On Thursday the BBC released TraumaZone, the latest work by filmmaker Adam Curtis, consisting of seven episodes. This review is based only on the first episode, which focuses on Russia between 1985 and 1989. The series continues with six more episodes that focus more closely on the years up until 1999. In other words: it tells the story from the moment Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union until Vladimir Putin became president of Russia. TraumaZone departs from Curtis’ previous work by being very light on political and economic analysis. Instead, the viewer is put in the shoes of the Russian citizen, attempting to convey “what it felt like to live through the collapse of communism and democracy”.
Adam Curtis (1955) started out as a political science lecturer, but switched careers to documentary film making in the 1980s. Working for the BBC, he has access to a treasure trove of footage, moreover he has a remarkable freedom in what he makes, because his films all have a tiny budget. His 2016 film Hypernormalization had a budget of about 80.000 dollars. The budget is low, as all of the footage used is already there. Curtis’ added value is in the combination of imagery in often surprising ways, connected through voice overs and pop music.
Hypernormalization is in my opinion his most defining work. In the three hour film, Curtis addresses topics that are further fleshed out in other films. The processes that influence the western world are all explored: the global war on terror, the uncontrolled growth of financial markets, individualism and its limits, as well as the developments in information technology, particularly how the ensuing mass surveillance is used to try and predict human behavior. In Hypernormalization the core problem statement is this: Western leaders have given up on trying to change the world for the better, instead they try to run society as a stable system. This view of society is incorrect, in the sense that it leads to unwanted results. Since 1980, the financial system has become far less stable, victory over communism has not brought peace but a series of lost wars, while the people feel alienated and alleviate their anxiety by taking antidepressants en masse.
Viewer discretion advised: the works of Curtis can have a profound effect on your political thinking. As the friend who introduced me to the films said to me: “there is a time before watching Hypernormalization, and there is a time after watching it”. The key message of the film is further fleshed out in Curtis’ other works. Bitter Lake dives deep into the Afghanistan war, describing how British, Americans and Soviets unwillingly worked together to make things worse. Century of the Self describes how the revolutionary ideas of Sigmund Freud were used by his nephew Edward Bernays to start the modern field of marketing. The Mayfair set described how business management evolved from the 1950s until now. Where before decisions were taken by the business owners, now a managerial class is in control, causing all sorts of agency problems.
In his more recent work, Curtis is experimenting with new ways of engaging with his audience. In Can’t get you out of my head (2021), Curtis shifts the focus away from the key message. Instead the main characters are notable individuals who lived through all these developments, sometimes influencing them, but mostly being influenced themselves. All of these characters are cast as tragic heroes, challenging the status quo with their individualism, succeeding for a while, to be finally destroyed. Some of these people were political powerful, such as Jiang Qing, the leader of the cultural revolution. Others were influential artists, such as Tupac Shakur, an idealist who never got his message across. Then others are simply trying to life their own life, such as Julia Grant, a transgender woman confronting the national health service with an unexpected problem.
These stories broaden the geographic reach of the work, exploring not only the Western world but also developments in Africa, China and Russia. In Hypernormalization, the fall of the Soviet Union is used as a backdrop to the crisis currently facing the West. Hypernormalization is a word pertaining to the Soviet Union, coined by anthropologist Alexei Yurchak. The word normalization in itself refers to all the times we have experienced a ‘new normal’ in the last decades. From heightened security measures after 2001, to a decrease in economic expectations after 2008, to a more coercive approach to public health after 2020. Hypernormalization refers to a situation where everyone knows the current situation is unsustainable, but as there is no alternative yet, everyone pretends that all is normal. As always, Curtis counterposes ‘us’ (Curtis as well as the viewer) versus ‘the elites’ (the people in charge). Rather than painting the viewer as a victim, Curtis always stresses our own responsibility. The leadership and us are working together to create a dream world of antidepressants, cyberspace and easy to digest stories about foreign policy as a struggle between good and evil.
In TraumaZone the role of the viewer becomes even more important. Curtis has not added the voice overs explaining what happens to us. Instead, there are small text overlays, describing in general terms what is going on. The rest of the story is told by the footage itself.
Unlike in his earlier work, Curtis is not providing us with a behind the scenes view of world politics. On the contrary, we are seeing clips from official news items: the great leader taking his place in the politburo, the Russian army retreating from Afghanistan, business as usual in the cake factory, chicken farm and car plant. Added to this are videos originally meant for a far smaller audience. Whereas today everyone carries a camera with them, it is surprising how many of these clips exist depicting life in 1980s Russia. In episode one we see a court case of a woman who stole a bag of groceries, a social worker interrogating teenage girls, and an Afghanistan veteran suffering from PTSD in the subway.
It soon becomes clear that we are not watching a documentary, we are taking part in a simulation. TraumaZone is trying to let us experience what it was like to be living in Russia in these chaotic times. Like the Russians, we are seeing Gorbachev on TV. Like the Russians, we are riding the subway, hanging out talking nonsense with friends and overhearing a lady angrily shouting in the shopping center. The text overlays function as our internal thoughts, making clear that we know there is corruption, we know there is crime, we know the war in Afghanistan is hopeless. But yet we carry on, we have jobs to do, shopping needs to be done, love goes on.
The movie that TraumaZone reminds me of the most is Threads, a 1984 film that tries to let the viewer experience what it would be like if nuclear war breaks out. There also, political developments take a back seat to ordinary life, until that life is shattered. However, as Threads describes a hypothetical event, it requires actors and special effects to achieve a suspension of disbelief. I heartily recommend that film as well, because it feels real. TraumaZone, on the other hand, is real. It tries to make the viewer experience some of the emotion that the Russians felt. Curtis has cast the viewer as the main character.
The emotion that the viewer experiences is a special kind of sadness, tinged with a small speck of hope. I am not referring to the atrocities in Afghanistan and later in Georgia, Armenia and elsewhere. While these atrocities are terrible, the film does not let us experience more than we do when we switch on the TV today to look at Mozambique, Ukraine or Lebanon. What this film does instead is make an attempt to let us feel what it is like when your complete system of values collapses. One feels especially for the older people, having survived world war two, the darkest days of Stalinism, always having worked hard to make something of their country, not being allowed to live out their life in peace. As all they have worked towards, all they have cherished, all they relied on, is exploited, ridiculed and finally destroyed. Both economic and moral values rapidly decay, leaving the viewer with a feeling of raw fear of what the future will bring. And yet, life goes on, particularly heartwarming is the scene were two men discuss what animals they want in their imaginary zoo, a fun conversation among slightly inebriated friends, something to look forward to, no matter how dark things get.
In the light of the terrible events in Ukraine, this series is very timely. The later episodes may shed some light on why Putin came to power, and why we are in this terrible mess in Eastern Europe. Episode one already succeeds in making the viewer sympathize with the Russians, even now, perhaps especially now. We are walking a mile in their shoes, not to justify them, but to understand them. At the end of the day Russians are people just like us, and Curtis tries as hard as he can to make us feel that. While bombs are falling on apartment blocks, vital infrastructure is destroyed, and the conflict may escalate even further, TraumaZone is already looking ahead to the peace process. Go watch it, you can do so for free on YouTube.