed 1967 feature-length The Jungle Book, is a rather
jolly enterprise that featured merry inhabitants of the jungle singing and
dancing to jazzy tunes, than Soyuzmultfilm’s 1973 version directed by
Roman Davydov Adventures of Mowgli (Маугли), mainly concentrated
on the class struggle.
In addition to this quantitative upsurge, Eastern European animation also

underwent artistic growth from the 1960s on (Bendazzi 2015: 236). Apart
from Disney, Soviet animation filmmakers received significant impulses
from various contemporary Western art movements, such as pop art, in
particular via George Dunning’s 1968 animated film Yellow Submarine,
in the wake of which, according to Trossek, a number of Soviet pop-
psychedelic animations emerged – Puzzle Box (Шкатулка с секретом,
121
1976) by Valeri Ugarov, Contact (Контакт, 1978) by Vladimir Tarasov

and, definitely most famously, The Mystery of the Third Planet (Тайна
третьей планеты, 1981) by Roman Kachanov (Trossek 2011: 118).
The poetical lyricism of Eastern European animated films of the

stagnation period took on strangely pessimistic undertones, suggested by
a certain sense of desolation and lack of happy endings. In fact, a number
of commentators (Wells 1998; Bendazzi 2015; Ajanovič-Ajan 2004) have
argued that pessimism is one of the defining features of Eastern European
animation:
In the area we call middle Europe, the term itself
has much more cultural than geographical meaning,
between 1950 and 1980, worked a significant number
of animated film studios. Many successful films,
regardless of their origins, be it Prague, Budapest or
Zagreb, relied precisely on the tradition of humor
whose main character was a plain man whose main
feature was pessimism (Ajanovič-Ajan 2004).
This approach is perhaps especially evident in the caricaturesque

animated films of the Zagreb school that often feature pessimistic
protagonist(s), various deadlocks and oppressive environments
(labyrinths, dead ends). Pessimism also dominated in the authorial stance,
as testified by downcast choice of topics (and music) and lack of happy
endings. Bendazzi has characterised the entire Polish animated cinema of
the 1960s as ‘poetry of pessimism’ (Bendazzi 2015: 242), while Priit Pärn
confessed in an interview, ‘I’m a practicing pessimist’ (Kirt 1984).
This overtly pessimistic attitude can be read as a certain reaction to the

official optimism of the Soviet society that lived in the constant hope
of shortly arriving bright communist future: ‘This pessimism reflects
a unique historical-political situation. In the mid-1960s, the artist and
intellectuals reacted to the bureaucratic state, and emphasized a hopeless
individual and social reality’ (Bendazzi 2015: 242).
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Anti-Animation
6.7.
The planned economy of the communist era, alongside the state-funded

film industry, liberated filmmakers from the problems of raising funds to
their productions, allowing them to concentrate on the actual creative act,
no matter how complicated or expensive its formal expression. As already
indicated, censorship of the stagnation period tended to target the text
(meaning the screenplay of an animated film) and the audiovisual form
was largely under the control of the studio and the author. According to
Bendazzi, ‘[w]hen political customs relaxed and stylistic research was
allowed, the state-funding system revealed unexpected good qualities. In
different ways from nation to nation, the State became a patron of auteur
animation’ (Bendazzi 2015: 236).
Hence, starting from Brezhnev’s era, Eastern European animated film

paradoxically became a safe haven for auteur techniques, as the state
funding provided the means for trying out and experimenting with a
wide range of different ideas and techniques. Even though censorship
and ideological control over film industry remained certainly significant,
the financial freedom facilitated invention and use of innovative
auteur techniques. The multitude of the latter undoubtedly became
another prominent feature of Eastern European animation. As the
system established by the state in a way promoted formal diversity,
no single animation technique or style became absolutely dominant.
Soviet system of film education also supported auteur animation and
technical heterogeneity, since the central All-Union State Institute
of Cinematography (Всесоюзный государственный институт
кинематографии, VGIK) was a truly vibrant hotbed of talents from all
over the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc. VGIK’s animation curriculum
was designed to train unique directors well-versed in both narrative and
(audio)visual form: ‘The teaching practice soon drifted toward auteur
cinema, because the graduates were supposed to acquire also the tools of
the animator’s and designer’s profession’ (Bendazzi 2015: 306).
123
Eastern European animation artists worked in traditional (hand-drawn,

puppet and cut-out animation) as well as in various lesser-known
techniques (sand and clay animation, direct or drawn on film animation
etc.). It was also not uncommon to mix and combine several different
techniques.
6.8.
Film is ‘a social document’ (Haynes 2003: 181). In a sense, Eastern

European animated film can be regarded as a self-portrait of society, a
reflection of collective consciousness. The more intense pressure ideology
puts on culture, the more relevant animated film becomes as a document
of an age. Soviet censorship was set up in order to guarantee the ‘correct’
content of cultural production and its brutal nature frequently manifests
most vividly in the form of authorial comments and references. Animated
films can be considered a reflection of an era, not unlike fairy tales that
used to convey a sense of what was important and regarded as necessary
to pass to future generations in ancient times. Animated films yield to
both historico-political and socio-cultural analysis. Indeed, over the
recent decades, animated films have increasingly taken on a social role
earlier reserved for fairy tales – as agents of cultural memory, national
consciousness and identity. Fadina suggests that animated adaptation in
particular function ‘as a recycling of (a) national memory and (b) national
identity and (c) gender identity’ (Fadina 2016: 125).
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Anti-Animation
Animated films give us a chance to investigate and describe the society in

a wider sense. In his Semiotics of Cinema, Yuri Lotman suggests that
[a] film is part of the ideological struggles, culture and
art of its era ... related to numerous aspects of life lying
outside the text of the film, thus giving rise to an entire
series of meanings which are often more important to
a historian or a contemporary than strictly aesthetic
problems might be (Lotman 1976: 42).
When animated films are analysed as social documents, it becomes

relevant to consider what is excluded, as much as what is included. From
this point of view, it is significant to note that Soviet animation almost
never touched religious topics unlike Soviet live-action narrative cinema,
as exemplified by the works of Andrei Tarkovsky, most importantly
his Andrei Rublev (Андрей Рублёв, 1966). Even if priests are depicted
in some animated films, they function as antiquated symbols of the
reactionary past, alongside czars and queens. It can be argued that
religious topics and symbols – traditionally central and extremely visible
in Slavic societies – were indeed a complete taboo in Soviet animated
film. Due to this, Yuri Norstein and Ivan Ivanov-Vano’s The Battle at
Kerzhenets (Сеча при Керженце, 1971), a film that in its design relies
heavily on elements of Russian icon art, is all the more noteworthy.
In 1979, Yuri Norstein completes his Tale of Tales (Сказка сказок), a

film that has been regarded as the best animated film of all time by film
critics (Pikkov 2010: 191). Based on memories, it portrays some of the
topics most significant for the 20th-century Eastern European collective
subconsiocus – World War II, childhood and coming of age, home and
homesickness, anonymous urbanisation etc. Tale of Tales offers a unique
insight into the inner world of the author and the society surrounding him.
It is a highly symbolic and multi-layered piece, linking past with present
and dreams with reality. In a sense, Tale of Tales could stand for the
entire Eastern European animation tradition. Typically to many Eastern
European animated films, it struggled with censorship and escaped the
fate of being ‘shelved’ only due to a lucky coincidence (Bendazzi 2015:
283).
While the above-mentioned examples highlight the importance of

memory and past traditions, a trend of opposite temporal direction –
towards the present – can also be traced. Namely, starting from the
late 1960s, the previous explorations of folkloric and vernacular topics
125
were gradually replaced by investigations of the authorial self through

reflections of contemporary society. Several Eastern European animated
films of the period offer unique insights into the totalitarian society
and its accepted models of behaviour. For instance, Jiří Trnka, who
began his career with fairy tale films, became in the 1960s increasingly
fascinated with the world surrounding him, then and there. One of his
boldest films of the period is The Hand (Ruka, 1965), a stop motion
puppet animation portraying the relationship between the artist and the
patronising authority, the latter terrorising the former – a struggle too well
known to many artists of the time. Indeed, The Hand turned out to be
too anti-state – it remained Trnka’s final film and ‘threw him into official
disfavor’ (Moritz 1997: 38–39). Paul Wells has characterised it as ‘a
vision of inhibited process and misrepresentative outcomes; a triumph of
resistance’ (Wells 1998: 88).
The sometimes rather dangerous interest of animation artists in portraying

their immediate realities became increasingly more prominent between
the late 1970s and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The characteristic
examples of this tendency include, for example, Priit Pärn’s Exercises
in Preparation for Independent Life (Harjutusi iseseisvaks eluks, 1980)
and The Triangle (Kolmnurk, 1982). Among other things, Pärn’s films
illustrate a significant general trait of Soviet animation that is particularly
noticeable in films dealing with contemporary realities – namely,
the diminishing reliance on verbal language. As David MacFadyen
observes, Soviet cartoons frequently ‘have tiny screenplays, often no text
whatsoever. They are visually, more than verbally, active’ (MacFadyen
2005: 16). The waning of the verbal is doubtlessly related to the
specific conditions of the totalitarian society. Since a word usually has a
significantly more concrete meaning than a visual image, the author, by
excluding the former, could rely on the safety net of ambiguity and thus
minimise the rist of being censored.
As the animated films became increasingly reflective of the surrounding

realities and environment, they also became sources of citation, mostly in
terms of music, jokes and one-liners. While still oriented towards young
audiences, animations, even those featuring characters initially targeted at
children, also began to gain wide popularity among adults. For instance,
Gena the Crocodile and Cheburashka quickly rose to the status of popular
cult figures far beyond the animated medium, and their fame still seems
to be unfading. For instance, the figure of Gena the Crocodile has been
reproduced on a postage stamp (Fadina 2016: 69) and Cheburashka’s
126
Anti-Animation
picture graced the official uniforms of the Olympic Team of the Russian
Federation in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010. Cheburashka also became the
official logo and mascot of Soyuzmultfilm.
Doubtlessly, Just You Wait! owes at least part of its enduring popularity to
the fact that it offered comical entertainment as well as significant insights
into the society and social relations. Anna Gareeva has aptly argued that
‘Nu, pogodi! reflects and comments on contemporary Soviet society. It
allows one a unique insight into the way of life of the Soviet people, from
their streets, dress, to popular culture. The most popular cartoon series, it
left audiences with a feeling nationalism, community, the ‘Soviet spirit’
(Gareeva 2013: 1).
6.9.
Perestroika and glasnost initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev from 1985

onwards led to thematic diversification in animated film and lifted the
taboo from representing Soviet society and its flaws for what they were,
at least to a certain extent. Self reflection and social critique became the
dominant keywords and many productions of the period took social topics
under scrutiny. In Trossek’s words, ‘the cultural sphere was suddenly
given a green light for moderate social criticism, which, in the Soviet
Union, had previously been confined to “dissident discourse”’ (Trossek
2011: 120).
127
One of the most famous ‘animated reflections’ of the period was

undoubtedly Priit Pärn’s The Luncheon on Grass (Eine murul, 1987),
a film that explores the questions of artistic freedom, bureaucracy and
struggles of everyday life in Soviet conditions. Another pertinent example
is The Door (Дверь, 1986) by Nina Shorina that similarly ponders over
mundane troubles of the little men and women. Robert Sahakyantsi’s
Wind (Ветер, 1988) and Button (Кнопка, 1989) offer extremely bold
critiques of the regime. The final film of this upsurge of reflexive
animations was Riho Unt’s House of Culture (Kultuurimaja, 1988) about
the desire towards Western ideals in the Soviet society and the utterly
illusional nature of them. House of Culture also introduces a completely
new period of animation production in Eastern Europe – one based on
the rules of market economy. Moreover, it is of symbolic significance
that in 1989 Unt’s film was awarded the grand prix at the First All-Union
Animated Film Festival that took place in Kiev, Ukraine.
1989 was the year of cataclysmic changes all over Eastern Europe and
the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 marked the beginning of
the dissolution of the Soviet ‘empire’. This date also indicates the end
of Soviet political and cultural domination over its Eastern European
‘satellites’. However, the economic crisis and instability of the 1990s had
devastating effects on the animation industries of the former Eastern Bloc
countries – several seasoned animation artists were forced to end their
careers or to emigrate to the ‘West’; numerous studios were dismantled
because the governments stopped supporting them and the rest of the
industry became a site for Western out-sourcing instead of making their
own films; the film market was hit by a great depression (Fadina 2016:
93). Only the advent of digital technologies in the second half of the
1990s and early 2000s paved the way for recovery and significant (global)
growth of the animation industry.
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6.10.
The majority of Soviet animated films represent a world dominated by

men, with female characters typically passive and far fewer in number.
Despite the official rhetoric of gender equality the female figure in
Eastern European animation is almost always subservient to men and
utterly stereotypical, that is, defined by male values, irrespective of the
sex of the director and writer of a particular film (Fadina 2016: 261–264).
A good example is Dziga Vertov’s 1924 Soviet Toys, the earliest surviving
Soviet animated film, where the only female character is a bimbo dancing
to the tune of her man. Or take Dušan Vukotić’s 1962 Ersatz, one of the
most famous films of the Zagreb school, where the role of the woman is
limited to providing company to the man. Natalie Kononenko has rightly
noted that Soviet animation ‘not only criticized capitalism, but also
depicted women as sexless and self-sacrificing, and urged cooperation,
neighborliness, and nonviolence’ (Kononenko 2011: 272). Furthermore,
she adds, that ‘[a]lthough the Communist Party had originally promised
to liberate women and to make them the strong and equal partners of men,
by the time that most Soviet cartoons were created, independent women
were no longer desired’ (ibid.). In the same vein, Nadezda Fadina argues
that ‘in Russian academic thought feminism has been almost non-existent
throughout the Soviet period’ (Fadina 2016: 136).
As observed by Giannalberto Bendazzi in his Animation: A World History

(2015: 307), it was only in the wake of perestroika in the latter half of the
1980s, with Natalia Dabizha, Ekaterina Obraztsova and Natalia Orlova
entering the stage of Soviet animation, when feminist approach started to
gain some traction. Notably, Lydia Surikova’s How Ivan the Fine Young
Man Was Rescuing the Tsar’s Daughter (Как Иван-молодец царску
дочку спасал, 1989) introduces an atypical female character to the Soviet
animation – one that indeed actively initates the events. In Fadina’s
opinion, this was one of ‘the truly feminist animated films’ (Fadina 2016:
129
165). However, a comparison of Surikova’s film with Pärn’s 1982 The

Triangle suggests that unconventional female characters can also be
found in pre-perestroika animations. Furthermore, The Triangle once
again demonstrates that the Baltic states enjoyed more artistic freedom
compeared to the rest of Soviet Union.
Similarly to female characters on the screen, the female animation artists

were also a minority: ‘State socialism maintained elaborate policies
designed to secure gender equality. This, however, did not significantly
change the situation of women in film-making, who were traditionally
marginalised and had fewer changes to become directors’ (Iordanova
2003: 119).
6.11.
For decades, the development of Soviet animation was defined by
the tendency to emulate Disney’s ‘round’ style, choice of topics and
techniques, as well as by the habit to target the production to young
audiences (Bendazzi 1994: 177). Yet equally strong was the desire to
emphasise that Soviet culture stood in stark opposition to the Western
standards and way of life. In addition to putting animation in the service
of the construction and production of Soviet identity, Soviet authorities
also used animated film as an ideological instrument (for example, the
anti-jazz campaign in Ivanov-Vano’s Stranger’s Voice or the class struggle
in Davydov’s Adventures of Mowgli). Cultural landscape, including
animated film, was one of the battlegrounds of the Cold War.
Although Khrushchev’s Thaw witnessed numerous releases of animated

films for adult audiences, Soviet animation in general remained a
children’s genre, a didactic form drawing heavily on folkloric sources.
Paradoxically, however, the early Soviet discourse had rejected fairy tales
as a legitimate thematic pool, condemning them as vestiges of feudalism.
It was not until the mid-1930s that fairy tales were ideologically
rehabilitated and became the major providers of content for the Soviet
animated film industry.
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Anti-Animation
Initially centralised in Moscow, Soviet animation industry began to

spread its branches to other republics upon the onset of the Thaw, which
also coincided with the gradual increase in the variety of different auteur
techniques. Despite ideological control, Eastern European animated film
became an oasis for such innovative methods that blossomed due to
strong state support to filmmaking. This created favourable conditions
for the emergence of a formally diverse field of animation where no
technique or style achieved an absolutely dominant position.
The domination of Soviet Union over the Eastern European countries

after World War II had mixed effects. On the one hand, the state supported
industry was able to produce high-level artistic animations without the
pressing need to focus on their commercial success. On the other hand,
the state also controlled and censored almost every step of filmmaking,
severely curtailing the creative freedom of the animation artists.
Animation has a rich tradition of debating, commenting and reflecting on

the political and socio-cultural situation of the society. Since animated
film is also a vechicle for cultural memory, collective consciousness and
identity, Soviet animations provide unique insights into the totalitarian
society and its modes of behavior, some of which this article was
hopefully able to highlight.
131
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MacFadyen, David 2005. Yellow Crocodiles and Blue Oranges: Russian

Animated Film since World War Two. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s
University Press.
Moritz, William 1997. ‘Narrative Strategies for Resistance and Protest in

Eastern European Animation’. – Jayne Pilling (ed.), A Reader in
Animation Studies. Sydney: John Libbey, 38–47.
Mole, Richard 2012. The Baltic States from the Soviet Union to the
European Union: Identity, Discourse and Power in the Post-
Communist Transition of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. London,
New York: Routledge.
Норштейн, Юрий 1988. ‘Движение стиля.“Лабораторные записи”’. –

Искусство кино, 10, pp. 104–116.

Pikkov, Ülo 2015. Interview with Andrei Khrzhanovsky, 17 April.

Пироженко, Ольга 2004a. ‘История в картинках. Гендерные

репрезентации в советской анимации’. – Гендерные
исследования, 12, pp. 139–151.
Пироженко, Ольга 2004b. ‘Мама, Папа, Я. (Ре)конструкция советской

семьи в сериале “Простоквашино”. – Такая, 19 November.
http://takaya.eu/texts/essay/prost/.
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Pontieri, Laura 2012. Soviet Animation and the Thaw of the 1960s: Not
Only for Children. Herst: John Libbey.
Roberts, Graham 2007. ‘Dream Factory and Film Factory: The Soviet
Response to Hollywood 1917–1947’. – Paul Cooke (ed.), World
Cinema’s ‘Dialogues’ with Hollywood. Basingstoke, New York:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Trossek, Andreas 2008. ‘When Did It Get Political? Soviet Film

Bureaucracy and Estonian Hand-drawn Animation’. – Eva
Näripea, Andreas Trossek (eds.), Via Transversa: Lost Cinema
of the Former Eastern Bloc. Tallinn: Estonian Academy of Arts,
31–45.
Trossek, Andreas 2011. ‘Tumeda animatsiooni surm Euroopas: Priit Pärna

“Hotell E”’ / ‘The Death of Dark Animation in Europe: Priit
Pärn’s Hotel E’. – Kunstiteaduslikke Uurimusi, vol. 20 (3–4),
97–123.
Stites, Richard 1992. Russian Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society

since 1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wells, Paul 1998. Understanding Animation. London: Routledge.
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7.
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Link to the film:
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https://
vimeo.com/
62741577
Body Memory
7.1.
As I started to work on the animation film Body Memory, I was

immediately struck by the idea that I had to find the plot (and feeling
of the film) inside myself, that I had to become an ancient shaman who
relayed the emotions and fears of my ancestors. This idea led to the
choice of title for the film – ‘Body Memory’ – which is also a key to
understanding the film.
I wrote the following in my diary during pre-production and looking for

shooting locations (14.02.2010):
As I drive along the roads of Estonia, I see a lot of wild apple trees. But
these trees really speak of the farms that were once here, the gardens
in which they grew. The farms are now abandoned and the houses
dilapidated, but the apple trees are still there. It’s strange to think that
someone built themselves a house, planted apple trees around it and
surely thought it would all last forever and be passed down to their
grandchildren and their grandchildren’s children...
Often it’s the apple trees that last the longest. A house can perish
in fifty years. It can disappear so fast that it’s hard to imagine there was
once a building there. Only the apple trees betray signs of the life that
was once there.
The deportations and social processes that followed, including
collectivization and urbanization, left thousands of Estonian farms empty.
Most of them have completely perished. The apple trees could be the
paths to each home, if only someone knew how to read them. Soon, these
apple trees, these signs of life, will also perish and then it will be hard to
find one’s roots.
The apple tree became a symbol I wanted to use in the film right from the
beginning. An apple tree has cultural and religious significance. There is
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an episode in the film where a pencil is tied to an apple tree and it moves
in the wind, back and forth, forming the letter S. S like the serpent... And
this, again, hints at the idea of body memory: the bodies of apple trees
carry their own memories! Isn’t an apple tree trying to draw the letter
S trying to tell us an ancient story about people being driven out of the
Garden of Eden? If apple trees can use their body memories to tell us
stories of their predecessors, then certainly people can do the same.
In research, the concept of body memory refers to the body collecting

and storing experiences (memories) just as the brain does. The concept is
often used in the context of our subconscious or subconscious memory.
Body memory is also directly tied to our cultural memory.
A Our culture is based on stories.

Stories are the foundation of
everything. Our own lives are also
stories: biographical stories. And
a story must be told, reproduced,
handed forward.... During my
pre-production period, I made
repeated trips to the Estonian
Literary Museum and the
B
Museum of Occupations
to look at the materials
on deportations, mainly
people’s memories and
photos. The visual design
also used the drawings
made by those who were
deported to Siberia
(A: unknown author;
B: Hilda Orn; C: Helvi
Koppel-Kohandi).
C The animation film Body
Memory deals with people’s
subconscious memories.
We remember more than we
can imagine and our bodies
remember the pain and worry
of our predecessors.
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Body Memory
Almost seventy years have passed since

the 1949 deportations in Estonia but
the after-effects are still very present in
society. After World War II, the Soviet
Union occupied the Republic of Estonia
and 30,000 inhabitants were deported to
Siberia, mostly the more educated and
successful people. Neither children nor
the elderly were spared: the youngest
known deportee was three-day-old Anne
Ojaäär of Hiiumaa Island and the
oldest was 95-year-old Maria Räägel
of Abja Parish.
In March 1949, 20,723 civilians

were deported from Estonia and
20,600 of them made it to their
intended destination. More than
92,000 people from the Baltic states
were forced to leave their homes.
There are fewer and fewer people
left who remember those events or who
experienced them first-hand. And, yet,
memories of the events live on in our
subconscious...
The animation film Body Memory

recreates this historic tragedy on an
abstract level without making an overtly
political judgement about the events.
The film is about the pain and mental
ties that hold together people who are
violently forced to leave their homes.
The film follows one group shut into
a railway cattle car: their feelings and
relationships to those who share their
fate. The film follows two sub-plots:
‘People in the Train’ and the ‘Garden
of Eden’. The people are shown
through abstract, yarn puppets who
are shackled to their past by the yarn
coming from their bodies.
Archival photos
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Deportees were taken to Siberia in cattle cars with 24-25 people per two-
axle car. Their trip to Siberia lasted a total of 11 days and nights.
Design sketches
As the train moves, yarn unrolls from their bodies and runs out of the car
through the cracks in the walls. As the yarn unrolls, it makes the people’s
bodies spin. Spinning, they become smaller and smaller until they
disappear altogether.
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Body Memory
In a crisis situation, people show their true natures and differences:

some people try to be organised, some act individually, and some remain
passive observers. There are struggles that cause the mass of people
inside the train to become a large, spinning ball of yarn. The ball of yarn
disappears as it goes out between the wall boards.
The second sub-plot is the ‘Garden of Eden’, where we see a pencil tied
to an apple tree drawing the letter S.
The apple tree has retained

its memory of the serpent
as the embodiment of evil,
which caused people to
be driven out of Paradise.
Maybe the apple tree is
trying to warn us with its
drawing of the serpent
but we don’t understand.
The camera pans out and
the viewer sees an apple
orchard in March. A train
pulling cattle cars passes
through the orchard. As the
train moves away, it turns
into a serpent.
Body Memory is
constructed as a linear story
with two memories edited
in parallel until they blend
together. Just as each drop
of water reflects a whole
world, each human being
reflects all of humanity.
First test
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Animation Film
Body Memory –
Technical Information
and Crew

Animation technique puppet film
(classical stop-motion,
puppet animation)
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Year 2011
Duration 10 min. 30 sec.
Sound Dolby stereo
Genre Auteur film
Target Group children and adults
Director Ülo Pikkov
Screenwriter Ülo Pikkov
Director of Photography Raivo Möllits
Animator Märt Kivi
Art Designer Ülo Pikkov
Lighting Raivo Möllits
Producer Arvo Nuut
Production studio Nukufilm OÜ
Poster by Anne Pikkov
Body Memory
Technical execution
The film uses several techniques of classic animation (e.g. puppet
animation and 3D computer animation). The set is theatrical and simple:
most of the film takes place in a closed cattle car.
The dolls are simply constructed, becoming symbols of people in the film,
rather than detailed characters.
Deportees were taken to Siberia in cattle cars with 25 people in each

car. Thus, we made 25 puppets for the film. The puppets are all women
because men and women were separated during deportation and the car
that we chose for the film was a female car.
The puppets used in animation often have exchangeable heads or faces

for different expressions. I wanted the puppets in this film to be complete
characters and for their emotions and expressions to be created with their
whole bodies. I wanted to treat the puppets as having individual, distinct
characteristics. The film was shot chronologically.
During preparations, I wrote the following in my diary (21.01.2010):
Every puppet should tell its own story through its movements. But there
are a lot of them and they are all very similar: thus, each personality can
only be shown through movement, through animating the puppets. (...)
The puppets are characters who are together by chance, people who were
forced from their homes, stuffed into cattle cars and taken away from
everything that was near and dear to them.
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155
Dancer (Külli Roosna) creates movement schemes
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7.2.
I am fascinated by this statement, which I assume you wrote:

What can an old apple tree tell us? What mysteries are hidden in
his roots, gnarled over time? Does he remember the serpent and the lost
Paradise? Our body remembers more than we can expect and imagine.
It remembers the sorrow and pain of our predecessors. It keeps alive the
stories of our parents and grandparents as well as their ancestors. But how
far back is it possible to go in your bodily memory.
This explains what the apple tree is doing in the opening
sequence of the film and why the train should morph into a serpentine
beast at the end. Do you see the story you tell in Body Memory as in some
way having Biblical roots? And were these framing pieces – involving the
easel and tree at the start and mainly the easel and serpentine creature at
the end – part of your concept for the film from the start?
The apple trees, or, more precisely, the apple orchard

in the film comes from somewhere near my father’s
birthplace. That’s in Rapla County in Estonia. Those
old apple trees have captivated me since I was a child,
with their twisted, scarred trunks. I wanted to make a
film about those trees when I was in film school and
found myself strolling around the orchard time and
again, wondering what those trees would say if they
could talk. That’s how I got the sudden inspiration
to give an apple tree a pencil and let it tell its story.
The apple tree started to talk - it started drawing an
S-shaped line that looked very much like a snake.
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Body Memory
I understood that I was being told The oldest story

know to humanity – the story of the serpent that
convinced man to eat the forbidden fruit from the apple
tree, which, in turn, caused man to be thrown out of
Paradise. This made me understand that we all carry
a lot of stories with us. Our ancestors’ stories live on
inside us, we just have to look deep enough.
Is your story based on a specific historical event involving “the sorrow

and pain […] of our parents and grandparents, as well as their ancestors”?
Descriptions on websites refer for example to “the hidden horror of
deportation” and “the Second World War.” Is there a specific deportation
you had in mind?
The mass deportations in the Baltic countries took

place in 1949. People were arrested in their homes,
families were torn apart and deported to Siberia. My
father was a schoolboy at the time. When he went to
school the next day, half of the seats were empty. His
best friend’s family was also taken to Siberia. The
children were shocked by what had happened and ran
to the apple orchard you see in the film. It’s located
quite near the railroad so the children saw the trains
transporting deportees. I remember my father’s words
well. He said that when he stood in the apple orchard
on that brisk March morning, he understood that the
light between the ground and the sky would never be
the same. This recollection, heard described in my
childhood, has burned so deeply into my memory that I
feel as though I was there, myself.
The name of the film, “Body Memory”, is
a key to unveiling its story. Just like the apple trees
remember the story of the serpent that caused humans
to be thrown from Paradise, I also recreate the story of
that deportation 64 years ago.
The prisoners in the freight car are portrayed, not as helping one
another but at times as being terribly cruel to one another. Could
you please comment on this aspect of the film?
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I’ve long been troubled by Joseph Brodsky’s question

of why people didn’t rebel against the Soviet terror.
If people had publicly stood up against the terror, its
scale would have become evident and it wouldn’t have
been so fatal. But there were no rebellions.
In the film, I try to reconstruct complete terror
and people grasping to cope with it. I show how fear
can turn off the ability to reason and make one cruel
towards those who share one’s fate.
I had always viewed the unraveling of the figures in the train as

a metaphor for the death of the people who were being deported.
But I see on a blog that someone has written of your film: “Puppets
made of string represent unraveling persistent memories and our
attempt to forget them.” What do you yourself see the unraveling
of the figures as representing?
For me, the unraveling string represents fate and the

predetermined bonds tied to a person that cannot be
broken. But the serpent at the end of the film represents
evil.
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Body Memory
7.3.
Shot 1 (22 sc.) Shot 1 (cont.)

The camera tilts and rises upward,
showing first the legs of a tripod, then
a box of oil paints and finally a blank
canvas on what we now can see is a
painter’s easel.
Shot 1 (cont.) Shot 2 (5 sec)

The title of the film is
superimposed over the canvas.
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Shot 3 (8 sec.) Shot 4 (19 sec.)
The camera tracks upward, following Changing direction, the camera now
a thick branch of a tree. tracks downward along another thick
branch.
Shot 5 (14 sec.) Shot 5 (cont.)

The camera now focuses on a thinner
branch, to which a drawing pencil has
been tied. Moved back and forth by the
wind, the branch appears to be drawing
lines on the canvas.

A transition to the approaching Approx. 15-20 women are standing
animation: lines now seem to be in a freight car in the dark, and
drawing themselves. 161 periodically shiver synchronously.
Shot 7 (cont.) Shot 7 (cont.)
Serpentine threads arise from two of The figures are suddenly
them, exploring the space. illuminated by a blinding light.

Zoom in on the slats through which
the light is now pouring, ending with
a screen that is entirely white.
Shots 9, 10, 11 (10 sec.) Shot 12 (2 sec.)

Single lines seem to twist and wiggle Inside a freight car, single threads
over the white background. sway and finally become taut…
162
…each attached to the head of one The women try to disentangle the
of the women in the freight car. twisted threads that are attached to
them.
Shot 15 (11.5 sec.) Shot 16 (4 sec.)

One woman frees herself from the The women laugh at having inflicted
thread and proudly struts forward but this punishment, except for the
is roughly pushed back by the women pregnant one contemplates the egg
around her, one of whom is pregnant. she bears at her stomach.

One of the laughing women is One woman is violently yanked
suddenly yanked by her thread to backward by her thread, her head
the back of the freight car, where 163 blocking the lights as it fills the
she unravels as the thread is pulled screen which goes black.
through the slats.
Seen from above, the women are Threads pulled downward
locked into a pattern which changes through slats.
several times as their threads are
pulled through the slats of the
freight car.

A woman, violently yanked by her A woman is pulled up from the
thread, is pulled against the slatted floor of the freight car, and
wall freight car wall and tries suspended by threads in which
unsuccessfully to free herself. she now appears to be seated.
Shot 23 (5 sec.) Shot 24 (3.5 sec.)

She laughs as she rocks back and She is now dragged helplessly
forth hammock style. But her threads along the floor of the freight car
are suddenly yanked and she loses 164 and out of frame.
her balance.
Shot 24 (cont.) Shot 25 (3 sec.)
Each time she tries to sit up she is
pulled back down to the floor.

In the process, knocks over another Thread is being unwound from the
woman. head of a seated figure.

Now seen from above, the unwinding We now see from the quickly
of the head continues. rotating POV of the head made to
165 spin by the unwinding thread.
The woman grabs the thread in an Another spinning POV shot, with
effort to prevent further unwinding the figures and slats speeding by
but to no avail. She is pulled out little more than a blur.
of frame.

Again the woman holds the thread
in an effort to stop the unravelling of
her head.

A woman is dragged along the floor She manages to tie a knot in the
toward a slatted wall of the freight thread, thereby preventing it from
car. 166 pulling her into the slats.
Close-up of the knot blocking the The woman’s smiling face, seen
movement of the thread through the through the slat from the outside.
slat.
Shot 38 (1.5 sec.) Shot 39 (4 sec.)

The slats give and her relief turns Her head seen as in Shot 37, only
out to be short-lived. this time spinning and decreasing in
size as it unravels. She disappears
from view and the camera focuses
on the pregnant woman.

The pregnant woman manages to While she caresses the egg, a
break the threatening thread by serpentine thread arises from her
biting it. 167 head and begins to sway.
The thread spins her around but The thread continues to spin her
she resists, removing some of the around and unwind her, leaving
thread from around her head and her helpless.
winding it protectively around the
egg.

Her head is completely unwound Spun around helplessly, she
and the now headless woman drops continues to unravel until there
the egg which rolls away. is nothing left of her. The other
women are amused.

Someone kicks the egg which rolls Like a soccer ball, it is rolled
toward our right. across the floor and finally flies
168 upward toward the wall.
It spatters against the slatted wall, General unravelling.
some of it disappearing through
the cracks, the rest dropping to
the floor.

More unravelling and resistance. What is left of a headless woman
Another headless woman strides is pulled through the slats.
across the floor of the freight car
and stands at a slatted wall.

A headless woman crawls along Another head begins to unravel.
the threads.
169
Shot 49 (2 sec.) Shot 50 (sec.)
Again the headless woman crawling Again the unravelling head.
along the threads.

Two women next to each other are More unravelling.
alternately made to spin as they
unravel, almost as though they were
dancing together, until they are
knocked down by a third woman.

Knots that had been tied in threads Unravelling women are pulled
are pulled apart. together into a clump.
170
Shot 55 (2.5 sec.) Shot 56 (4 sec.)
The arm of a headless woman The clump of partially unravelled
unravels. women now crawls like a crab or
spider along the floor of the freight
car.

Zoom in on a screaming woman, Zoom out from a bloody orifice.
the screen going black as we enter
her mouth.
Shot 58 (cont.) Shot 59 (14 sec.)

General melee. All but one woman have now
become a round clump on the floor.
171 The remaining upright woman
pushes the clump away with her
foot when it rolls toward her.
The clump rolls over her and flattens All that is left of the women is
her (cartoon style) on the floor and now a round clump on the floor
the flattened woman is pulled through of the freight car.
a slat and out of the freight car.

Two legs emerge from the bottom Arms emerge on either side and
of the clump and assume a standing for a while, the clump appears to
position. be a single person.

The clump is thrown from side Again it is thrown from side to
to side and eventually tries to lift side and begins to unravel, leaving
itself and walk forward on two 172 only a few individual threads
legs. which are pulled through the slats…
…leaving only an empty freight car. The image of the empty freight car
becomes overexposed, eventually
fading to white and leaving only a
white screen.
Shot 63 (2 min. 9 sec.) Shot 63 (cont.)

The image of the drawing pencil As the camera tracks backward, it
attached to a thin branch, as in shows the canvas on an easel with a
Shot 5, is gradually faded in. box of oil paints, as in the opening
sequence. The easel stands beside
railroad tracks.

As the camera continues to track A long row of freight cars is
back and is raised to a higher visible as the train continues along
position, a freight train from a 173 the tracks.
bygone era rolls past on the tracks.
The train morphs into a worm-like When the beast is no longer in the
or slug-like beast, crawling where the frame, the image fades to white.
tracks had just been and slithers out
of sight.
7.4.
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7.5.
2011 MESSAGE TO MAN -

International Documentary, Short
and Animated Film Festival
TOFIFEST - Toruń Short Film Message to Man (St. Petersburg,
Festival (Poland), 2011 Russia), 2011
SUPERTOON - International SHNIT International Short Film
Animation Festival (Zagreb, Festival (Bern, Switzerland), 2011
Croatia), 2011
Animasyros - International
Animator International Animated Animation Film Festival & Forum
Film Festival (Poznan, Poland), (Syros Island, Greece), 2011
2011
Osloanima International
CINDI - Cinema Digital Seoul Independent Animation Film Day
Film Festival (South-Korea), 2011 (Oslo, Norway), 2011
CICDAF - China International Ourense International Independent
Cartoon and Digital Art Festival Film Festival (Spain), 2011
(Changzhou, Beijing, China), 2011
Court Metrange (Rennes, France),
Busho International Short Film 2011
Festival (Budapest, Hungary), 2011
Granada Young Filmmakers
BALKANIMA - European Festival (Spain), 2011
Animated Film Festival (Belgrade,
Serbia), 2011 Lille International Short Film
Festival (France), 2011
KROK - International Animated
Film Festival (Ukraine), 2011 Travelling Junior Film Festival
(Rennes, France), 2011
Sedicicorto International Film
Festival (Forli, Italy), 2011 Corto Potere Short Film Festival
(Bergamo, Italy), 2011
Uppsala International Short Film
Festival (Sweden), 2011
191
Body Memory
Tiburon International Film Festival

(California, USA), 2011 2012
Brest European Short Film Festival
(France), 2011 Festival Scope (Paris, France),
2012
UNLIMITED - Short Film Festival
(Cologne, Germany), 2011 ANIMA - Brussels International
Animation Film Festival
CINANIMA - International (Belgium), 2012
Animated Film Festival (Espinho,
Portugal), 2011 GO SHORT - International Short
Film Festival Nijmegen (Nijmegen,
ALCINE The European Short Film Netherlands), 2012
Festival (Madrid, Spain), 2011
Hong Kong International Film
Fredrikstad Animation Festival Festival (China), 2012
(Norway), 2011
Tampere Film Festival (Finland),
Istanbul Animation Festival 2012
(Turkey), 2011
Lille Animated Film Festival
Amiens International Film Festival (France), 2012
(France), 2011
Crossing Europe Film Festival
Oldenburg Short Film Days Linz (Austria), 2012
zwergWERK (Germany), 2011
ANIRMAU - Animation Film
Petaluma International Film Festival (Lalin, Spain), 2012
Festival (USA), 2011
Filmfest Dresden International
EXPOTOONS - International Short Film Festival (Germany),
Animation Festival (Buenos Aires, 2012
Argentina), 2011
MEDIAWAVE - “ANOTHER
Laputa International Animation CONNECTION” (Hungary), 2012
Festival (Japan), 2011
CPH: DOX - Copenhagen
Montreal Animated Film Summit International Documentary Film
(Canada), 2011 Festival (Denmark), 2012
Animpact Animation Festival BSFF - Brussels Short Film
(Seoul, South Korea), 2011 Festival (Belgium), 2012
ANILOGUE - International NexT - International Film Festival
Animation Film Festival (Bucharest, Romania), 2012
(Budapest, Hungary), 2011
Kyiv International Short Film
Festival (Ukraine), 2012
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PAZZ - Performing Arts Festival Izmir International Short Film

(Oldenburg, Germany), 2012 Festival (Turkey), 2012
Melbourne International Animation Figari Film Fest - International
Festival (Australia), 2012 Shortfilm Festival (Roma, Italy),
2012
ANIMAFEST ZAGREB - World
Festival of Animated Film ANIMANIMA - International
(Croatia), 2012 Festival of Animation (Čačak,
Serbia), 2012
Seattle International Film Festival
(USA), 2012 Guanajuato International Film
Festival (San Miguel de Allende,
CFC Worldwide Short Film
Mexico), 2012
Festival (Toronto, Canada), 2012
FILMETS - Badalona Film
VIS - Vienna Independent Shorts
Festival (Barcelona, Spain), 2012
(Austria), 2012
FICBUEU - International Shortfilm
Art Film Fest (Trenčianske Teplice,
Festival of Bueu (Spain), 2012
Trenčín; Slovakia), 2012
Tabor International Short Film
Jerusalem International Film
Festival (Croatia), 2012
Festival (Israel), 2012
Patras International Film & Culture
T-Mobile New Horizons
Festival (Greece), 2012
International Film Festival
(Wroclaw, Poland), 2012, Sardinia Film Festival (Sassari,
Italy), 2012
INCUBATE - Multidisciplinary
Festival (Tilburg, Netherlands), LIAF - London International
2012, Animation Festival (Great Britain),
2012
ANIFEST - International Festival
of Animated Films (Teplice, Czech Hiroshima International Animation
Republic), 2012 Festival (Japan), 2012
BFI London Film Festival (Great FEST ANČA - International
Britain), 2012 Animation Festival (Bratislava,
Slovakia), 2012
Varna World Festival of Animated
Film (Bulgaria), 2012 Wiesbaden International Weekend
of Animation (Germany), 2012,
REGARD - Saguenay International
Short Film Festival (Canada), 2012 Animpact Animation Festival
(Seoul, South Korea), 2012
WIZ-ART - Lviv International
Short Film Festival (Ukraine),
2012
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CINEAST - Central and Brasil Stop Motion International

Eastern European Film Festival Film Festival (Brazil), 2012
(Luxembourg), 2012
Telluride Film Festival (USA),
Helsinki Short Film Festival 2012
(Finland), 2012, Programme: Best
Rooftop Films (New York, USA)
Short Films Around the World
, 2012
Chicago International Film Festival
Foyle Film Festival (Derry, Great
(USA), 2012
Britain), 2012
ROZAFA Anifest - Festival of
Big Sur International Short Film
Animated Films for Children and
Screening Series (USA), 2012
Youngsters (Shkodra, Albania),
2012 ShorTS – International Film
Festival (Trieste, Italy), 2012
NORDISK PANORAMA - Five
Cities Film Festival (Århus, Malta Short Film Festival (St.
Denmark; Oulu, Finland; Julians, Malta), 2012
Reykjavík, Iceland; Bergen,
KALIBER35 Munich International
Norway; Malmö, Sweden), 2012
Short Film Festival (Germany),
ANIBAR - International Animation 2012
Festival (Kosovo), 2012
Cork Film Festival (Ireland), 2012
StopTrik International Film
L’ALTERNATIVA - Independent
Festival (Slovenia, Poland), 2012
Film Festival of Barcelona (Spain),
Cambridge Film Festival (Great 2012
Britain), 2012
St. Louis International Film
EUShorts Festival (Budapest, Festival (USA), 2012
Hungary), 2012
CONCORTO Film Festival
Big Cartoon Festival (Moscow, (Pontenure, Italy), 2012
Russia), 2012, Programm: The
Short Shorts Film Festival
Winners
(Mexico), 2012
ANIMACAM - International
ANIFILM - Třeboň International
Online Animation Festival
Festival of Animated Films (Czech
(Galicia, Spain), 2012
Respublic, 2012
KLIK! - Amsterdam Animation
Ars Electronica Animation Festival
Festival (Netherlands), 2012
(Linz, Austria), 2012
Antarctic Short, Documentary and
Animation Film Festival (Queen
Maud Land, Antarctica), 2012
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Etiuda and Anima (Krakow, NexT - International Film Festival

Poola), 2013, Programme: 10 Best (Bucharest, Romania), 2013,
Discoveries of Artistic Director for Programme: Imaginaria
20 Years of IFF Etiuda&Anima
Trickfilm - Stuttgart Festival of
Animated Film (Germany), 2013,
Section: Animated Spaces
2013 Florida Film Festival (USA), 2013
WORLDFILM - Tartu Festival of
ReAnimania - Yerevan Visual Culture (Estonia), 2013
International Animation Film
Tehran International Animation
Festival (Jerevan, Armenia), 2013,
Festival (Tehran, Iran), 2013
Retrospective
Mecal International Short Film
Akbank Short Film Festival
Festival (Barcelona, Spain), 2013,
(Turkey), 2013
Programme: Short Animated Films
LIAF - London International from Eastern Europe
Animation Festival (Great Britain),
Vizii - International Visual Culture
2013, Retrospective
Festival (Kyiv, Ukraine), 2013
EstDocs - Estonian Documentary
PÖFF: Animated Dreams -
Film Festival (Toronto, Canada),
Animation Film Festival (Tallinn,
2013
Estonia), 2013, Programme: Best
Kaunas Film Festival (Lithuania), of Animated Dreams 2000-2012
2013
Priit Pärn Animated Film
Denver Film Festival (Colorado, Festival (Tapa, Estonia), 2013,
USA), 2013 Retrospective: Ülo PIkkov
FILE - Electronic Language Encounters Short Film and
International Festival (Brazil), Animation Festival (Bristol,
2013 Great Britain), 2013, Programme:
Estonian Dreams
Future Film Festival (Bologna,
Italy), 2013 Strange Beauty Film Festival
(Durham, USA), 2013
Northwest Animation Festival
(Portland, Eugene, USA), 2013 Minimalen Short Film Festival
(Trondheim, Norway) , 2013
ANIMIX - International
Animation, Comics, Caricature
Festival (Tel Aviv, Israel), 2013
195
Body Memory
2014 2016
Helsinki Short Film Festival Holland Animation Film Festival
(Finland), 2014 (Netherlands) Programme
Winner`s Choice 2016
Annecy International Animation
Film Festival (France), 2014, 6th StopTrik International Film
Special Programme: Estonia - The Festival (Slovenia-Poland)
Animated Dreams of Nukufilm Estonian programme 
FANTASPOA - International
Fantastic Film Festival of Porto
Alegre (Brazil), 2014
2017
26th Minimalen Short Film
Festival (Norway) 2014
Manipulate Visual Theatre Festival
International Fantastic Film (UK) 2017
Festival - Fantaspoa (Brasil) 2014
Festival „Atlatszo Hang“ (Hunrary)
“eLU Vivre i`Estonie a`Nantes” 2017
(France) 2014
Human Rights Film Festival,
program “Not Welcome”
(Switzerland) 2017
2015 7th Lithuanian Film Festival,
section “After Dark” (Lithuania)
2017
Crouch End Festival special event
“Skepto@London” (London, UK) Bristol Festival of Pupperty (UK)
2015 2017
8th KLIK! Amsterdam Animation Anilogue, Estonian Programme
Festival (Netherlands) Program (Hungary) 2017
„Rock, Paper, Scissors“ 2015
DOK Leipzig, Post-Angst
31th Interfilm International Short Programme (Germany) 2017
Film Festival (Germany) Special
Programme „Focus Baltic States“
2015
•
Animage Festival (Brazil)
Retrospective Special Edition
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7.6.
1. Prize, Annual Award of AV Division of Estonian

Cultural Endowment (Estonia), 2011, Best Animation
of the Year
2. Award, Anim’est International Animation Film
Festival (Bucharest, Romania), 2011, Grand Prix -
Anim’est Trophy
3. Award, Se-Ma-For Film Festival (Lodz, Poland;
Lugano, Switzerland), 2011, Best Animation - Little
Peter
4. Award, ANIMAGE - International Animation
Festival of Pernambucol (Recife, Brazil), 2011, Best
Photography Prize - Animage trophy
5. Award, Riga International Film Festival (Latvia),
2011, Baltic Competition - Jury Special Mention
6. Award, TINDIRINDIS - International Animation
Film Festival (Vilnius, Lithuania), 2011, Special
Mention
7. Award, Etiuda and Anima (Krakow, Poola), 2011,
Anima Competition - Honourable Mention
8. Award, TOFUZI - International Festival of Animated
Films (Batumi, Georgia), 2011, Diploma for Original
Technique
9. Award, FIKE - Evora International Short Film
Festival (Portugal), 2011, Organization Award
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Body Memory
10. Award, Ottawa International Animation Festival

(Canada), 2011, Honourable mention: “For its vivid
visual metaphor”
11. Award, Golden Kuker International Animation Film
Festival (Sofia, Bulgaria), 2011, Best Experimental
animated film award
12. Award, ALMERIA EN CORTO - International
Short Film Festival (Almeria, Spain), 2011, Gil
Parrondo Award for Best Artistic Director
13. Award, Tous Courts International Short Film
Festival (Aix-en-Provence, France), 2011, Special
Mention
14. Award, PÖFF: Animated Dreams - Animation Film
Festival (Tallinn, Estonia), 2011, Best Story
15. Award, DOK LEIPZIG - International Leipzig
Festival for Documentary and Animated Film
(Germany), 2011, Honorary Mention
16. Award, ANIMATEKA - International Animated
Film Festival (Ljubljana, Slovenia), 2011, Special
Mention
17. Award, Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film
Festival and Market (France), 2012, Best Animation
Film Award
18. Award, MONSTRA - Lisbon Animated Film
Festival (Portugal), 2012, Best International Film
19. Award, Roanne Animation Short Film Festival
(France), 2012, Experimental Film Competition - Jury
Grand Prix
20. Nomination, Holland Animation Film Festival
(Utrecht, Netherlands), 2012, MovieSquad HAFF
Award Nomination
21. Award, Gulf Film Festival (Dubai, United Arab
Emirates), 2012, Best Director
22. Award, Krakow Film Festival (Poland), 2012,
International Short Film Competition - Silver Dragon
for the Director of the Best Animated Film
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23. Award, SKEPTO International Film Festival

(Cagliari, Italy), 2012, Avant-garde and Experimental
Special Award
24. Award, Trickfilm - Stuttgart Festival of Animated
Film (Germany), 2012, Meckatzer Lena- Weiss - Award
25. Prize, San Giò Verona Video Festival (Italy), 2012,
Special Jury Prize
26. Prize, RICA - Wissembourg International Film
Festival (France), 2012, Best Screenplay Award
27. Award, Leeds International Film Festival (Great
Britain), 2012, Special Mention
28. Award, Riga Freedom Film Festival (Riga, Latvia),
2012, Short Film Competition Award
29. Award, International Short Film Festival of
Torrelavega (Spain), 2012, The Best Animated Short
30. Award, MUMIA Underground Animation
Festival (Belo Horizonte, Brazil), 2012, International
Competition - Best Film
31. Award, Encontrarte Amares - Festival of Visual Arts
and Animation Cinema (Portugal) , 2013, International
Competition of Experimental Animation Film - Best
Film
32. Prize, Four Days of Naples Cinema: Together for
Work (Italy) , 2013, Animation Contest - First Prize
33. Award, AsterFest International Film Festival
(Strumica, Macedonia), 2013, Best Animated Film
34. Award, BANG Awards – International Film
Animation Competition (Portugal), 2014, Honourable
Mention
199
200
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Conclusions
201
Conclusions
Having become part of contemporary everyday life, animated film has

significantly affected the way people see the world. Children nowadays
spend a considerable amount of time watching animated films that, one
might speculate, have substantial effects on their thought processes,
patterns of behaviour and use of language. As a medium, animated
film is a crucial tool for both commercial enterprises and totalitarian
governments. The latter is exemplified by how various fields of culture,
including that of animated film, served as battlefields of the Cold War,
fought between the socialist East and the capitalist West.
A key concept of this dissertation is ‘anti-animation’, a notion introduced

in the title of the dissertation that, in my opinion, defines the characteristic
structure, the ‘essence’, of Eastern European animated film. The concept
refers to the understanding that, compared to the ‘free world’, the
animated film industry of totalitarian societies was based on radically
different premises. Even though the origins and early formation of
animated film in Eastern and Western Europe shared certain similarities
and common ground, post-World War II animated film in Eastern Europe
was shaped by the planned economy, centralised industrial structure,
political censorship and a number of other factors that stood in stark
contrast to the principles of free market economics. Hence, in my view,
Eastern European animated film of the Soviet period can be defined as
anti-animation, i.e. animated films produced under political pressure and
in contradiction to capitalist industrial logic. I hope that this polemical
concept, shedding new light on Eastern European film in general,
provokes further discussions and debates.
The aim of the dissertation is to delineate the characteristic features and

structures of Eastern European animated film as a ‘culture industry’, in
Adorno and Horkheimer’s sense (2002), assuming that Eastern European
animated film forms an integral part of the global heritage of animation.
Equally, my aim is to bring Eastern European animated film into the
limelight of the international community of (animated) film scholars,
critics and animation artists.
The main purpose of the dissertation is to map the characteristic features,

structures, processes and developments of Eastern European animated
film. The individual chapters focus on various key questions, moments
and aspects of this inquiry. The introduction summarised the principal
findings of the chapters and also provided new insights, as well as some
possible lines of further investigation.
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The threats of both nostalgia and revisionism loom large in any study
of Soviet heritage. I have made considerable efforts to avoid political
evaluations, primarily focussing on describing and analysing the
production of animated films and the various forces that influenced it.
After World War II, the newly established political spheres of influence
polarised the European art world and Eastern European art fell into
isolation. It has often been described as ‘different’, compared to Western
European art, just as the entire region has been regarded as the ‘other’
Europe (Iordanova 2003: 5). While the political situation in the east was
indeed different from that in Western Europe, in art historical terms this
terminology suggests a hierarchical model that defines Western Europe
as the ‘source’ of all significant artistic developments and ideas, which
were subsequently copied or imitated in Eastern Europe and the rest of
the world. In contrast to the widespread myth of Western art being the
‘correct’ or universal one, the actual developments of the art sphere have
primarily occurred through global cultural networks. At the same time,
it is difficult to deny the global influence and wide-ranging domination
of Western art ideologies, supported by cultural, political and economic
expansion of the West.
Indeed, many Eastern European artists drew inspiration from Western

(European) art history and the artistic trends that emerged there, yet post-
World War II Eastern European animated film was equally characterised
by the rise of several independent schools and authorial styles that must
be regarded as unique, rather than simply ‘different’. In this period,
Eastern Europe became an unprecedented incubator for animated film
precisely due to its isolation, but also because the cultural sector in
general was strong. Despite political pressure and largely due to the
establishment of the network of state-owned and financed studios that
functioned as ‘centres of excellence’, several master-works of global
animation history emerged in post-war Eastern Europe.
Among them was Yuri Norshtein’s Tale of Tales (Сказка сказок, 1979),
considered by many film critics to be the greatest animated film of all
time (Bendazzi 2016: 304; Pikkov 2010: 122; Beumers 2007: 9; Wells
1998: 93). The film portrays a number of topics that were very significant
for the 20th-century Eastern European collective subconscious, such as
World War II, childhood and coming of age, home and homesickness,
dreams and reality. A film about the resurgence of painful memories, the
Tale of Tales offers unique insight into the inner world of the author and
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Conclusions
the society surrounding him. In Brian Ashbee’s words, ‘[i]n this film,
space becomes a metaphor for memory’ (Ashbee 2003: 37). Due to the
poeticism of his audiovisual style and his propensity for contemplative,
meditative narratives, Giannalberto Bendazzi has likened Norshtein’s
position in Soviet cinema to that of Andrei Tarkovsky (Bendazzi 2016:
304). A highly symbolic and multi-layered work, The Tale of Tales
is representative of the entire Eastern European animation tradition.
The radical difference between animation and anti-animation becomes
especially clear when comparing Norshtein’s oeuvre to Disney’s works.
While documentary film represents reality, animated film reflects the

possibility of a reality. Hence it is extremely important to consider
animated films and their authors in the spatio-temporal environment
of their existence. Since the meaning and perception of various images
change over time, it is important to analyse not only films but also their
broader socio-political contexts. The film historian Jarmo Valkola has
aptly observed that ‘[n]o film has ever been produced in an isolated world
that consists only of the film crew and their equipment. [---] Film is
shaped by contemporary individuals who are affected by the surrounding
time and space’ (Valkola 2015: 456).
Yet this interaction between art and its context is never a one-way
street. Hence, one can at least speculate that just as the environment
influences films and their authors, the works of film-makers also affect
the environment, being capable of inducing change. This is probably one
of the most significant reasons for the strict control exerted by Eastern
European totalitarian state apparatuses over film production: the survival
instinct of totalitarianism called for absolute control over anything and
everything that could shape the way people though of and saw the world.
According to Yuri Lotman, ‘[e]verything which we notice during the

presentation of a film, everything that excites and affects us, has meaning’
(Lotman 1976: 41). Furthermore, he states that ‘[c]inematography is a
teaching mechanism. It not only provides information, it also teaches us
how to extract it’ (Lotman 1976: 96).
Contrary to documentary and live-action narrative cinema, the content

of an animated film is created uniquely for that particular film and the
element of chance is minimal. Thus, animated films can be interpreted by
means of artistic, technical and political argumentation.
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The difference between artists on each side of the Iron Curtain was not a
matter of different people; it was a matter of what was possible for them.
And the opportunities for free expression (artistic expression) were far
fewer in Eastern Europe.
The tradition of animated film that emerged in Eastern Europe after the
end of World War II was completely unique in terms of enjoying access to
ample, state-assigned resources of production, while being subjugated to
constant political surveillance. At times, ‘parallel universes’ appeared to
exist in studios – directors were relatively unconstrained in their artistic
pursuits, while the script editors assigned to them had to take care that
only the politically ‘correct’ results of their work would reach audiences.
The animated film of a totalitarian society reflects the pressures of
totalitarianism. In Boris Groys’ words,
While for classic modernism the realization of its
project meant essentially the creation of a work of
art that was autonomous from any existing social or
natural context, this autonomy remained completely
illusory for Soviet culture (Groys 1997: 80).
In order to overcome these constraints, Eastern European animation artists

often relied on metaphors, employing Aesopian language that provided
the means to criticise authorities indirectly, via metaphorical elements.
Lev Loseff, a renowned scholar of Aesopian language, emphasises that
the use (i.e. decoding) of Aesopian language requires the efforts of not
only a reader, but also those of an author and a censor (Loseff 1984: 3–5).
Decoding, searching for and producing all kinds of interpretations and
connections played a crucial role in Soviet animated film, as well as in
Soviet culture in general.
Aesopian language can also be defined as ‘double-think’, by which Aili

Aarelaid means flirting with Soviet seriousness, the substitution of texts
with subtexts, manipulating Soviet rhetoric, etc. (Aarelaid 2000: 755).
The politics, including cultural politics, of Eastern European countries

was dictated and influenced by the Soviet Union, but its control was not
equal in all corners of the Soviet sphere, becoming looser with increasing
distance from Moscow. Still, as Dina Iordanova suggests,
Whatever happened in the Soviet Union, directly
influenced the cultural climate in the countries of the
Eastern Bloc, and often events in the USSR were
205
Conclusions
replicated in the Eastern Bloc (such as the ‘Thaw’ that

followed the demystification of the cult of Stalin’s
personality in the late 1950s and the stagnation of the
Brezhnev period) (Iordanova 2003: 21).
Eastern European animation was to a large extent a children’s genre

(targeted at the youngest audiences), a didactic form drawing heavily
on fairy tales and other folkloric sources. Paradoxically, fairy tales were
not considered to form a legitimate thematic pool in the early days
of Soviet Union, when they were regarded as vestiges of feudalism.
Russian animated film of the immediate post-revolutionary era was
highly experimental and exploratory. In the mid-1930s, however,
folkloric subject matter and fairy tales were ideologically rehabilitated
and became the major providers of content for the Soviet animated film
industry, not in small part due to the influence of the immensely popular
productions of the Disney Studio. In short, the experimental spirit of the
early-Soviet animation discourse was soon replaced by folkloric themes
and conservative (predominantly socialist-realist) form. Adaptations of
classical works of literature and fairy tales became the norm.
Uninhibited by the need to strive for commercial success in the Western

sense, Eastern European animation artists could afford to disregard
audience expectations and were thus more inclined to practise formal
experimentation than were their Western colleagues. Or, as Groys has
put it, ‘from the point of view of Soviet culture, the modernist artist
merely served the market, unlike the Soviet artist, who participated in the
collective project of reconstructing the world’ (Groys 1997: 80).
In addition, surrealism and surrealist art practices played a significant role

in Eastern European animated film culture. In this context, surrealism
constituted a form of protest against social and artistic norms in general,
and against those of socialist realism in particular. Surrealism was most
visible in Polish and Czechoslovakian1 animated film, but powerful
surrealist impulses can also be observed in animated works of other
Eastern European countries. In addition to surrealism, the absurd was
another important element in Eastern European nonconformist art.
Surrealism indeed found fertile soil in the conditions of unsolicited
1 Prague was a major centre of surrealism even before

World War II, and André Breton visited its productive
surrealist group in 1935.
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Anti-Animation
socialist ideology, since ‘[s]urrealism, in its authentic form, has forever

been in revolt against existing ideological and social systems’, as
Jonathan L. Owen has suggested (Owen 2011: 218).
In the aftermath of Khrushchev’s ‘Thaw’, the surrealist impulses moved

from visual arts to animated film. Glass Harmonica (Стеклянная
гармоника, 1968) by Andrei Khrzhanovsky can be considered the first
post-war Eastern European surrealist animated film, produced in close
collaboration with Ülo Sooster, an Estonian underground artist living
and practising surrealism in Moscow. In varying degrees of intensity, the
surrealist elements have remained part of Eastern European animated
film. At the same time, it must be emphasised that Eastern European
surrealism differs in several respects from the tenets of the French-born
movement, as it is generally understood. In particular, Eastern European
surrealism functioned as an act of protest and resistance to official
cultural policies. Jan Švankmajer’s description of the difference between
the original French surrealism and its Czech counterpart can be seen as
applying more generally to Eastern European surrealism:
…after the war, it was forced into illegality and
hemmed in by Stalinist and post-Stalinist realities
of the 1950s to the 1980s. It could not react to this
absurd reality and therefore all creation during this
period was evidently less ‘poetic’ and ‘lyrical’ and was
more ‘sarcastic’, full of black and objective humor,
mystification (Hames 2008: 110).
Today, surrealism is typically considered a broader category that is not

necessarily limited to a particular historical period and certain central
figures, and that exists both in an ‘intentional’ form and as ‘involuntary’
surrealism (Hammond 1978; Richardson 2006).
Involuntary surrealism emerges when the author of a work of art did

not have the intention of producing a surrealist work or of practising
surrealism but nevertheless the audience has acknowledged the work
as surrealist. The audience assumes that the work is surrealist even
though the author’s world-view and intentions were in no way related to
surrealism. According to André Breton, in those cases the authors had
‘failed to hear the surrealist voice’ (Breton [1924] 2010).
207
Conclusions
In Eastern Europe it also sometimes happened that the overexploitation of

the tenets of socialist realism and other discourses of socialist aesthetics
resulted in a situation where a work of art intended as socialist-realist
was perceived as surrealist. Indeed, socialist realism and surrealism share
some common ground, both attempting to modify realism and reach
beyond the limits of the traditional sphere of art. According to Peter
Hames,
Of all the ‘isms’ the various manifestations of realism
have been the most discussed and theorized. What
is clear is that the terms realism, naturalism, critical
realism, Socialist Realism, Neo-realism and even
surrealism have been applied to situations in which that
particular artistic movement has been regarded as more
‘real’ or ‘authentic’ than others (Hames 2009: 55).
By combining reality with a utopian future, the socialist ideology and

propaganda resembled surrealism in its approach. However, while
surrealism aimed to dislocate reality by evoking a sense of uncanny
foreignness, socialist realism strove to idealise it. Cultural phenomena
often exist in an interplay of opposites, which also explains the popularity
of surrealism in post-war Eastern Europe: the severely curtailed personal
freedom and the official discourse of socialist realism called for a
surrealist counterbalance. In Western Europe, where such (cultural)
politics were absent, the life cycle of surrealism turned out to be
considerably shorter.
Ready-made objects, such as consumer items, toys, tools, weapons

etc.,2 acquired a completely distinctive position in Eastern European
animated film. Ready-mades are particular objects (symbols) that embody
ideological myths, according to their historical period, function, political
significance etc. Švankmajer has described his attitude towards ready-
mades in films as follows:
I prefer the kind of objects which, in my opinion,
have some kind of inner life. In addition to the
hermetic sciences, I believe in the ‘conservation’ of
certain contents in objects which people touch under
conditions of extreme sensitiveness. The ‘emotionally’
charged objects are then under certain conditions
2 Paul Welles (1998: 90) calls them ‘fabrications’.
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Anti-Animation
capable of revealing these contents and touching them

provides associations and analogues for our own flashes
of the unconscious (Hames 2008: 118).
The entire space seen in an animated film is typically created for that
particular work, but the use of ready-mades adds another dimension to
it, offering the audience an opportunity to interpret the film in relation to
their own prior experiences with the used ready-made object. Live-action
narrative and documentary films contain a whole array of details that are
known to viewers from their everyday lives: a certain environment, the
costumes of characters or a particular prop. In animated film, which is
an essentially sign-based form3, all objects are represented indirectly, by
means of abstraction (e.g. as a drawing, a model or a miniature). In this
context, the ready-mades provide the audience with a chance to make a
very special, intimate and direct connection between the film and reality.
The use of ready-mades in animated film can be compared to dreams, as
both present uncanny overlaps between personal experiences and poetic
generalisations. According to Joseph Campbell,
Dream is the personalized myth, myth the
depersonalized dream; both myth and dream are
symbolic in the same general way of the dynamics of
the psyche (Campbell 2008: 14).
The animated works of Jan Švankmajer, the brothers Quay and Mati Kütt
are particularly noteworthy in terms of the dislocating re-use of ready-
mades.
The animation theorist Alan Cholodenko has noted that

…while live action has a privileged relation with
not only the adult human but the subject ... cartoon
animation has a privileged relation with not only the
child but the nonhuman and the object. And this is to
suggest that animation cannot be theorised without
theorising the life of objects (the nonhuman can be
included in this category) and vice versa (Cholodenko
1991: 31–32).
3 ‘Every image on the screen is a sign, that is, it has

meaning, it carries information’ (Lotman 1976: 31).
209
Conclusions
The ready-mades used in animated film disrupt the sense of cinematic

illusion, yet they emphasise and mythologise the sign-based nature of the
form.
Once again, it is important to emphasise that under totalitarian regimes

both Eastern European animation artists and audiences (as well as state-
appointed script editors who mediated the communication between the
two sides) were eager to interpret even the subtlest allusions. A case in
point is Vacuum Cleaner (Tolmuimeja) by Avo Paistik, an animated film
produced by Tallinnfilm in 1978, featuring a red vacuum cleaner as its
protagonist. Since the colour red is a traditional symbol of communism,
the censorship authorities found that the red vacuum cleaner was
inappropriate and the film was ‘shelved’: banned from any public
screening for nine years (Kiik 2006 II: 92).
A sense of pessimism was widespread due to social pressures and

struggles with censors. Indeed, several authors (Wells 1998; Bendazzi
2016; Ajanovič-Ajan 2004) have designated pessimism as a key
characteristic of Eastern European animated film. In parallel with
surrealism, pessimism can be regarded as a response to the officially
endorsed atmosphere of optimism. As Bendazzi observes,
This pessimism reflects a unique historical-political
situation. In the mid-1960s, the artist and intellectuals
reacted to the bureaucratic state, and emphasized a
hopeless individual and social reality
(Bendazzi 2016: 242).
Another significant trait of Eastern European animation in general was its

inclination to emphasise visual form and to downplay the role of dialogue
(spoken text).
Sventlana Boym has pointed out that monsters created for Soviet children
were always miniature, never enormous (Boym 2001: 39): an observation
generally confirmed by Eastern European animation heritage. In
comparison with Japanese or American animations inhabited by gigantic
monsters, the monsters depicted in Eastern European animated films
are indeed smaller. It is difficult to say whether this was a subconscious
preference of animation artists or due to some editorial/censorship
instructions, but certainly any appearance of gargantuan villains would
have instantly been read as a reference to the totalitarian ideological
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apparatus. This seemed precisely to be the case with Paistik’s Vacuum

Cleaner: the film was most likely banned because of the eponymous
(red!) appliance that ballooned to colossal dimensions.
At times, Eastern European animated film served as a gateway for its

audiences to experience Western art and lifestyle. For instance, Andreas
Trossek has called attention to the influence of Pop Art and, in particular,
George Dunning’s Yellow Submarine (1968) on Soviet animated film, by
suggesting that ‘pop-psychedelic’ animated films, such as Valeri Ugarov’s
Box with a Secret (Шкатулка с секретом, 1976), Vladimir Tarasov’s
Contact (Контакт, 1978) and, most famously, Roman Kachanov’s The
Mystery of the Third Planet (Тайна третьей планеты, 1981) emerged in
close dialogue with Dunning’s Yellow Submarine (Trossek 2011: 118).
Indeed, animated film was the ‘channel’ that introduced several

manifestations of Western pop culture to Soviet audiences. As
proposed by Anna Fishzon:
Before most Soviet children and adults had even heard
of hippies they learned to recognize them by watching
and listening to Bremenskie muzykanty (Бременские
музыканты 1969) … the Bremen musicians of
Soiuzmultfilm communicate both sartorially and
musically that they are a rock and roll band – one that
manages to evoke both home and abroad by moving
seamlessly among musical styles: from psychedelic
rock to nostalgic doo-wop, so-called gypsy art songs
and 1960s estrada to Beatles-style melodies and
funk. In their generic eclecticism the Brementsy truly
resemble the first generation of Muscovite hippies,
who adapted flower children’s costume, musical taste,
and gentle politics of peace and personal freedom to
hardboiled Soviet conditions (Fishzon 2015: 591).
Another, even more immediate, manifestation of Western pop culture

in Soviet animated film occurs in Avo Paistik’s Sunday (1977), with its
soundtrack in large part derived from Pink Floyd’s immensely popular
album The Dark Side of the Moon (1973). While Paistik’s film was
presented to the censorship authorities as an ideological critique of
capitalism, its sound design (as well as part of its imagery, reminiscent of
Yellow Submarine) betrayed profound admiration of the West.
211
Conclusions
Double-coding and Aesopian language played a central role in Eastern

European animated film, often reversing or ridiculing ideological
messages and producing anti-propaganda by overemphasising
propagandistic stances. For example, Soviet animated films and
caricatures typically depicted capitalist ‘bosses’ wearing top hats or
bowler hats and smoking cigars. Apart from the obviously distorted
political joke, this image also carried the message that Soviet caricaturists
lived in such isolated conditions that they had no idea that no-one in the
‘free world’ sported the early 20th-century fashion any longer.
By now, the majority of formerly socialist Eastern European countries

(except for Albania) have joined the European Union and a number
of other pan-European institutions. Film production and more general
matters of audiovisual media (including copyright issues) adhere to
similar mechanisms of operation and the same directives across the
European Union. All member states (and film producers) have access
to various shared funding instruments (e.g. MEDIA and Eurimage) and
distribution platforms. Hence it can be argued that the contemporary
structures of film production and distribution are similar across Europe
and differences arise primarily from local cultural traditions. Indeed, the
contemporary production processes are very much alike in both Eastern
and Western European animated film. However, Eastern Europe stands
out for studios and animation artists whose styles and authorial stances
were formed during the socialist period. The difference between Eastern
and Western animation culture lies not in ideological endeavours, but
rather in authorial methods and viewpoints.
In his article ‘Where Are We When We Think in Eastern Europe?’,

Ovidiu Tichindeleanu asks, ‘What is Eastern Europe now?’, answering,
‘“Nothing”. The longer answer would be that today Eastern Europe is so
many things that it is more hope than presence, and more past than future’
(Tichindeleanu 2010: 87).
In this dissertation, I have looked for an answer to the question: has

a new, post-socialist, Eastern European animation emerged since the
collapse of the Soviet system? Or will the socialist tradition of animation
assimilate with Western European film heritage? And if this assimilation
occurs, how long will it take (or how long did it take)?
In my opinion, it will be increasingly difficult to discern Eastern

European animated film as a cultural phenomenon with a set of distinctive
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characteristics. In the future, we will only be able to talk about the

animation tradition of countries located in Eastern Europe that share a
certain historical and social heritage. The ‘textures of Eastern European
animated film’ belong to the past. However, as repeatedly emphasised
in this dissertation, animated films reflect broader cultural-political
dimensions and those films produced in countries that were once in the
Soviet sphere of influence continue to reflect the totalitarian past through
their heritage. The socialist past is an inherent part of Eastern European
history. Yet contemporary Latvian animated film, for example, is certainly
closer to its German counterpart than to Albanian animated films, even
though Latvia and Albania share a socialist past. The quality of the
animated film of a nation-state is also closely related to state support of
the industry, as well as to international networks.
In contemporary society, animated film continues to serve as a vehicle

of cultural memory, national mentality and identity. Animated film
provides useful insights into broader social processes. Take, for instance,
the issue of women, their role and social engagement in Soviet society.
The majority of Soviet animated films represent a world dominated by
men, with far fewer, and typically passive, female characters. Similarly
to female characters on the screen, female animation artists were also a
minority. While, rhetorically, the socialist state advocated gender equality,
in reality women were engaged in social processes to a much lesser extent
than men were. This situation is also reflected in animated film, both in
terms of production and representation. Unlike the misleading official
stances and propaganda, animated film provides a much more adequate
reflection of the actual circumstances. Thus, animated film can be
considered a legitimate source for a successful reconstruction of the past.
Equally, the study of the Soviet period provides new opportunities for
a better understanding of the contemporary, post-socialist, situation:
the current social processes depend to a large extent on previous ones,
which are reflected in animated film. In the 1980s, for instance, Eastern
European animated film increasingly challenged and questioned the
Soviet system, thus anticipating the emergence of perestroika.
At the same time, in addition to the contextual framework, animated film

itself has also changed, becoming increasingly integrated with (narrative)
film in general. In principle, all contemporary blockbusters are partially
animated, relying to a great extent on animation techniques and animated
special effects.
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Conclusions
Moreover, animation has become an inherent part of the contemporary

information and media industry, and it is more and more difficult to
separate animated film from the moving image media in general. Lev
Manovich has highlighted this tendency by saying that ‘cinema can
no longer be clearly distinguished from animation. It is no longer
an indexical media technology but, rather, a sub-genre of painting’
(Manovich 2016: 22).
Fundamental shifts in animation, especially due to rapid developments

in the digital realm, have been accompanied by the re-emergence of
discussions about the definition of animation as being at the ‘crossroads’
of visual arts and cinema. First and foremost, animated film relies on the
aesthetics of the former and the technology of the latter: ‘Arguably, all
animation works as a version of fine art in motion, and recalls the generic
principles which have evolved from art practice’ (Wells 2007: 66).
Throughout its existence, animated film has been a medium of

experimentation and modernity. According to Wells,
Virtually all forms of animation … have been
predicated on experimentation in one form or another
and certainly have been in the continual embrace of
technological progress. One should add that the so-
called conditions of the ‘post-modern’ – reflexivity,
parody, inter-textuality, pluralism, bricolage, and so
on – have always been present in animated cinema, and
are the intrinsic aspects of its long-established self-
enunciating vocabulary, and the heart of its perpetual
modernity, artistically and socio-politically
(Wells 2007: 31).
Thus, it seems that moving images, including animation, are still in search
of their place among the visual arts.
The questions and topics raised in this dissertation are in constant

dialogue with new stances and approaches, and this discussion will
certainly continue in the foreseeable future. The digitisation of Eastern
European film heritage is still under way and hopefully this process will
recover at least a few forgotten animation artists and their films. A number
of political choices on and decisions about the film production of the past
are also yet to be discovered and conceptualised. The unique cultural
milieu and complex history of Eastern Europe has shaped an unparalleled
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tradition of animated film, the study of which will offer us a better

understanding of the region’s past and its people.
Body Memory, the animated film presented as part of my dissertation, has

offered me an opportunity to consider the themes and issues explored in
the written portion of the dissertation through practical engagement, not
only as a researcher and observer but also as an author and animation
artist. My own artistic experience and the need to define my position
as an author has helped me to better understand and describe the works
of other authors, as well as the processes and contexts related to them.
The production of the film, as well as its subsequent distribution and the
critical feedback it has received, have provided me invaluable insights
into all aspects of animation film-making. I have written this dissertation
and analysed animated films as a colleague and a fellow artist, rather than
as a bystander.
When making Body Memory and deciding which techniques to use, I

paid close attention to earlier animated films, analysing a large pool of
puppet animations and their visual designs in order to avoid unintentional
references to or excessive similarities with pre-existing works. Yet despite
my best efforts to create a unique animated film, the reactions to the film
have frequently looked for references to and parallels with the works of
other Eastern European animation artists, such as Jan Švankmajer and Jiří
Barta. In spite of my intention to produce an original animated film, the
process has apparently involved a number of unconscious choices, based
on my Eastern European background and previous experiences.
Thomas Fuchs’ has written that

Body memory does not take one back to the past, but
conveys an implicit effectiveness of the past in the
present. This approach converges with the results of
recent memory research on the central significance
of implicit memory which is just as much at the basis
of our customary behavior as of our unconscious
avoidance of actions (Fuchs 2012: 73; emphasis in the
original).
By means of artistic devices, Body Memory investigates the subconscious

memory. Relying on spontaneous images conjured up in the human
subconscious, it attempts to recreate the atmosphere of deportations in
order to unburden both personal and social memory from past sorrows.
215
Conclusions
At the same time, every representation of the past also constructs and
reproduces it anew, producing new history. According to Wulf Kansteiner,
In the process it is crucial to keep in mind that all
media of memory, especially electronic media, neither
simply reflect nor determine collective memory but are
inextricably involved in its construction and evolution
(Kansteiner 2002: 195).
Here, it is important to emphasise that my conscious interest in animation

was sparked by Eastern European animated film. In my opinion, it was
indeed Eastern European animated film that inspired my commitment
to the field of animation. These moments of recognition can seldom
be pegged down, yet I remember clearly the astonishment evoked by
Jiří Barta’s The Pied Piper (Krysař, 1985), which I saw as a boy when
visiting Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1987. This experience produced
an irresistible urge to delve into the magical world of animation, an urge
that persists.
Regardless of historical and political circumstances, the creative

ambitions of the artist generally remain constant; the main difference lies
in the extent to which s/he is able to realise them. Several film-makers,
including Kucia, Pärn and Kovalyov, have stated in interviews that
some aspects of their trade have, quite curiously, survived the change in
political and economic regimes: for instance, while creative freedom used
to be curtailed by the censors during the socialist era, under capitalist
conditions it is money that enforces similar, sometimes highly restrictive,
limits, because producers often prefer projects that have the potential
for commercial success and high audience appeal. The production of
animated films is an expensive and resource-intensive endeavour, and as
such it is always, to some extent, under the control of those who provide
the necessary finances. In this sense, animated film and, for instance,
painting are incomparable in terms of creative freedom: the larger the
necessary investment in the creative process, the larger the tendency of
the investor to control it, regardless of political regime.
I would like to conclude with a thought from Yuri Lotman:

…art does not simply transmit information, it
provides the audience with the means for perceiving
this information, thus creating its own auditorium.
Complexity in the structure of the person on the screen
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intellectually and emotionally complicates the person in

the audience (and vice versa: primitive work creates a
primitive audience) (Lotman 1976: 93).
In the context of global animation, Eastern European animated film is

structurally and intellectually more complex than the average animation.
My only hope is that it has also created a more intelligent than average
audience.
References
Aarelaid, Aili 2000. Topeltmõtlemise kujunemine kahel esimesel
nõukogulikul aastakümnel. – Akadeemia, no. 4, pp. 755–773.
Horkheimer, Max; Adorno, Theodor W. 2002. Dialectic of Enlightenment:

Philosophical Fragments. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Ajanovič-Ajan, Midhat 2004. Animation and Realism. http://www.ajan.se/

index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30&Itemid=36.
Ashbee, Brian 2003. Animation, Art and Digitality: From Termite Terrace
to Motion Painting. – Architectures of Illusion: From Motion
Pictures to Navigable Interactive Environments. Eds. Maureen
Thomas, François Penz. Bristol: Intellect Books, pp. 1–50.
Bendazzi, Giannalberto 2016. Animation: A World History. Vol. 2. Boca

Raton: CRC Press.
Beumers, Birgit 2007. The Cinema of Russia and the Former Soviet
Union. London: Wallflower Press.
Boym, Svetlana 2001. The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books
Breton, André [1924] 2010. First Manifesto of Surrealism – 1924.

Translated by A. S. Kline. http://poetsofmodernity.xyz/POMBR/
French/Manifesto.htm.
217
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Campell, Joseph 2008. The Hero With a Thousand Faces. 3rd edition.
Novato: New World Library.
Cholodenko, Alan 1991. The Illusion of Life: Essays on Animation.

Sydney: Power Publications.
Anna Fishzon 2015. The Fog of Stagnation: Explorations of Time and

Affect in Late Soviet Animation. – Cahiers du monde russe, vol.
56 (2–3), pp. 571–598.
Fuchs, Thomas 2012. Body Memory and the Unconscious. – Founding

Psychoanalysis Phenomenologically: Phenomenological
Theory of Subjectivity and the Psychoanalytical Experience.
Phaenomenologica 199. Eds. Dieter Lohmar, Jagna Brudzińska.
Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London, New York: Springer, pp. 69–82.
Groys, Boris 1997. A Style and a Half: Socialist Realism between

Modernism and Postmodernism. – Socialist Realism Without
Shores. Eds. Thomas Lahusen, Evgeny Dobrenko. Durham:
Duke University Press, pp. 76–90.

Hames, Peter 2009. Czech and Slovak Cinema: Theme and Tradition.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Hammond, Paul (ed.) 1978. The Shadow and Its Shadow: Surrealist
Wallflower Press.
Kansteiner, Wulf 2002. Finding Meaning in Memory: A Methodological

Critique of Collective Memory. – History and Theory,
vol. 41 (2), pp. 179–197.
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Goskinoga, II. – Teater. Muusika. Kino, no. 5, pp. 97–107.
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Loseff, Lev 1984. On the Beneficence of Censorship: Aesopian Language

in Modern Russian Literature. München: Verlag Otto Sagner in
Kommission.
Lotman, Jurij 1976. Semiotics of Cinema. Michigan Slavic Contributions

5. Translated by Mark E. Suino. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press.
Manovich, Lev 2016. What is Digital Cinema? – Post-Cinema:

Theorizing 21st-Century Film. Eds. Shane Denson, Julia Leyda.
Falmer: REFRAME Books, http://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/post-
cinema/contents/, pp. 20–50.
Owen, Jonathan L. 2011. Avant-garde to New Wave: Czechoslovak

Cinema, Surrealism and the Sixties. New York, Oxford:
Berghahn Books.

Richardson, Michael 2006. Surrealism and Cinema. Oxford, New York:

Berg.
Tichindeleanu, Ovidiu 2010. ‘Where Are We When We Think in Eastern

Europe?’ – Art Always Has Its Consequences. Zagreb: WHW/
Tranzit/kuda/Muzeum Stzuki, pp. 85–92.
Trossek, Andreas 2011. Tumeda animatsiooni surm Euroopas: Priit Pärna

“Hotell E” / The Death of Dark Animation in Europe: Priit
Pärn’s Hotel E. – Kunstiteaduslikke Uurimusi, vol. 20 (3–4), pp.
97–123.
Valkola, Jarmo 2015. Filmi audiovisuaalne keel. Translated by Elle Vaht,

Karol Ansip, Kristiina Davidjants. Tallinn: Varrak.
Wells, Paul 1998. Understanding Animation. London, New York:

Routledge
Wells, Paul 2007. Animation: Genre and Authorship. London: Wallflower

Press.
219
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Appendix
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Appendix
9.1.
Jakob Ladegaard
Aarhus University
Abstract
Body Memory treats collective memories of World War
II and the Soviet occupation of Estonia. The article
argues that the film’s attempt to negotiate national
and international perspectives on this issue echoes the
difficulties of integrating Eastern European historical
experiences in a contemporary European memory
culture dominated by Holocaust studies.
Keywords
Post-communism, Memory Culture, Estonia,
Nationalism, Transnationalism, Holocaust
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In the summer of 1940, the Soviet Union occupied the Republic of

Estonia. The Red Army ceded the territory to German forces in 1941,
but when it re-entered Estonia in 1944 it marked the beginning of an
occupation that only ended with the disintegration of the Soviet Union
and the recognition of Estonian independence in 1991. The Soviet
annexation was followed by arrests, deportations and executions of “class
enemies” and their families.
Two instances of Soviet repression stand out in Estonian history.
The first is the deportation on June 14, 1941 of more than 10,000 people,
at least 7,000 of whom were women, children and elderly people. Most of
the men were sent to prison camps, while most women and children ended
up in Siberia. Less than half returned. On March 25, 1949, a similar event
occurred, only this time the number of people deported was more than
20,000 – again mostly women and children (“Soviet deportations”). In a
small country whose population had decreased from around 1.1 million to
830,000 between 1939 and 1945 (Feldman 2007, 412), more than 2% of
the remaining population disappeared in the last deportation alone.
During the following decades of Soviet rule, these and similar
events were banished from public discourse in the Eastern Bloc. After
its collapse, the newly independent Eastern European nations began a
process of redefining their national identity and re-writing their history.
In this process, the memories of deportations and other crimes resurfaced
(Mälksoo 2009, 658). Accordingly, it became a paramount objective for
Estonia to seek recognition of its past suffering among its new allies in the
West (Tamm 2008, 505). But whereas Estonia and the other Baltic nations
gained access to the EU and NATO in 2004, it has proved more difficult
to integrate their historical experiences of World War II and Soviet rule in
the common historical consciousness of Europe (Mälksoo 2009, 660).
Part of the explanation might be that Western Europe was
co-responsible for what happened because it sanctioned the partition of
Europe at Yalta. It has been far easier for the official West (not to mention
Russia) to celebrate 1945 as the victory of freedom and civilization
than to remember that it cemented Soviet control over Eastern Europe.
Another part of the explanation might be that the Holocaust dominates
Western cultural memories of World War II. While some argue that the
Holocaust therefore serves as a foundation for a “common European
cultural memory” (Levy & Sznaider 2002, 102), Duncan Bell points
out that such claims privilege Western perspectives and overlook the
conflicting memories of World War II in the new Europe (Bell 2006, 17-
18). Estonia is a case in point: the murder of about 1,000 of the country’s
Jews (the remaining 2,000 escaped to Russia) has not commanded the
223
Appendix
same attention in public debates as the prolonged Soviet repression.

This fact is criticized by the historian Anton Weiss-Wendt, who sees the
Estonian insistence on international recognition of the Soviet crimes as
an “unproductive comparative victimization contest” (Weiss-Wendt 2008,
484).
However, instead of understanding the complex field of
collective memories in contemporary Europe in terms of exclusion and
competition, it seems more promising to follow Michael Rothberg’s
view that collective memory should be thought of “as multidirectional:
as subject to ongoing negotiation, cross-referencing, and borrowing; as
productive and not privative” (Rothberg 2009, 3). In our context, this
implies appreciating both differences and similarities between Eastern
and Western European experiences of World War II and its aftermath. We
more often find productive attempts to negotiate such complex relations
in artistic creations than in official political discourses. The way that Ülo
Pikkov’s Body Memory tries to balance a national Estonian memory of
World War II with an international Holocaust iconography is a case in
point.
Marionettes and
Barbed Wire
The first scene in Pikkov’s film establishes a literal tie between a painter’s
easel mounted on a tripod and a nearby apple tree: the tree ‘paints’ on the
canvas with a pencil tied to a branch. This image has strong Romantic
resonances, since Romantic painters privileged landscape motives and
often relied on plein-air sketches as testimony of nature’s inspiration.
Historically, Romantic paintings were instrumental in constructing
national identities in the 19th century, articulating imaginary ties between
landscape, national territory and citizens. This was also the case in
Estonia, where the painter Johannes Köler was a leading figure in the
country’s national awakening movement.
Pikkov’s first scene further suggests that the filmmaker is heir
to Romanticism. An intimate relation to the apple tree is thus established
in the camera’s gentle upward movement in the first takes: the camera
seems to rise out of the ground in the same way as the tree grows out of
the earth. Similarly, an analogy is established between camera and easel:
the legs of the tripod in Shot 1 could easily carry a camera, and when the
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camera zooms in on the lines on the canvas (Shots 5 and 6) they literally
become animated, as if the camera’s attention brought them to life in the
following animation sequence. Thereby the film suggests that like the
Romantics, the filmmaker can express the inner ‘life’ of the landscape –
and by extension, perhaps, of the nation.
In contrast to Köler’s idyllic summer sceneries, the lonely easel,
overcast sky and snow-spattered ground in Pikkov’s scene convey a
melancholy sensation of loss. The root of this sensation is exposed in the
animation sequence: the Soviet deportations. Through the creative powers
of the artist, the lines of the tree’s ‘painting’ are transformed into puppets
made of string in a freight car. They are female, like most of the victims
of the deportations in 1941 and 1949. As they leave the homeland, the
dolls gradually disintegrate as the threads they are made of are pulled
through the slats of the freight car. The puppets are thus turned into
marionettes controlled by some outside force. Like the hero in Jirí Trnka’s
Czech animation classic, ‘The Hand’ (1965), who tries in vain to prevent
a giant hand from invading his room, the women are unable to defend
their private sphere and persons. In line with Trnka, Pikkov thus criticizes
authoritarian violence. But in the final images of the freight train turning
into a worm-like creature which erases the railroad tracks, Pikkov further
suggests that not only the victims, but also their stories, have disappeared
from the landscape of national history.
The reference to Trnka shows that Pikkov addresses this
Estonian issue in a filmic language with wider, transnational resonances.
The film thereby combines the transnational tendency in recent
Estonian films (Mazierska) with the political critique of the late 1980s
(Näripea 2010, 68-70). This is even more explicit in the film’s use of an
iconography that most Western viewers would relate to the Holocaust:
the crowded freight cars (although the Estonian deportees were also
transported in trains) and the resemblance between the puppet’s taut
strings and barbed wire. Images such as Shots 24, 34, 44, 47 and 49 thus
all bring to mind the iconic photographs of concentration camp prisoners
behind barbed wire fences.
There is a dissonance between the national Romantic imagery
of the opening scene and the visual hints referring to Holocaust
representations in the animation sequence. The former points to Estonian
history; while the latter invoke an event that impacted Europe on a
massive scale. Rothberg’s multidirectional memory invites us to think
of this contradiction in terms of borrowing (rather than appropriation
or contest): Pikkov borrows the visual vocabulary of Holocaust
representations to claim that the Soviet deportations are not only an
225
Appendix
Estonian concern, but should be recognized as part of a shared European

legacy. This does not mean that the two events are ‘the same’ in some
absolute perspective. Rather, it is a call for justice that makes use of a
(perhaps the only) language that can be widely heard in an international
community dominated by Western accounts of history.
However, the transnational direction of this approach does
not absolve the film of its uncritical reliance on a Romantic national
mythology. For although post-communist nationalist discourses are
extremely complex and express varying political agendas (Bremmer 2009,
141-143), the embrace of a 19th century model of art, nature and nation
mythologizes history. In this respect, Pikkov’s film lacks the self-critical
reflection that we find in Alain Resnais’ Holocaust documentary Nuit et
Brouillard (1955). This film also begins with images of rural landscapes,
but only to reveal that they are filmed from inside concentration camps,
thus reflecting on the link between national mythology and extermination
in Nazi ideology. This opening also problematizes the role of the camera
itself – its ability to “lie” with its images of pastoral idyll – an ability that
was fully used by the Nazi propaganda films that Resnais cites after the
opening sequence. Pikkov’s celebration of the creative artist falls short
of such media-critical self-examination. But it is perhaps not despite but
because of such ambivalences that Body Memory succeeds in articulating
the complex changes of collective memories in the New Europe.
References
Bell, D. (2006), ‘Introduction: Memory, Trauma and World Politics’, in
D. Bell (ed.), Memory, Trauma and World Politics – Reflections
on the Relationship Between Past and Present, Basingstoke:
Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 1-29.
Bremmer, I. (2006), ‘The Post-Soviet Nations after Independence’,

in L.W. Barrington (ed.), After Independence – Making and
Protecting the Nation in Postcolonial and Postcommunist States,
Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, pp. 141-161.
Feldman, G. (2000), ‘Shifting the Perspective on Identity Discourses in

Estonia’, Journal of Baltic Studies, 31:4, pp. 406-428.
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Levy, D. & Sznaider N. (2002), ‘Memory Unbound – The Holocaust and

the Formation of Cosmopolitan Memory’, European Journal of
Social Theory, vol. 5 no. 1, 87-106.
Mazierska, E. (2010), ‘Post-communist Estonian Cinema as Transnational

Cinema’, Kinokultura, 10 [online]. Available at http://www.
kinokultura.com/specials/10/mazierska.shtml [Accessed 25 June
2013]
Mälksoo, M. (2009), ‘The Memory politics of becoming European:

The East European Subalterns and the Collective Memory of
Europe’, European Journal of International Relations, 15:4,
pp.653-680.
Näripea, E. (2010), ‘From Nation-Scape to Nation-State: Reconfiguring

Filmic Space in Post-Soviet Estonian Cinema’, in R. Šukaitytė
(ed.), Baltic Cinema After the 90s: Shifting Hi(stories) and (Id)
entities, Vilnius: Vilnius Academy of Arts Press, pp. 65-74.
Resnais, A. (1955), Night and Fog, Paris: Argo.
Rothberg, M. (2009), Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the

Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization, Stanford: Stanford
University Press.
‘Soviet deportations from Estonia in 1940s’, Estonia.eu [online].

Available at <http://estonia.eu/about-estonia/history/soviet-
deportations-from-estonia-in-1940s.html> [Accessed 25 June
2013].
Tamm, M. (2008), ‘History as Cultural Memory: Mnemohistory and the

Construction of the Estonian Nation’, Journal of Baltic Studies,
39:4, pp. 499-516.
Trnka, Jirí (2000), ‘The Hand’, in The Puppet Films of Jirí Trnka,
Chatsworth: Image Entertainment.
Weiss-Wendt, A. (2008), ‘Why the Holocaust Does Not Matter to

Estonians’, Journal of Baltic Studies, 39:4, pp. 475-497.
227
Appendix
Contributor details
Jakob Ladegaard’s areas of interest include the relations between modern
literature, cinema, aesthetic theory and politics. His current research
project concerns relations between Eastern Europe and the West in recent
literature and cinema. Recent publications include ‘On the Frontier of
Politics - Ideology and the Western in Jerzy Skolimowski’s Essential
Killing and Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man’, Studies in Eastern European
Cinema, 4:2, 2013.
E-mail: litjl@hum.au.dk
First published in Short Film Studies Volume 4,

Number 2 (October 2014 ISSN 2042-7824 (Print);
ISSN 2042-7832 (Online)
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9.2.
Ruth Barton
Trinity College Dublin
Abstract
This analysis of Body, Memory will discuss the
significance of the railway track. I argue that, just as
Pikkov’s string figures embody memory, so his train
lines function as cinematic lieux de mémoires, evoking
at once the technological hopes of modernity and their
part in humanity’s destruction.
Keywords
Pierre Nora; lieux de mémoires; train track; history;
Holocaust; modernity
Within the burgeoning field of memory studies, the writings of French

historian, Pierre Nora, occupy a central role in enabling creative
interpretations of what he has termed lieux de mémoire, or sites of
memory. Although Nora’s work is massive, encompassing seven edited
volumes published between 1984 and 1992, he concisely explained his
central theme in an introductory essay that was translated and reproduced
in Representations (Nora 1989). In what follows, I will be drawing on this
key piece of writing to tease out the possibilities of locating within Body
Memory a series of such sites of memory.
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Appendix
Nora’s writings reflect a widespread contestation of history

– ‘the reconstruction, always problematic and incomplete of what is
no longer’ (8) - as master or grand narrative. In its place, comes its
antithesis, memory. Memory, he suggests, is the foundation of societies,
always evolving; it is plural, collective and individual, taking root ‘in
the concrete, in spaces, gestures, images and objects.’ (8-9). Lieux de
mémoire, in turn, may be created by state authorities (statues and other
memorials) or occur spontaneously, when the public appropriates a place
or an event in their desire to memorialise.
His examples look forward to the wider project of reconstructing
a sense of French national identity. Yet, the concept is a useful one and
can easily be adapted to other contexts. Lieux de mémoire need not be
consensual and indeed such sites may conjure up quite radically opposing
associations and memories. Nor need they be pressed into the service of
nation building. At the same time, few people would dispute the intense
need to memorialise shared by so many societies and ethnic groups. As
these groupings become displaced, both from their physical origins and
from official histories, so their need to create sites of memory, whether
symbolic or concrete, becomes ever more urgent. And as the greatest
atrocity of the last century passes from living memory, the question of
how to memorialise the Holocaust gains in immediacy.
One feels that the director of Body Memory, Ülo Pikkov, was
aware, if not of Nora’s specific writings, then certainly of the intellectual
movement to which they speak. Nora himself considers the body as
a repository of memory; true memory, he writes, ‘has taken refuge in
gestures and habits, in skills passed down by unspoken traditions, in
the body’s inherent self-knowledge, in unstudied reflexes and ingrained
memories.’ (13). The text accompanying Pikkov’s film similarly identifies
the body as guardian of memory, and not only of individual memory
but historical, collective memory: ‘Our body remembers more than
we can expect and imagine. It remembers the sorrow and pain of our
predecessors. It keeps alive the stories of our parents and grandparents
as well as their ancestors.’ Just as Nora saw memory residing in peasant
cultures, and in primitive or archaic societies (7-8), so Pikkov’s mise-en-
scène evokes the landscapes of peasant middle Europe. In the same vein,
his wool figures are suggestive of pastness, of an era of craft skills and
domestic labour, a world that will, literally, unravel, as its representatives
are uprooted and deported in the slatted cattle truck. Even the animation
technique, stop motion, is, in the era of computer-generated imagery, a
throwback.
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So far, one might say, so obvious. Yet, the film, I would argue,
offers us another lieu de mémoire, one that evokes a nexus of memories,
both historical and cinematic. This is the train track that dissolves into a
slug in Body Memory’s concluding frames (Shot 63). Were one to view
Pikkov’s film without its accompanying text, it could easily be interpreted
as a Holocaust narrative, and one may guess that this was the filmmaker’s
intention. Where Nora positions history and memory in dialectical
opposition, the visual imagery of the cattle truck and the train track
suggest, by contrast, a dialogue between the two modes. Both images
are crucial to the iconography of Holocaust representations; in Alain
Resnais’ Night and Fog (Nuit et brouillard), the film cuts from footage
of Nazis loading prisoners onto these trucks to the grassed-over tracks
leading to the camp. The voice-over muses on what the camera/spectator
is seeking: “Traces of the bodies that fell out when the cars were opened?
Of survivors driven by rifle butts through the doors…’ Did Pikkov have
Resnais’ film in mind as he composed his? One cannot know this, yet it
and other such canonical representations seep through Body Memory,
endowing the film with its own historical resonances. By referencing
Holocaust imagery, Pikkov invites the viewer to make connections
between that atrocity and the less-familiar history of Soviet deportations
from Estonia in the 1940s, which the text informs us are the subject of
this animation.
Lieux de mémoire, Nora writes,

are mixed, hybrid, mutant, bound intimately with life
and death, with time and eternity; enveloped in a
Möbius strip of the collective and the individual, the
sacred and the profane, the immutable and the mobile.
For if we accept that the most fundamental purpose of
the lieu de mémoire is to stop time, to block the work of
forgetting, to establish a state of things, to immortalize
death, to materialize the immaterial – just as if gold
were the only memory of money – all of this in order to
capture a maximum of meaning in the fewest of signs, it
is also clear the lieux de mémoire only exist because of
their capacity for metamorphosis, an endless recycling
of their meaning and an unpredictable proliferation of
their ramifications. (19).
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As a site of memory, then, the train track bears multiple meanings.

Evoking not only the Holocaust, it is one of the oldest of cinematic
images. In early cinema it is the harbinger of hope and modernity, a
celebration of that same spirit of invention that gave birth to the moving
image. With its straight lines, and regularly placed rails, it bespoke the
triumph of rational design over the chaos of the archaic. In the classic
Western, the laying of the train track heralds the advent of civilisation,
the movement of white America from East to West, and the taming of
the wilderness. The trains that ran on these tracks promised glamour and
adventure, the regulation of time, the conquering of space.
The association of the train track with the Holocaust is thus a
multiple betrayal. It becomes, as so much of the Holocaust did, a recasting
of human inventiveness. The track no longer leads into to a better future,
but to an unimaginable horror. The gleaming modernist surfaces of the
engine and carriages are replaced by the fetid wooden trucks intended for
the transport of livestock. People travel in fear of their destination.
The final sequence of Body Memory (Shot 63) opens on a train
track in the snow. The sequence, one guesses, is set in the present day.
However, when the train moves into shot, it turns out to be an old coal-
fired engine, and as it advances, it appears to be pulling wooden trucks.
Finally and inexplicably it transforms into a giant slug, erasing the track
as its metamorphosis is completed.
This process of morphing suggests a reversal of temporality,
the obliteration of modernity and its replacement by a kind of monstrous,
primeval apparition. Memory itself, as embodied in the track, is
threatened with erasure; hence, the tension in Body, Memory. As much as
it functions as a call to memory and to memorialising, so it acknowledges
that our connectedness with the past is fragile and violable. ‘We speak so
much of memory,’ Nora writes, ‘because there is so little of it left.’ (7).
As the thread figures unravel, and the train track and engine
are subsumed into the bulging slug, what then remains of memory? The
clue to that dilemma lies in the painter’s easel that opens the film (Shot
1) and the scribbling pencil/twig (Shot 63), with which it closes. Once
memory has become erased, Pikkov proposes, then all that survives is
representation. The juxtaposition of the easel with its fine lines and the
grotesque, devouring slug further prompts the viewer to question what
form such representations may take. Must the artist’s representation
inevitably aestheticize?
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The answer, I believe, lies in the concept of lieux de mémoire.

Of course, history cannot be retrieved, and all reproductions are
necessarily partial and personal. Yet, such sites open up the possibility,
as Nora writes, of a ‘proliferation of meaning’ available to the spectator.
Pikkov has intervened in this process by publishing accompanying text
that locates Body Memory within a specific history, yet by invoking the
iconography of the Holocaust, and cinema’s romance with the train track,
he invites the spectator to animate his imagery with their own memories.
These memories are of necessity mediated and secondary; yet if historical
events are to memorialised, and one must argue in defence of that project,
then this may be the most creative way of engaging the present with the
past.
References
Nora, P. (1989), ‘Between memory and history: Les lieux de mémoire’,
Representations 26, Spring: pp. 7-25.
Resnais, Alain (1955), Night and Fog (Nuit et brouillard), Paris: Argos
Films.
Contributor details
Ruth Barton is Head of the Department of Film Studies at Trinity College
Dublin. She is the author of numerous books and articles on Irish cinema.
E-mail: Ruth Barton BARTONR@tcd.ie

Number 2 (October 2014)ISSN 2042-7824 (Print);
ISSN 2042-7832 (Online)
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9.3.
Iben Have
Aarhus University
Abstract
This article begins with a phenomenological description
of the perception of the soundtrack in Body Memory:
what is heard and what do the sounds express. Inspired
by cognitive semantics, it then continues to present this
perception as linked to the listener’s body memory.
Keywords
sound design, sound effects, music, perception,
cognitive semantics, body memory.
Music and Sound

in Body Memory
The soundtrack of Body Memory is divided into two main categories:
music and sound effects. There are no words, and, although some of
the sound effects resemble real sounds (such as trains, sighs, footsteps
and ropes swinging and swishing through the air), they are manipulated
and form part of a thoroughly prepared sound design, very similar to a
musical composition, for which sound designer Tiina Andreas won Best
Sound Award at the International Stop Motion Animation Film Festival in
2012.
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The music and sound effects are kept relatively separate

throughout the film. The sound effects are used in the freight car and
the transitioning drawing scenes, and the musical theme, composed
by Mirjam Tally, appears in the opening and final sequences. The only
exception to this is the central scene (Shot 40), in which the pregnant
string figure attempts to protect her egg. In this scene – central in both
a thematic and a durational sense – we hear the music and sound effects
simultaneously.
The musical theme is played in tempo rubato – a musical term
for playing with expressive and rhythmic freedom by slightly increasing
and then decreasing the tempo. The accordion (played by Jaak Lutsoja)
and the cello (played by Tõnu Jõesaar) have a trembling, whirling,
restless expression, while the female voice (soprano Kersti Ala-Murr)
has a calmer, more spherical expression, oscillating slowly between two
octaves on an airy aaahh. Taken as a whole, the music adds a yearning,
melancholic mood to the dull, barren winter landscape in the visuals. In
the transition sequences, in which we witness the drawing on canvas, the
music blends with the wooden sound of claves and the sound effects of
creaking branches and the scratching pen.
In the finale sequence, the singing voice dominates. It remains
on an aaahh, but the tones are not limited to the octave, creating a
lighter and freer expression than in the opening scene. In the central egg
sequence, the music recalls the opening theme and provides an element of
human intimacy and empathy to this extended and emotionally difficult
scene.
When we leave the realistic visuals and enter the freight car,
there is a momentary silence before we hear the shivering and mumbling
sounds of the string women. From here, a diegetic sound design unfolds
with sounds relating to the women (such as sighs, bumps, swishing ropes,
steps and rustling) and to the surroundings (such as rumbling, squeaking
wood, metallic hinges, train sounds and wind). If we close our eyes and
listen to the sound design, we can recognize isolated sounds, such as
steps, evil laughter or a distant train, but we cannot follow a narrative.
Instead, the sounds of rattling, melee, commotion and increasing energy
from high-frequency sounds give rise to a growing discomfort and
tension. This is particularly true following the egg scene (Shot 40), at
which point the soundtrack slowly becomes richer and more compact with
a crescendo culminating in Shot 60, in which the string clump rises on its
trembling legs. This auditive energy is maintained until we return to the
image of the drawing pencil (Shot 63).
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Appendix
Sound Perception
as Body Memory
When we listen to Body Memory with our eyes closed, we may feel that
we do not only use our ears and brain to understand what is happening
in the film, but our whole body. In Ülo Pikkov’s short synopsis of Body
Memory, he claims, “our body remembers more than we can expect
and imagine. It remembers the sorrow and pain of our predecessors. It
keeps alive the stories of our parents and grandparents as well as their
ancestors” (vimeo.com). With these sentences in mind, we can locate
the memory of terrible events in the branches of an old apple tree being
transferred to a canvas (Shot 3-6). Or we can view each woman’s string
as a symbol of her body memory and her own and her ancestors life
experience. We then witness how these life stories are unraveled during
the horror inside and outside the wagon. And, even though the final
strings gather together as one body of collective memory (Shot 59-61),
they are ultimately all erased. And finally the serpent succeeds in erasing
the (rail) tracks through the wintery orchard landscape.
But my aim here is not to provide a general interpretation of
the film. Instead, having already described how we may perceive the
soundtrack in Body Memory, I would like to describe how we perceive
this soundtrack as body memory. In other research, I have developed a
theory of sound and music perception as bodily knowledge (Have 2008),
inspired by philosopher Mark Johnson’s book The Body in the Mind: The
Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. As his title indicates,
a central argument in Johnson’s book is that meaning is based on repeated
patterns in bodily experience of the physical world. These experiences
constitute embodied cognitive structures, which he calls image schemata,
and which we as humans repeatedly use to understand new sensory input
from our surroundings. In cognitive theory, schemata are a result of a
human’s interaction with the physical world; they structure and organize
experience, help us to understand sensory input (that would otherwise
appear chaotic) and guide our expectations for future situations and
experiences.
Johnson’s cognitive semantics is inspired by the French
Phenomenologist movement. In particular, it is influenced by Merleau-
Ponty, who introduced the notion of schéma corporel (body schema)
in his book Phenomenology of Perception (Merleau-Ponty, 1962).
Both Merleau-Ponty’s schéma corporel and Johnson’s image schemata
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accentuate the significant role of the body in human experience of the

world.
Although Johnson does not discuss sound perception in his book,
we can appeal to the concept of image schemata to understand how we
use embodied knowledge from the physical world to create meaning for
realistic as well as abstract sound structures; for example when perceiving
a film (Have 2008). A more thorough theoretical explanation is beyond
the scope of this short article, but some examples from Body Memory may
help to illustrate my point.
Fortunately, the majority of us have not physically experienced
deportation in a freight car. However, by using certain kinds of visual
narrative, animation and sound, Ülo Pikkov (et al.) exposes his audience
to a sensory input that activates our body memory towards a certain
(emotional) recognition at a pre-conceptual level. For example, the sound
of ropes swinging and swishing through the air instinctively arouses our
attension, since our image schema (constructed from empirical knowledge
of this sound) warns us to be alert. Similarly, the heavy metallic swish
in Shots 7-8 or the auditive culmination around the climax in Shot 60
become almost haptic experiences, potentially leading to the feeling of a
sword in the chest or an intense bodily tension. These reactions are pre-
conceptual (or we could say pre-consciouss), but they are nevertheless
conceptualized though image schemata.
The human-like sonorous sighs we hear during Body Memory
provide a vunerability which contrasts strikingly with the rest of the sound
design. These sighs peep out through the horribly noisy enviroment and
affect us in the same way as large, pleading, teary eyes (cf. Puss in Boots
from Shrek 2), causing us to empathize with the women immeditately.
Most of us will recognize and conceptualize this whimpering treble sound
in a falling curve as being sad and sorrowful, simply because we use an
image schema formed by previous physical experiences with our own or
others’ sorrow.
When we listen to the musical theme of Body Memory, we also
experience it as meaningful through the cognitive structures of image
schemata. For example, when we experience the musical expression as
trembling and unstable in the opening theme, we make metaphorical
projections from physical experiences to the experience of the abstract
musical structures; in this case, produced by accordion and cello.
The music then becomes meaningful in the visual context and, in this
sequence, creates a feeling of restlessness, anxiety and melancholy that
impacts on our expectations for the rest of the film.
237
Appendix
References
Adamson, A., Asbury, K., Vernon C. (2004), Shrek 2, Glendale:
DreamWorks Animation.
Have, I. (2008), Lyt til tv. Underlægningsmusik i danske tv-dokumentarer,

Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
Johnson, M. (1987), The Body in the Mind. The Bodily Basis of Meaning,
Imagination and Reason, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962), Phenomenology of Perception, London:

Routledge.
Contributor details
My main research interest is music and sound as aesthetic and
communicative devices in public and personal media. I address questions
as to how reality, knowledge and emotions are realized, mediated and
experienced through sound and music in audio-visual media. My recent
research interest is in use of digital audiobooks.
E-mail: musih@hum.au.dk

Number 2 (October 2014)
ISSN 2042-7824 (Print); ISSN 2042-7832 (Online)
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9.4.
Yutian Wong
San Francisco State University
Abstract
Using choreography as a conceptual framework
involving movement vocabulary and syntax and
examining the spatial relationships between bodies, this
analysis focuses on the ways in which the movements
of the animated characters in this film effectively evoke
a sense of dread and confinement.
Keywords
dance, choreography, dancefilm, screendance,
corporeality
In telling the story of forced deportation through the spatial relationships

of abstracted movement, Body Memory is reminiscent of contemporary
dancefilm or screendance. Propelled by moving bodies—nude female
dolls made out of string performing choreographed movement—the
film is informed by the kinetic sensibility of Estonian choreographer
Külli Roosna. The possibility of exploring intimacy, fear, and defiance
within the formality of choreographic structure marks the influence of
contemporary theatrical dance practice in Pikkov’s film.
From a choreographic perspective, the film utilizes one of the most basic
formal structures. In making use of large ensemble choreography, soloists
emerge to represent and explore the relationship between the group (or
239
Appendix
community) and the individual. The movement vocabulary performed

by the doll-like string bodies draws on pedestrian movement with a focus
on articulate torsos, while the use of theme and variation, repetition, and
extrapolation organizes the syntax of the choreography to transform task-
like elements of pedestrian movement into patterned abstract movement.
Attention to dynamic variation and attack gives rise to rhythmic timing
and breath-like phrasing. The set in which the doll-like figures move is
used in such a way that the spatial distribution of bodies on stage creates a
narrative arc in which the menacing implications of order give way to the
resulting chaos.
Oftentimes in dance films, the choreography is only meaningful
within a diegetic world, but Body Memory is unique in that one can
imagine an effective translation of the choreography from the film
to the stage. This is possible because the movement itself can be
effectively reimagined in different settings such that the choreography
can exist apart from the film. For this reason I will be referring to the
movement sequence in the film in choreographic terms as the dance or
the choreography. The animated figures function more like dancers in an
ensemble performance in which individual dancers might take on solo
roles to depict elements of individualized experiences, but the group as a
whole represent the idea of community rather than specific characters.
The dance begins with an ensemble of female figures standing
in stillness at the back of the cattle car. The only source of light coming
through the slatted walls adds to a stage-like effect (Shot 7). A single
figure in the second row dips her head and looks down at the ground
prompting the entire ensemble to begin a vibratory shiver in unison before
coming to stillness. A second figure in the center of the second row
begins to shiver again and the rest of the group joins in again before they
all stop in unison. The deliberateness of the opening scene sets the tone
for the rest of the dance.
An individual’s uncertainty is read in the body of the soloists
while the collective experience is seen in the massed bodies of the
ensemble. From a corporeal perspective a vibratory shiver is the result
of holding extreme tension within the body. To actually achieve the
shiver one must contract the muscles to a point of stillness before one
can actually achieve the intensity of shivering, as opposed to simply
shaking. The moment of stillness before the stillness becomes fraught
with the anticipation that something uncontrollable (shivering) will
emerge. The ensemble is massed at the back of the set but they are not
pressed close to each other. At this point each body still maintains its own
sense of personal space within the confines of the cattle car. Although
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the bodies are equally distributed and not yet touching one another, their
position in the back of the cattle car does create a sense of foreboding and
confinement.
A single string emerges from the head of the central figure and
reaches towards the ceiling in a curvilinear path before a second string
emerges from the head of another figure. A bright light flashes and the
bodies press back into the far wall. When the scene returns to the cattle
car, the bodies shift and are no longer standing at the back of the cattle
car. They are evenly distributed throughout the entire space (Shot 12).
Each body has a string emerging from its head attached to the ceiling or
the wall of the of the cattle car (Shot 13). Sometimes the string appears to
function as an extension of the body and other times, the string represents
something external that controls the body. Either way the interaction
between the body and its respective string reinforces a feeling of tension
as the figures are pulled in different directions before reassembling into
parallel lines (Shot 14).
The orderliness of the figures arranged in parallel lines
foreshadows the systemic violence that follows. Two figures are pulled
upstage by a string by an unseen force and slammed against the back
wall. One of the figures manages to push her self into a standing position
and walks away from the wall towards the group (Shot 15) before she is
punished and pulled back into the wall. There is a sense of weight in the
confidence of her strut towards the ensemble and a sense of resistance as
she opens up in the chest while facing the group before coming unraveled
and disappearing into the wall. The contrast between the execution
of a slow and deliberate strut that comes to a moment of stillness, and
the quick flailing movement that turn into an uncontrolled spiral lifting
the body off of the ground codes the significance of the weighted
material body. In Shots 21-39, the figures fight to remain physically and
emotionally grounded as they resist being pulled by the strings. The
figures crawl along the floor and some begin to come psychologically
undone as they engage in repetitive movements such as rocking back
and forth or knocking their heads against each other. A moment of hope
emerges as one of the women seated on the floor ties a small knot in her
string in a gesture of defiance. Hope resonates in the ensuing stillness,
but the figure is soon unraveled and swallowed up like the woman in Shot
15.
The evocation of the weighted body in contrast to the fast
spiraling motion of coming unraveled is used most poignantly in the
representation of a pregnant women and her attempt to protect herself and
an unborn child. Standing in a deep plié (knee bend) she breaks her string
241
Appendix
in an attempt to disconnect herself from the cattle car only to find herself
reconnected (Shot 40). Instead of fighting against the string like the
bodies in previous scenes, the pregnant figure slows down. She moves
with the string as the rest of the group watches. As the string pulls, she
turns with the string and comes unraveled a little bit at a time until she
string becomes slack and gives her more time to protect the egg. Only
when her head disappears does the rest of the body stumble around until it
too is set into a spinning motion that unravels the remainder of her body.
The pregnant woman’s solo is followed by mayhem in which the
remaining figures repeat variations on all the movements performed in
the previous sections. Some are pulling on their strings as heads or limbs
come undone. Others crawl on all fours, lie on their backs, or cling to the
walls. There is a heightened sense of pain, fear, and desperation as the
figures bang their heads against the walls, the floor or each other. They
no longer move in unison as each individual figure executes their own
variation. Crawling over and under each other, the figures become less
human and more animal-like. The variations become layered and build
in complexity until a group of bodies coalesce into a spiderlike creature
(Shot 56). Composed of dead or dying bodies, the creature haunts the
remaining figures. Eventually, the creature subsumes the remaining
bodies and becomes one giant ball of dead bodies that rolls over and
flattens the one remaining live body in the cattle car. The drama ends
when the sheer weight of the giant ball resists getting pulled out of the car
until the remnants of string figures finally disappear through the slats and
the choreography comes to an end.
Interestingly, the relationship of the bodies to the cattle car
remains ambiguous and allows for multiple readings. At the beginning of
choreographed sequences of the film (Shot 7), it is clear that the figures
are confined to the space and one expects that the bodies will eventually
try to escape, but they do not. Instead, the figures resist being unraveled
and pulled out of the space by an unseen force. The figures try to remain
firmly grounded inside the cattle car as if the space itself represents the
literal space from which the subjects do not want to be forcefully moved
from. Or the space itself operates as a symbolic space where memory
can take place. In this case, memories like choreography are ephemeral
and the doll-like bodies struggle to materialize the bodily sensations of
dread, confinement, and loss as an alternative archive.
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References
Branigan, Erin (2011), Dancefilm: Choreography and the Moving Image.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Dodds, Sherril (2001), Dance on Screen: Genres and Media from

Hollywood to Experimental Art. Hampshire: Palgrave.
Preston, Hilary (2006), “Choreographing the Frame: A Critical

Investigation Into How Dance for the Camera Extends the
Conceptual and Artistic Boundaries of Dance, ” Research in
Dance Education. 7:1, pp. 75-87.
Rosenberg, Douglas (2012), Screendance: Inscribing the Ephemeral

Image. New York: Oxford University Press.
Contributor Details
Yutian Wong is an Assistant Professor in the School of Music and Dance
at San Francisco State University where she teaches courses in critical
dance studies. She is the author of Choreographing: Asian America
(Wesleyan University Press, 2010) and the editor of Asian American
Dance in the 21st Century (forthcoming).
E-mail: ytw@sfsu.edu

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Appendix
9.5.
Nicole Richter
Wright State University
Abstract
The primary source of terror in Body Memory emerges
from the lack of materiality underneath the unraveling
body. Using Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the
“body-without-organs” this essay discusses the
biopolitical implications of representing the body as an
assemblage of string.
Keywords
Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Body without organs,
BwO, Pikkov, Animation
“Body memory” as a phrase shifts traditional Western conceptions of

memory that construct memory as a subjective process organized in
the mind. Memories are usually thought to be stored in consciousness,
spatially located in the brain. Proposing the idea that memory can be
stored in the body, Ülo Pikkov’s film raises ontological questions about
the nature of being and the body itself. What is the body? Where does it
stop and where do other bodies begin?
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The subjects of Pikkov’s narrative film, tightly wound

assemblages of yarn, shaped in human form, are faceless and anonymous,
yet the spectator forms an emotional connection. The film asks spectators
to care for, and about, the plight of these faceless beings, and more
significantly to care only about these beings as bodies. The primary
source of terror in Body Memory emerges from the lack of materiality
underneath the unraveling body. By using Gilles Deleuze and Felix
Guattari’s concept of the “body without organs” (BwO) the biopolitical
implications of representing the body as an assemblage of string can be
better understood.
Deleuze and Guattari often use the word ‘string’ or ‘fiber’ to
describe how multiplicities function, such as when they write “each
multiplicity is already composed of heterogeneous terms in symbiosis,
and that a multiplicity is continually transforming itself into a string
of other multiplicities, according to its thresholds and doors” (Deleuze
and Guattari 1987: 275). The animated images of string in the film play
with the concept of multiplicity and the body. Deleuze and Guattari state
directly that the BwO is not a literal body, and not even necessarily a
human body. It is “connection of desires, conjunction of flows, continuum
of intensities” (Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 179). The BwO is an ideal to
be moved towards in order to overcome the body-as-image construct of
self that has been organized by the ‘socius’, the field of social production.
Working toward the horizon of the BwO is a movement to “dis-organ-
ize the body, to de-stratify it, to free it from stratification, unification,
identification and identity so as to enable experimentation with
multiplicities and intensities” (Holland 2013: 96-97).
In Anti-Oedipus, the BwO is offered forth in positive terms, as
a tactical response to the social production of identity because it “resists
stratifications of the socius; neither hierarchies of selfhood nor fictions
of individuality glom onto this quiescent organism that precedes the
cultural formation of the subject” (Castronovo 2001: 137). In A Thousand
Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari more fully develop the BwO and they
discuss three different types of BwO’s: empty, full and cancerous. In Body
Memory we are witnessing something akin to the empty body without
organs, because the complete dismantling of the social population leaves
only an empty space. Nothing from the socius is left to resist the dominant
forces pulling the strings.
Body Memory shows how forces of power can hijack the concept
of BwO and use it to biopolitically control a population. Here we see the
BwO in its destructive possibilities. These bodies have been too emptied
of meaning and signification. There is no reference point or substance
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Appendix
to achieve the BwO on. The goal should not be to eliminate subjectivity
completely because “you have to keep small rations of subjectivity in
sufficient quantity to enable you to respond to the dominant reality”
(Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 178). These animated beings have no source
of power available to them to survive this violent encounter and to resist
the unknown source of terror controlling them from outside. They are
stripped bare and sucked into a black hole of white light [Shot 20]. The
film bears witness to the swift and intense destruction of the organized
body, freed too fully from its identity. The subjects are freed with “too
violent an action…then instead of drawing the plane” they are “killed,
plunged into a black hole” and “dragged toward catastrophe” (Deleuze
and Guattari 1987: 178).
Body Memory uses images that spectators immediately connect
to horrific atrocities in the 20th century such as the Holocaust, and the film
is inspired by the Soviet deportations from Estonia in the 1940s. While the
film may be inspired by a particular historical event the style of animation
and minimalism of set design presents the themes and horrors of the film
as universal and timeless. The choice to represent this struggle through
yarn reinforces this universality. The outside force controlling the string
is never seen or described, the spectator’s only access to understanding
is within the claustrophobic space of the room, witnessing the destruction
of bodies on screen. These are images of war and the machine of war;
this is how the machine feeds on life and destroys life to survive. Here,
we see the dangers of constructing a body without organs, the “dangers
of violence” because the BwO “risks that a creative, metamorphic war
machine will turn into a veritable machine of war, a negative force bent
solely on destruction” (Bogue 2007: 50-51).
The most anxiety producing moment of the film, the struggle
by a mother to protect her egg [Shot 40], is an image that facilitates an
understanding of the BwO. Deleuze and Guattari describe the BwO as an
egg—the egg is the BwO (Deleuze and Guattari 1987: 182). The BwO is
“the full egg before the extension of the organism and the organization
of the organs, before the formation of the strata” (Deleuze and Guattari
1987: 153). Inside the egg, no form is yet developed, no organs exist—
there is only possibility and becoming. As the mother unravels, and the
egg becomes loose, the existence of the BwO is put into jeopardy. Upon
its splatter against the wall, all hope for resistance to outside control is
lost [Shot 43].
As more and more beings slip through the cracks into the
unknown, a new political idea arises: an image of the full BwO, Shot
49. The full BwO is “without identity or representation because it is
difference in itself or difference as the creation of something continually
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Anti-Animation
new” (Dale 2001:71). The beings merge together to create one large mass
of yarn. Here, a new response to the source of danger is developed and
the creatures are thinking strategically about how to survive. Shot 61 is
an image of the full BwO. It is an assemblage of multiple beings strung
together in various directions to produce a new whole that emerges as one
being, “How to sew up, cool down, and tie together all the BwO’s. If this
is possible to do, it is only by conjugating the intensities produced by each
BwO, by producing a continuum of all intensive continuities (Deleuze
and Guattari 1987: 175). Instead of fighting for survival as individuals,
the beings form a collective that has the potential to produce a different
outcome. For a moment it seems possible that this new multitude will
resist destruction, but inevitably, it is unraveled.
References
Bogue, R. (2007), Deleuze’s Way: Essays in Transverse Ethics and
Aesthetics, Hampshire, England: Ashgate Publishing.
Castronovo, R. (2001), Necro Citizenship: Death, Eroticism, and the

Public Sphere in the Nineteenth-Century United States, Durham,
North Carolina, Duke University Press.
Dale, C. (2001), ‘Falling from the power to die’, in G. Genosko (ed.),

Deleuze and Guattari: Critical Assessments of Leading
Philosophers, London, Routledge, pp. 69-80.
Deleuze, G. & F. Guattari (1987), A Thousand Plateaus, London:

Continuum.
Holland, E. (2013), Deleuze and Guattari’s ‘A Thousand Plateus’:

A Reader’s Guide, London: Bloomsbury Academic.
247
Appendix
Contributor details
Nicole Richter is Associate Professor in, and Coordinator of, the Motion
Pictures Program at Wright State University. She has published articles in
The Journal of Bisexuality, Feminism at the Movies, Queer Love in Film
and Television, and Short Film Studies.
E-mail: Nicole.richter@wright.edu

248
Anti-Animation
9.6.
Edvin Kau
Aarhus University
Abstract
Body Memory confronts the viewer with a tale of
deported people’s experience of hopelessness and
terror. In this article, I engage with the film and analyse
elements of its concrete cinematic practice, in order to
investigate how it achieves symbolic significance and
universality.
Keywords
animation, abstraction, concrete horror, symbolic
significance, deportation, holocaust
249
Appendix
At first glance, it is not easy to grasp the full range of Body Memory. On
the basis of the fate of the female figures in the waggon, we can hardly
avoid connotations with the Holocaust of World War II, and with ethnic
cleansing in general. But how can we arrive at a deeper understanding,
beyond this immediate impression? A first step might be to seek concrete
information about the film, and the most obvious place is the presentation
on Vimeo.com. Firstly, there is the concept of “body memory” itself; the
idea that our bodies retain memories, not only of our own experiences,
but also those of our parents and ancestors. Perhaps the tree we encounter
at the beginning of Body Memory can also remember and tell of the fate
of previous generations, and of the sorrows and terrors they suffered?
Secondly, we note that the film is inspired by the Soviet deportations of
very large numbers of people from Estonia in the 1940s and early 1950s
(cf. Estonia.eu). How does Body Memory construct its narrative on the
basis of this horror?
The tree’s tale:

Unravelling life
The initial sequence (Shots 1-5) suggests that the tree is presenting that
portion of the film’s narrative that takes place in the waggon; that is, the
memory which it is the art of the film to formulate. We will return later to
the film’s final scene and the reunion with the tree. Shot 6 shows drawn
lines that acquire their own life on the canvas, which is introduced in Shot
5 as the surface upon which the tree draws. We see the result as the events
in the waggon. Perhaps Pikkov’s film is the actual visualisation of our
own body memory, too?
The frightened women send their strings probing out into the
room (Shot 7); first two or three of them, and then all of them do (Shot
12). The blinding light from outside is both alluring and frightening. The
strings are gripped and tightened by an invisible power from outside
the waggon (Shot 12). Strips of light are seen moving between the slats
on both sides, showing that the train has begun to move (Shots 13-14).
Everyone fights against the frightening tethering, but when one of the
women thinks she has broken free and can stroll through the wagon
(with the snap of high-heeled shoes on the soundtrack), other women
beat her back against the slat wall. Concern for the fate of others gives
way to concern for one’s own survival, as one after another they are
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Anti-Animation
pulled violently up against the waggon’s walls with the prospect of being
unravelled and disappearing out between the slats. The unravelling of one
of them is shown in full, and viewed from an external camera position,
the collision of a person with the wall ends up blocking the camera’s and
the viewer’s vision, so that the screen goes completely black. It is thus
made clear: they are being controlled from outside by an invisible power,
and the unravelling represents death.
At the same time, the sound of an echoing crack marks the
change from the first sequence with examples of individual destinies, to
the next phase: A shot from a bird’s-eye view (Shot 19) shows that all
of the characters have a loose end of their strings that “points” towards
the right of the frame. The next shot shows how the strings disappear
out between the slats (Shot 20). While the meticulously constructed
soundtrack intensifies the visualisation of a chaotic hell, Pikkov twice
uses a spinning camera effect that smears the images to unrecognisability.
The second time, there is an attempt to reproduce the unravelling as
a point-of-view shot from the position of the dying person. The film
literally presents the embodiment of the women’s panic on the screen.
One of the film’s longest shots, with a duration of no less than 40
seconds (Shot 40), shows a pregnant woman fighting for her life and for
her child. Like the others, she becomes a victim of both the invisible force
and the other prisoners’ desperation. When she drops the egg – the baby
– the others kick it like a ball and end up smashing it against the slat wall.
The collective desperation triggers responses in which each prisoner’s
self-preservation instinct results in aggression. Compassion is sacrificed
in their efforts to save themselves. It is every woman for herself.
Death, individual
and collective
The very well-ordered chaos of Body Memory owes much of its impact
to an overall principle: In the midst of its portrayal of the horrors
of deportation, the film maintains an alternation between general
presentations of the entire group’s situation and a focus on individuals.
This apparently simple yet complex narrative is brought together
towards the end of the film in a final demonstration of the common fate
of the figures. The remaining women are tangled together in a single
large clump, while the camera literally moves in to a super close-up of
251
Appendix
a screaming mouth. Once again, Body Memory visualises two sides of

the same coin: common destiny and individual terror, after which the
clump literally disintegrates, and all of the figures disappear, following a
terminal unravelling. Once again we are confronted with a white screen
and the canvas of the old tree.
Body Memory as
animated symbolism
On the basis of the selected examples, we may be on our way to
answering the question of how a short animated film that is based on
a specific deportation outrage can evoke memories, which, it could be
claimed, raise important moral questions about human existence and
crimes against humanity – perspectives that extend far beyond isolated
individual events.
From its concrete basis, Body Memory aims for generally
applicable symbolic value. We could think of the level of abstraction of
the animated film in the same way that cinematographer Allen Daviau
has described black and white film: “I think, for people who had done
black and white to go into colour, it was not only a technical adaption,
but it was a philosophical one. (…) Black and white is a much more
immediately abstract medium. It’s removed from reality by its very
nature (…)” (Glassman et al. 1992). In the same way that black and white
films can more easily be perceived as stylised and deliberately abstract
constructions, the constructed and not individually identifiable “string
women” of this animation film are already abstract. Pikkov’s stop-motion
animation offers an opening to a symbolic level, which helps to endow
the events in the wagon with universal value. Body Memory is a memento
and a protest with universal application: against all oppression, abuse of
power, deportation, extermination camps and mass murder.
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Anti-Animation
The journey to
Body Memory
When the Indian-born British sculptor Anish Kapoor describes how
we relate to works of art, he speaks of both memories and journeys –
remarks which can also be applied to Body Memory: “Precisely, I mean
it’s about those memories that are in there (points to his elbow) – or in
there (his knee), or in your stomach, as much as the ones that are in your
head.” In relation to whether the encounter can be seen as a journey,
he says: “You know, a kind of pilgrimage. The idea of a journey to an
object, the journey to a place, a site. At least, that’s the kind of sculpture
I’m interested in.” (Yentop 2009) One could describe in similar terms
the relationship of the audience, not only with sculpture, but with art in
general – and thus also with cinematic art. With Body Memory, too, it is
necessary to engage with it, work with it and find your place within it.
Thus, my contention is that both that which characterises the
animation as a medium – in this stop-motion version, the characters’
material construction and thus their inherently generalised nature – and
the interacting viewer’s encounter with the work lift it from a matter of
individual cases to the level of a general artistic appeal and a question
of moral reflection; in other words, the kind of journey to the memory of
Body Memory to which Kapoor refers. In this case, the film directs our
attention to the overwhelming horror and despairing hopelessness that
becomes the reality of the captured and deported prisoners.
The camera moves away once again from the pencil, the
twig and tree, while the train, transformed into a worm-like creature,
disappears. The monster that housed the horrific tale and the all-
encompassing terror goes away. Will it reappear in other times and other
places?
As in the world of folk tales, the dragons and other monsters
of evil appear and may disappear with their victims. The women and
the train are gone, but the memory remains. The tree with its pencil still
stands in the same place – and we have seen it. We remember it and its
story.
(Translation: Billy O’Shea)
253
Appendix
References
Glassman, Arnold, Todd McCarthy & Stuart Samuels (1992): Visions of
Light. American Film Institute (AFI), NHK (Japan Broadcasting
Corporation). Image Entertainment (DVD, part 9, 31:10-31:57).
http://estonia.eu/about-estonia/history/soviet-deportations-from-estonia-
in-1940s.html
Accessed 24 October 2013.
Yentob, Alan (2009), Arts series presented by Alan Yentop, BBC

production, Winter 2009. Talk with/portrait of Anish Kapoor,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLKw5amlASY (Part 3, 3:01-3:52).

Accessed 24 October 2013.
Contributor details
Edvin Vestergaard Kau is associate professor of media studies at the
Department of Aesthetics and Communication, Aarhus University. He
has written books and numerous articles on film theory, history, and
analysis; visual style in cinema; multimedia; literature. He has also
contributed to a number of collections, including Nordisk Filmforskning
1975-95 (ed. Peder Grøngaard, 1995), Multimedieteori (ed. Henrik Juel,
1997), Virtual Interaction (ed. Lars Qvortrup, 2000), Nøgne billeder. De
danske dogmefilm (ed. Ove Christensen, 2004), and 100 Years of Nordisk
Film (red. Lisbeth Richter Larsen og Dan Nissen, 2006), Fjernsyn for
viderekomne (eds.: Nielsen, Halsskov & Højer, 2011). Books include
Filmen i Danmark (Danish film industry from the advent of sound to the
80’s, with Niels Jørgen Dinnesen, 1983), and Dreyer’s Filmkunst (1989,
English edition, The Cinema of Dreyer).
E-mail: imvek@hum.au.dk

254
Anti-Animation
9.7.
Vlad Dima
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Abstract
This essay explores the depiction of memory, death,
trauma, and bodies in order to argue that the physical
and historical limits are erased. Memory and trauma are
imprinted in the physical body but they transgress the
normal limitations, death included, as we witness the
return of the animated/living dead.
Keywords
memory, trauma, body, history, Holocaust, death,
fantasy.
Ülo Pikkov’s Body Memory is a stop-motion animation film about the

traumatic experience of deportation and about the terrors that are linked
inexorably to that event: memory and death. As representations of trauma,
memory and death are imprinted in the physical body but in this film
they transgress the normal limitations, and we witness the return of the
animated/living dead. These animated dead are made of twine, and as the
film progresses, they begin to unravel whilst inside the restricting space
of a freight car. This unraveling is similar to that of time, or of history; it
is akin to a thread of life to be spun and occasionally cut by the ancient
255
Appendix
Fates. Time, history, life and death, memory and trauma all come together
in this haunting representation of the (broken) body. Consequently,
this essay explores the film’s depiction of these elements, and their
relationship to the animated body in order to argue that physical and
historical limits are stretched to incredible lengths.
The animated body has an elastic physical quality that suggests
an unlimited reconstructive ability. Slavoj Zizek observes that in cartoons,
Tom the cat always returns to his regular form no matter the physical
trauma he endures—he represents the fantasy of the indestructible body
(Zizek 2008: 149-150). The twine, animated, stop-motion bodies in
Body Memory are somewhat analogous to that idea of indestructibility.
Their “inhuman” quality is exactly what makes them an ideal choice to
represent the deportation/camp experience that Robert Antelme referred
to as the “unimaginable” (Antelme 1992: 3) in his landmark testimony,
The Human Race. It is a choice that removes the spectators from directly
facing the horror of the Real—no actual human detainees. Instead, we
witness twine characters whose bodies are eventually reduced to nothing.
The film actually begins with a symbolization of nothingness, as Shots
1-2 focus on an empty canvas atop an easel. The camera slowly creeps up,
and ends up on the white canvas, which becomes a narrative tabula rasa.
Shots 3-5 initially move away from the easel, up and down the empty
branches of a tree, and it is finally revealed that one, thinner, quivering
branch has an attached pencil that is marking up the canvas. It is all lines,
black and chaotic, accentuated by Shot 6, in which they appear to be
drawing themselves: this is a narrative arising from nothingness.
Fittingly, the drawing stops and makes room for stop-animation
in Shot 7, inside the freight car, and the slats on the sides replace the lines.
Space shrinks drastically. Soon, the twine prisoners begin to unravel, and
they would eventually be pulled out through the cracks of the train car to
the outside, into nothingness. Does their disappearance suggest forgetting
(images escaping our memory), trauma, or is it simply death? I am
inclined to think the latter, because we witness individual deaths, as well
as a larger, more encompassing idea of death. The macabre, fretful dance
of the twine characters leads to their joining up in one large, common
body, which we see in Shots 60-62. The twine characters incur an initial
death whose limits they transgress as they metamorphose into a bigger
entity that will also die. This new entity is a massive body, so big that its
knees buckle up right before it disintegrates and disappears, too: this is
the death of the communal. The monster must be what the film means by
body memory—tragic history and memory converge to create a common
body so powerful and monstrous that it crumbles under its own weight.
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Anti-Animation
However, it may not be a complete common history and memory

because all of the twine bodies are female. The freight cars headed for
camps were not necessarily segregated, but the woman in this instance
carries an ambivalent significance. Like the worm at the end of the film,
to which we will return shortly, this particular representation of the
woman represents life and death simultaneously. The women prisoners
are headed for death, but they also carry life. In the middle of the crowd,
one woman carries an egg. As the twine of her body continues to unravel,
she loses her head and the egg drops. Then it is sucked away, too, and
it breaks against the wall. Even new life is subjected to the memory of
the Holocaust, to the great trauma that transcends historical limitations.
In other words, this particular trauma remains relevant throughout time.
In the film, we see remnants of it in the overall narrative as well as into
smaller details. The word “trauma” comes from Greek and it means,
“wound,” so we can extrapolate to use “trauma” for gashes and breaks,
which abound in the film: breaks in the twine bodies, breaks in the egg
shell, breaks in the wall, and even breaks in the fabric of the medium, in
the cuts of stop-animation (the medium itself is an in-between medium
that is born out of breaks).
So, to reiterate, the broken bodies in the freight train are
remnants of the Holocaust that transcend physical and historical limits.
They are the equivalent of the living dead—symbolic creatures of fantasy
meant to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive. Zizek calls the return
of the dead the fundamental fantasy of contemporary mass culture (Zizek
1992: 22). The dead return because they have an unpaid symbolic debt
that transcends their real death; in the case of the traumatic event of the
Holocaust, the “victims will continue to chase us as ‘living dead’ until we
give them a decent burial, until we integrate the trauma of their death into
our historical memory” (Zizek 1992: 23). So, Zizek’s fundamental fantasy
of the current mass culture can be linked to the literal and metaphorical
ashes of the Holocaust trauma. The Holocaust is a physical and symbolic
site that we avoid, the place of the Real, and to protect ourselves from
having to deal with its horrors, we have created this fundamental fantasy
that acts like a protective shield. In the film, and as suggested above,
the animated twine characters further underline this protective shield.
However, beneath this (fake) screen, the Real persists, inextricably linked
to our fears and memory. The trauma of the camp deaths will not go away,
and memory stretches across time in a display of elasticity similar to that
of the indestructible animated body.
257
Appendix
The memory of the camps returns obstinately to one image,

central to the testimonies of most influential Holocaust writers. Primo
Levi, Robert Antelme, Giorgio Agamben, Emmanuel Lévinas, and
Maurice Blanchot all refer to der Muselmann. Levi describes these
prisoners as “the weak, the inept, those doomed to selection” (Levi 1996:
88). This is a person who has given up any hope, and who passively
awaits death. He has also been referred to as “a staggering corpse” or
“walking corpse(s)” (Améry 1980: 9). In his personal testimony, Antelme
accepts that everyone reaches the same physical and emotional state:
“Soon I’ll be feeling the way he does,” and “I’ll be like him” (Antelme
1992: 62, 179). The twine characters are also all alike, and they certainly
echo the image of der Muselmann. The image of der Muselmann
exemplifies the narrow gap between the human and the inhuman in
concentration camps—a thin line perfectly exemplified by the life-like
twine bodies in Pikkov’s film. Agamben also describes der Muselmann as
the one who has seen the Gorgon, “that horrid female head covered with
serpents whose gaze produced death” (Agamben 2005: 53). The invoked
image of the Medusa is reminiscent of the serpentine threads arising from
the heads of the twine bodies in Shot 7, which also continue in Shots
12-14. And there is another connection to be made with the Gorgon/
Medusa: the blinding factor. The end of Shot 7 sheds blinding light onto
the twine characters, and then in the reverse shot, Shot 8, a POV shot, this
powerful light also blinds the audience until the screen goes completely
white. A similar effect is created at the end of Shot 62 that is overexposed
and leads again to a white screen, and eventually to the canvas from the
beginning of the film, back to nothingness. However, no matter how much
erasing is done, history and memory remain intact. Further proof of that
lies in the closing shot.
Shot 63 tracks backward from a branch and the unfinished
canvas, and moves up in a crane to follow the train passing by on the
left. Shot 63 mirrors perfectly, in reverse, the beginning of the film: the
movement of the camera initially suggests intimacy and descending
into the past, almost like a cinematic flashback. At the end of the film,
conversely, the backtracking alludes to distance and removal. Given
the positioning of the canvas and the train (they each occupy half of the
frame), the former then gathers as much attention as the latter, and it is
worth noting an ingenious play on words. The episodes in the freight car
are flanked by shots of this drawing board on which a branch draws with
a pencil. The cinematic return to the drawing board in Shot 63 is thus
a close approximation of the expression “back to the drawing board,”
which insinuates, again, that we, as a civilization, have yet to deal with
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Anti-Animation
the Holocaust and its memory properly. Since the film traces our common
memory and history by returning to a past that is still very much present
in our contemporary consciousness, then the key to bringing to light
the message of the film is at the very end. Like its characters made out
of twine, the film will unravel from a ‘loose’ end. The loose (open) end
focuses on a worm moving away from the camera. The transformation
of the train into the worm-like creature perfectly explains the entire
film. As a symbol, the worm resides in between extremes, birth/renewal
and death (Werness 2004: 439), just like the women on the train. When
Shot 63 finally fades to white, it recreates another white canvas, another
narrative tabula rasa, another “birth” bound to face the impossible weight
of memory and history. The physical proofs of deportation are eradicated
as the cinematic cycle closes, but another narrative cycle will soon
come back to life, and the historical body and its relentless memory will
continue to terrorize our consciousness.
References:
Agamben, Giorgio (2005). Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the
Archive. New York: Zone Books.
Améry, Jean. At the Mind’s Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on

Auschwitz and Its Realities. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1980.
Antelme, Robert (1992). The Human Race. Evanston: Marlboro Press.
Levi, Primo (1996). Survival in Auschwitz. New York: Touchstone.
Werness, Hope B. (2004). The Continuum encyclopedia of animal

symbolism in art. London: Continuum International Publishing
Group.
Zizek, Slavoj (1992). Looking Awry. An Introduction to Jacques Lacan

through Popular Culture. Cambridge: MIT press.
259
Appendix
Contributor details
Vlad Dima is Assistant Professor of French Studies at the University
of Wisconsin, Madison. He has published widely on issues of sound in
French and francophone cinemas and is currently working on his first
book, Sound Moves.
E-mail: dima@wisc.edu

260
261
Acknowledgements
First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor
Raivo Kelomees, for his guidance, great support and kind advice
throughout my PhD research studies.
I also would like to thank my adviser and co-supervisor, Eva Näripea,
for her constant support and translation, which were essential for the
accomplishment of the work presented in this thesis.
My appreciation and gratitude goes to the friendly staff of the Doctoral
School at the Estonian Academy of Arts, and especially to
Professor Liina Unt for her kind support.
262
I would like to express my warmest thanks to Professor
Richard Raskin for continuous encouragement of my studies and
for the comprehensive approach of “Body Memory” in the Short Film
Studies magazine, which has become part of this study.
I am grateful to all of the academics who have contributed to my
PhD work, especially Jakob Ladegaard, Ruth Barton, Iben Have,
Yutian Wong, Nicole Richter, Edvin Kau and Vlad Dima.
I would also like to thank Professor Giannalberto Bendazzi,
who has spent a lot of time helping and guiding me through the
twists and turns of animation history.
My thanks to the pre-examiners of my thesis, Professor Robert Sowa and
Professor Michał Bobrowski, for their accurate and insightful remarks.
A special warm thank you goes out to the production studio

Nukufilm and Eesti Joonisfilm for the long years of cooperation
and support for my artistic work.
I would like to acknowledge Richard Adang for reviewing the

English in this manuscript.
I would also like to thank all of the animation film-makers whose works
have been investigated in this study and who have sparked in me an
263
irresistible urge to delve into the magical world of animation.
I would like to give special thanks to my first teacher in the

field of animation, Professor Priit Pärn.
Last but not the least, I would like to thank my family for their
unconditional support, encouragement and love.
This work was financially supported by the Estonian Academy of Arts,

the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the Estonian Film Institute.
Tallinn, January 2018

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Ülo Pikkov Textures of Eastern European Animated Film

Dissertationes Academiae Artium Estoniae 25

Public defence: 18.06.2018

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© Ülo Pikkov, 2018

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Body Memory 137

The purpose of my dissertation, Anti-Animation: Textures of Eastern

In this study, I have relied on several methods of data collection. Most

The written part of my dissertation explores the development of – and

The title of the dissertation, Anti-Animation: Textures of Eastern

The notion of anti-animation draws partly on Georg Griffin’s legendary

An animated film is not an isolated piece of audiovisual work, but part of

Some of the following chapters have been published before as articles in

Body Memory (Keha mälu, Nukufilm, 2011), an animated film

Looking at film theoretically, my dissertation relies heavily on the auteur

At the same time, I am also interested in the position of animated film

This dissertation focuses on the period between the end of World

of the USSR. The importance of the wider socio-cultural environment on

Careful consideration of sources is an essential aspect of any historical

Due to the methodology of ‘research in the arts’ and ‘art practice as

Some suggest that it is impossible to make sense of the Soviet period by

While I do not fully subscribe to this opinion, I still consider it valid to

The answer is yes, according to David Chioni Moore. In his 2001

Films and their authors are inseparable from a particular spatio-temporal

One might ask if such a broad approach, combining historical,

In this study, ‘Eastern Europe’ refers to those European countries that

Piotr Piotrowski uses the term ‘East-Central Europe’ to describe the

While the cultural traditions of different Eastern European countries may

The aim of this dissertation is to highlight and analyse general

Drawing on this understanding, my dissertation follows the regional

interacted in a professional regional network of film education, events,

That said, it is equally important to keep in mind that the control of

What are Eastern European films ‘about’? Is there a single theme or

In the broadest terms, it can be suggested that Eastern European films

However, due to its particular cultural and political context, Eastern

The developments of art history have influenced my analysis primarily

The understanding that Western European art is the universal template

The rapid development of digital technologies has turned animation into

Animated film is one category or type of animation. On the most general

Animation essentially involves the presentation of still images in a

animation is the creation of moving images through the manipulation

As the definitions of animation offered by ASIFA and McLaren

Under totalitarian conditions, Eastern European animated film turned out

In a way, animated film (and especially puppet animation), with its

In addition, my reflections on Eastern European animated film will draw

The Eastern European animation industry, funded and centrally controlled

Animated films are often narrated by means of allegory. I earlier

Essentially, animated film is the inversion of the Allegory of the Cave.

3 The famous film theorist Béla Balázs argues in his

Animated film functions as a chronicle of its time. While, in terms of

It is equally important to emphasise that by scrutinising animated films we

Lotman has suggested that ‘[c]inematography is a teaching mechanism.

The practice-based component of this dissertation, which complements

Today, art practice has become an increasingly legitimate research tool,

Art practice qualifies as research when its purpose is

My film, accompanied by the necessary documentation (the description

The first chapter of the dissertation analyses the emergence and

Compared to live-action narrative cinema, which creates dystopias mainly

Today, surrealism has become understood as something broader and

The second chapter of the dissertation charts the terrain of Eastern

The second chapter was initially published as an article in Baltic Screen