The Mirror that Cracked
Cermin yang Retak

Host: Afrian Purnama

Wednesday, August 21, 2019 | 16:00 | GoetheHaus

Art, it is said, is not a mirror, but a hammer: it does not reflect, it shapes. But at present, even the handling of a hammer is taught with the help of a mirror, a sensitive film which records all the movements.[1]

Sinema diumpamakan sebagai cermin. Setidaknya bagi Christian Metz, reproduksi gambar yang terjadi dalam layar filem membuatnya memiliki efek layaknya cermin.[2] Walaupun konsep layar sebagai cermin ini berangkat dari teori Jacques Lacan tentang tahap pengenalan diri balita dan lingkungannya, Metz berpendapat bahwa layar sebagai cermin bekerja dengan cara sebaliknya: identifikasi terjadi dalam diri penonton dikarenakan mereka absen dan pasif di layar tersebut. Dalam keadaan demikian, penonton mengidentifikasikan dirinya sebagai kamera, yang mengikuti arah geraknya, lalu tanpa sadar penonton menjadi satu dengan kenyataan filemis yang hadir di layar itu.[3]

Menariknya di tahun 1924, Leon Trotsky juga mengumpamakan sinema seakan-akan seperti cermin, walaupun di sini konteksnya sangat berbeda dengan Metz. Dalam tulisan yang kuotasinya menjadi pembuka naskah program ini, Trotsky berusaha mengkritisi pergerakan Futurisme di Uni Soviet saat itu yang menolak menoleh ke belakang — kepada seni dan kebudayaan lampau — dan berusaha membebaskan diri darinya dengan meninggalkan seni-seni tersebut secara total dan berfokus pada visi masa depan. Menurut Trotsky, seni yang hadir dari masa lampau itu sesungguhnya adalah upaya bagi masyarakat untuk merefleksikan diri (bercermin) dan membantu mereka untuk memahami kondisi sosio-politik saat itu. Trotsky kemudian memperluas arti ‘bercermin’ ini dengan penambahan makna bahwa di masa sekarang (di saat itu) terdapat cermin mutakhir yang mampu melakukan penggambaran akurat terhadap kenyataan, sehingga bisa menjadi alat edukasi massa, yaitu film.

Pada program penayangan ini, saya ingin mengintepretasikan secara berbeda perumpamaan seni dan cermin yang dikatakan oleh Trotsky dan Metz tadi. Benar bahwa pada satu titik, kamera seakan-akan bertindak seperti cermin yang mereproduksi representasi tubuh, benda, serta gerak yang terkoneksi dengan presepsi kita terhadap realitas sehari-hari. Namun di titik lain, filem juga mampu menghancurkan persepsi kita terhadap reproduksi kenyataan tersebut, dengan menghadirkan berbagai elemen berbeda terhadap apa yang kita alami di luar dari keseharian. Sehingga peran filem, bila kita ingin menggunakan analogi di atas, adalah sebagai cermin dan juga godam; filem merefleksikan kenyataan dan menghancurkannya pada waktu bersamaan.

Dalam kompilasi program ini, kita akan dihadapkan pada empat filem yang berupaya untuk mengungkap sesuatu yang sifatnya tidak hanya penyerupaan. Pembuat filem berusaha memvisualisasikan sebuah situasi dan kondisi keadaan manusia seperti teror, trauma, ingatan juga sensori panca indera lain di luar visual dan auditori. Penyampaiannya tentu menggunakan reproduksi yang lahir dari visi dan kenyataan fisik yang berada di sekitar pembuatnya, namun pembuat filem juga berusaha menyatakan sesuatu yang melampaui pengalaman visual dari reproduksi gambar tersebut. Seperti teror yang disampaikan melalui kursi yang dilempar ke arah tembok (Chairs), obsesi dan fetisisme (Dulcinea), kemencekaman yang hadir lewat repetisi gestur berbagai subjek (The Love of Statues) dan kontradiksi antara ritus dan siklus (Absent Wound).

[1] Trotsky, Leon. Literature and Revolution [First Edition]. International Publishers. 1925

[2] Metz, Christian. Psychoanalysis and Cinema: The Imaginary Signifier. London, England: Palgrave Macmillan.1983

[3] ibid

Art, it is said, is not a mirror, but a hammer: it does not reflect, it shapes. But at present, even the handling of a hammer is taught with the help of a mirror, a sensitive film which records all the movements.[1]

Cinema is likened to a mirror. At least for Christian Metz, a reproduction of the image on screen gives it a mirror-like effect.[2] Although the concept of screen as a mirror departs from Jacques Lacan’s theory of the mirror stage, which is about children’s recognition of self and their environment, Metz argues that this concept works the other way around: the identification occurs to the audience because they are absent and passive on the screen. In such circumstances, the audience identifies themselves as the camera, which follows the direction of their movements, thus the audience unconsciously becomes one with the film reality that exists on the screen.[3]

Interestingly in 1924, Leon Trotsky also likened cinema to a mirror, although his context was very different from Metz. In his writing that has become the opening sentence of this piece, Trotsky tried to criticize the Futurist movement in the Soviet Union at that time, who refused to look back – to the arts and culture from the past – and who tried to free themselves from it by totally leaving the preceding arts and instead focusing on the vision of the future. According to Trotsky, the art that came from the past was actually an attempt of the people to reflect on themselves (mirroring) and to help them understand their socio-political conditions at that time. Trotsky then expanded the meaning of this ‘mirroring’ by adding that in the present (at that time) there was a sophisticated mirror capable of making accurate portrayals of reality so that it could become a mass educational tool, namely film.

In this program, I want to interpret differently the parable of art and mirror that Trotsky and Metz said earlier. It is true that at one point, the camera seems to act like a mirror that reproduces the representations of body, object, and motion, which are connected to our perception of everyday reality. But to some extent, cinema is also able to destroy our perception of the reproduction of this reality by presenting different elements of what we experience beyond everyday life. So, if we want to use the analogy above, that cinema can act as a mirror as well as a hammer; it reflects reality and destroys it at the same time.

In this compilation, we will be confronted by four films that strive to uncover something that goes beyond the idea of similarities. The filmmakers try to visualize human conditions such as terror, trauma, memory as well as other sensory senses beyond visual and auditory ones. Of course, the filmmakers’ approaches use the reproductions born of the visual and physical reality around them, but they also try to express something that goes beyond the visual experience of the image reproduction. This can be seen in the terror that is conveyed as chairs that are thrown at a wall (Chairs), in the obsession and fetishism (Dulcinea), in the haunted feeling caused by the repetitive gestures of various subjects (The Love of Statues), and in the contradiction between rites and cycles (Absent Wound).

[1] Trotsky, Leon. Literature and Revolution [First Edition]. International Publishers. 1925

[2] Metz, Christian. Psychoanalysis and Cinema: the Imaginary Signifier. London, England: Palgrave Macmillan.1983

[3] ibid