January 2024 blog post – Some Notes on Our Research Interviews: Representation, Ethics and Challenges of Trauma on Film

Author: Farkas Boglárka

During our research project, we had the opportunity to speak with several film directors, whose work we find extremely relevant in the context of trauma representation on film, more specifically, representations that involve cultural, personal and/or climate traumas. Although some of these valuable insights were already shared in various conference presentations – and will be displayed in upcoming publications – we felt the need to give them more visibility. Thus, in this blog post, I will look back at research interviews that were conducted or co-conducted by me during the past year. These four interviews present Botond Püsök and his Hungarian-Romanian documentary film, Too Close (2022), Szilárd Bernáth and his Hungarian coming-of-age drama film, Larry (2022), Pella Kågerman and her Swedish science fiction film, Aniara (2019, co-directed by Hugo Lilja), along with Tibor Bánóckzi and Sarolta Szabó’s Hungarian-Slovakian animation SF film, White Plastic Sky (2023). In the following, the insights of these directors shall be structured along questions that aim to reflect some major talking points of our research interviews.

What are the challenges of on-screen trauma representation and how to overcome them?

While speaking about the screenwriting progress behind Larry, Szilárd Bernáth pointed out that one primary challenge of trauma representation is that ‘trauma is in the past and the traumatic function is a reaction to a past action, which can be hard to understand on film,’ essentially, because of these temporal discrepancies. As a linear narrative, Larry does not show its title character’s childhood trauma with his abusive father, thus, Bernáth deliberately leaves out the birth of trauma. Larry had to convey trauma without flashbacks. As a solution, Bernáth came up with the idea of stuttering to show Larry’s trauma: ‘I felt that stuttering is a very generous motive because it’s physical. (…) When Benett [the actor who plays Larry] speaks in the film and he stutters, not only him but also his trauma speaks.’ Furthermore, the presence and the ultimate disappearance of stuttering helped Bernáth to show the arc of trauma processing and the character development of Larry.

Regarding White Plastic Sky, a post-apocalyptic science fiction animation film, which presents humanity in an almost extinct phase without flora or fauna, co-director Sarolta Szabó affirmed that she and co-director Tibor Bánóckzi defined their narrative as ‘the film of losses.’ These losses include the loss of the world (due to environmental breakdown) and the loss of a child, hence climate trauma and personal trauma are tied together strongly in the narrative. ‘We felt that the couple’s loss [the passing of the child] and the world’s loss were actually connected, they were metaphors of each other’ – said Sarolta Szabó. Visually, the desert-like settings in the film clearly make climate trauma felt, but to display personal trauma, once again, without flashbacks and without oversharing narrative information via dialogue was a challenge. Therefore, the directors introduced an object to the diegetic world, which can symbolize the child and the loss of the child at the same time. ‘We wanted to have an object, which stays with the couple physically the entire time of the film’ – said Sarolta Szabó, talking about the little marble that the couple carried around from the city of Budapest up until the Tatra Mountains. Documentary filmmaker Botond Püsök’s Too Close was made during a 5-year shooting period and it focuses on a mother, whose ex-partner sexually abused the mother’s daughter. While speaking about the shooting of the film, Püsök touched upon a challenge that is rarely thematised in discourses about documentary and trauma, namely, that when a documentary deals with trauma, the filmmaker’s personal life is also affected. ‘The challenge on these shoots is that you are surrounded by people in extreme life situations and you can’t intervene, you can’t get involved – unless it’s a life and death situation – and you have to be present but you can’t give advice, because you’re not there as a friend. That’s why therapy has been able to help me because it helped me to get the focal points within myself’ – said Püsök. His story emphasizes that a documentary filmmaker has to take care of himself/herself psychologically during a project, which involves characters that have been subjected to trauma.

What would be the ethics of trauma representation?

About the ethics of trauma representation, we talked with Botond Püsök, most extensively. As his preceding insights show, when addressing personal trauma, Püsök believes that a documentary filmmaker should not get involved in their subject’s personal life, regardless of his/her best intentions. Introducing his response on ethics and trauma, he stated the following: ‘Trauma, by its very nature, is a separate entity, a separate world that you can’t just walk into. It’s a huge responsibility if you enter this world. Even if you manage to get close to your subject and the subject’s situation, there is a chance that your presence will be damaging.’ This is why Püsök aims to create a very subtle, almost unnoticeable presence, as a film director. This approach impacts the size of the crew and the camerawork, as well. He works with small crews on-location and also acts as a cameraman. Related to his methods as a cameraman he revealed: ‘In many cases, I’m present without the camera rolling, but still physically on me. This is so that the subjects don’t get the idea that I’m present as a private person. (…) The camera is always there, and it’s as if the camera is an organic part of me or an accessory, like a jewel. It’s always on me.’

Pella Kågerman, the co-director of Aniara, an eco-critical science fiction embedded in climate and personal trauma, suggested in our research interview that for her, there are certain ethical boundaries that should not be crossed when representing traumatic events on screen. In this context, explicitly showing (audio-visually) a traumatic event can be considered non-ethical. Taking her film as a counterexample, we may think of the Mimarobe and her personal trauma. After drifting aimlessly for years on the spaceship of Aniara, the Mimarobe’s partner, Isagel, kills herself and the couple’s baby. We find out this at the same time as the Mimarobe, who enters the family’s living area and discovers Isagel’s body on the floor. Then, the Mimarobe goes into the bathroom off-camera and screams inside – revealing the death of the baby without explicitly showing it to the audience.

How can a film – which delves into trauma representation – go beyond cinema halls and festivals? 

As a cultural product, film has the potential to influence the opinions and ideologies of its audiences, possibly even shaping the opinions and ideologies of larger groups on a societal level – nevertheless, these impacts are not quite traceable or quantifiable in a direct manner. During our interviews, we met two directors, who – through their films – managed to go beyond cinema halls and festivals to have a more direct impact on the communities they represented on screen. The team behind Szilárd Bernáth’s Larry, after making a film, which is deeply embedded in social realism and has characters and locations from Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county – known as a very poor region in Hungary that is affected by cultural trauma (as explained below) – organized a national rap competition specifically for young hip-hop and trap talents with difficult backgrounds. Speaking of possible impacts of a film, Bernáth pointed out that ‘It’s very difficult to see whether a film becomes part of the social discourse. On the one hand, I need more time to see this, and on the other hand, I am trapped in the film’s bubble, which has me in its centre. (…) But I’m very proud that the film is having an impact beyond the Budapest circuit.’

Botond Püsök, on the other hand, spoke to us about the notion of impact campaigns and how these initiatives can influence legislations, thus helping victims of abuse. Introducing the topic, he said the following: ‘I could not accept that after everything Andrea and her family went through, we make a film, which just goes to cinemas and festivals.’ As he formulated, the impact campaign ‘is about getting an important documentary to people who sit in parliament. It’s about organising events around these films, to get people to see the film who would not see it otherwise.’ Thanks to the impact campaign of Too Close, the film’s main protagonist, Andrea Kali, got to speak in Brussels, at the annual conference of abuse survivors, while in Romania, a national movie theatre chain, Cinema City, also joined the campaign by screening the film aligned (in different cities at the exact same time), inviting professionals working in child protection.

What about Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county, the traumascape of Hungary?

Taking into consideration that two of these four research interviews are related to contemporary Hungarian films that feature locations from Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county, it was very interesting to hear how and why these locations ended up in two very different films, such as the coming-of-age drama, Larry, and the post-apocalyptic science fiction animation, White Plastic Sky. As the blog post on Larry already mentioned, Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county was subjected to strong industrialization during the Socialist era and after the fall of the Soviet Union, with the advent of market economy, all these factories were closed, catalysing a severe economic crisis, traumatizing the population of the region. Explaining the narrative role of this region in the case of Larry, Szilárd Bernáth said the following: ‘This became an abandoned region. I felt that this loneliness reflected the Hungarian nation on a societal level and also connected with the story of Larry. It was the perfect setting for his story. And I think it’s lucky if a sociological statement is justified and presented through a character. We could say that what happens inside and with this character, happens in a wider context.’ This insight of Bernáth shows that personal and cultural trauma were crucially intertwined in the film, and in this equation, the setting served as a focal aspect in multi-layered trauma representation.

In the case of White Plastic Sky, there were quite different reasons behind using Miskolc (the county town of Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén) as a location. On the one hand, Sarolta Szabó affirmed that they ‘felt it would be interesting to put Miskolc on the sci-fi map.’ In this regard, Szabó also highlighted that they wanted to create identifiable locations, which could be easily accessed by the characters. On the other hand, since Tibor Bánóczki, the co-director of the animation, is from the county, Szabó admitted that the selection of Miskolc was ‘an emotional decision.’ As for the process of putting Miskolc in a rotoscope animation, Szabó pointed out that every setting was a real one that was visited and photographed, hence those, who are familiar with the city of Miskolc, will surely recognize it upon watching the film. Related to the reception of White Plastic Sky in Miskolc, Tibor Bánóczki reflected on the ironic feedback of the audience, who marked that even though the story takes place in 2123, Miskolc seems to look the same as in the present. ‘It’s obvious that the notion of neglect is connected to Miskolc’s reputation, this is why the audience said that it will be always like this’ – affirmed Bánóczki, referring to the region’s traumatic past. Overall, although the usage of Miskolc was strongly motivated by the directors’ personal attachment to it, one could argue that by putting this traumascape on screen, White Plastic Skyfurther deepens its connections with trauma representation.

Can the cinematic medium rework collective traumas – climate or cultural traumas – into culturally available formats?

At the end of our research interviews, we asked our interviewees whether they think film as a medium can rework collective traumas – climate or cultural traumas – into culturally available formats. Thus, arriving at the end of our blog post, we shall offer some glimpses into these intriguing responses, which overall touch upon the power of film. 

Representing documentary filmmaking, Botond Püsök answered the following:

‘I think it can because when a documentary is screened at a cinema or a festival, and the film’s creator and main character are invited, that can have a big impact. When the character suddenly appears before the audience, in the flesh, that provides a cathartic experience. We cannot compare these experiences with the experiences of a fiction film. (…) Although these documentaries have smaller audiences, I think they can be very powerful.’

Coming from experiences both in documentary and fiction film, Pella Kågerman shared a personal story:

 ‘During the pandemic, I made a short film and I was wondering: what is the use of filmmakers? I started to doubt the utility of film. I was thinking that we should do something more useful. But then I visited the Acropolis and they told us that the doctors were next door to the theatre of the Acropolis. The doctors took care of the body and the theatre took care of the soul. Of course, film is part of this equation.’

Fiction film director Szilárd Bernáth formulated a ‘mission statement’ upon answering: 

‘I think it is very important to construct narratives out of traumas. The base of trauma is the lack of process and analysis, repression and making taboos. And we have not only personal but collective traumas, as well. Regional and Eastern-European traumas that are transnational. We have specifically national traumas or regional traumas, like the one in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county. I will not go on listing. I think the process of a collective trauma is similar to the process of a personal one. The most important thing is the analysis and through analysis rationalization and through it the construction of a new position. (…) Healing is a long-term project. (…) We cannot forget the traumatic events, we have to integrate them. (…) As a Hungarian film director, my task is that I try, at least, to put through this integrational work.’

As a closing remark, we might add that we are very grateful to all of our interviewees, who trusted us with their insights and who walked us through their creative processes with much detail and attention! Such research interviews can validate certain hypotheses and disprove others, but the most rewarding aspect of them is that they always give new ideas that can move the research forward.