Hasta La Motion!

a videoessay by mk. FOR STUDY PURPOSES ONLY Both films’ soundtracks draw extensively on melancholy variations of east-central European folk music. They set the tone for the constant struggles for freedom from oppression, coloring even the joyful, festive moments with sadness. Memories and fantasies are means of escape and reimagination of what could be. Yet, death is always imminent and even for those of the oppressed that do survive, it often is or feels like a defeat. Thus memories and fantasies of a better life tinge or even dominate the perceptions of the main characters. In both films customs play a central role in locating the representations in a fragmented history that defies and is defied by the supposedly “universal sweep of history.” This cinema thus becomes a testimony to those that history forgot. This video essay is organized around the folk tune “Slovenské mámičky,” as it appears in both films.