Cenotaph

Cenotaph is seemingly another tale of an impossible search, much like The Bell and Ramin, the previous films by Audrius Stonys. It however digs deeper than legend, into History, the turbulence of wartime Lithuania, a country that has seen invasion from two sides.

Lithuania's history during the Second World War is definitely a complex topic: this is one of the countries that, together with the other baltic states and Poland, has been disputed between Germany and the Soviet Union, very much ignoring the needs or wants of its people. The Soviet Union was not a liberating force, but a new occupant, which is a key notion that influences the current geopolitical positions of the country.

Exhumating a body is almost an act of desacration, of disturbance. The bodies in question, however, lack of a proper burial, having been essentially hidden by the locals to avoid danger. An antigonesque opposition that could only prevented if the bodies would be unfound. Cenotaph lingers extensively on the soil, its organic, living essence, on the deep roots of a tree that grows next to the burial grounds, to highlight the contrast between the mortal condition of the cadavers and the environment in which they decomposed. The whole process appears rather that of the profanation of a natural cycle, of the detachment of the bodies from a ground they have already became part of.

The cinema of Stonys can be easily described by the irresolution of the quests it undertakes: the bell cited by the legends never emerges, an elderly man never finds his youth sweetheart. The bodies in Cenotaph are found, but their identity seems lost, or fading, hard to trace. It is a further suggestion of the futility of the act, at least for its original purposes, the identification and burial. It is however the reflection on life and death, on the human condition, the research of the more abstract, spiritual implications, that provide a meaning to the exploit.

Cenotaph is one of the most reflective films by Audrius Stonys, that attempts to unearth something that is deeply hidden in the Earth, to render a dimension of reality that is entirely untangible, while presenting a very concrete, physical action.

RATING: 4.5/5

 

Original title: Kenotafas

Directed by: Audrius Stonys

Country: Lithuania

Year: 2013

Length: 63 min.

Premiere: /

Availability: /

Synopsis: A digging expedition aims to exhumate a series of bodies, buried in secret durin the Second World War: soldiers from Germany and Russia, enemies to each other, invaders of the country, shared by a common destiny.