DAU. Natasha

Natasha and Olga work in the canteen of a secret Soviet research institute. This is the beating heart of the DAU universe, everyone drops in here: the institute’s employees, scientists and foreign guests, like Luc Bigé. Natasha begins an affair with him, but not before she and Olga have a lengthy talk about love which puts them at loggerheads. In her bathtub and during jovial drinking games, Natasha ponders her lovers and describes the Frenchman as being “gentle”. But the secret service, headed by Vladimir Azhippo, intervenes. For Natasha (and us) this is an “ungentle” experience. Even those who know nothing about Ilya Khrzhanovskiy’s DAU project – a large-scale simulation of the totalitarian system under Stalin and after – will be able to recognise in the artistic and political dimensions of DAU. Natasha a radical form of cinema that moves between fiction and reality. In collaboration with co-director Jekaterina Oertel, cinematographer Jürgen Jürges and an ensemble of non-professional actors, Khrzhanovskiy peers into the abysses of the psyche and reveals (in)human extremes. A provocatively transgressive tale about the struggle for power and love; an analysis of totalitarianism. (Berlinale)