Piligrimai - Pilgrims
Piligrimai - Pilgrims
Director: Laurynas Bareisa
Starrings: Gabija Bargailaite, Jolanta Dapkunaite, Zygimante Jakstaite, Giedrius Kiela, Paulius Markevicius, Indre Patkauskaite, Julius Zalakevicius
Country: Lithuania
Year 2021
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"Who do you want me to take him away."
Lithuania is a deeply Catholic nation. This Christian conscience was the basis for independence from the USSR. Specifically, it allowed Lithuanians to maintain an intact national identity by defending themselves from Soviet materialistic influences.
In 1989, the Vilnius Cathedral was reopened for Catholic worship. On 5 February, Cardinal Sladkevicius reconsecrated the church in front of an immense population. A few years later, there was the ultimate liberation.
The symbol of resistance to the occupation was the Hill of Crosses in Šiauliai. From the time of the Tsar, Lithuanians began to plant crucifixes on the hill. The place became a veneration site, with a continuous pilgrimage. During the Russian occupation, the crosses multiplied, they became thousands. The Soviets always destroyed them, but the crosses were planted again, despite army surveillance.
This religious sensitivity also affects the aspect of death. When a loved one is missed, it is natural to react to excruciating pain. People grieve, cry, remain suffering, but mourning has an end. It is written in the Bible: “At dusk weeping comes for the night; but at dawn there is rejoicing.” (Psalms 30:6)
The first reaction to the arrival of death is crying. Mourning is weeping. In fact, mourning in Latin is luctus, and its etymology is lugēre, which means cry. (1)
The tribulation of the disappearance is fought both with collective, common and public celebrations, and individual behaviours. The agony and despair are often ruinous, incurable. The effects are a painful state of mind, a total detachment from the outside world, inadequacy to have a new love object, a decrease in self-esteem, a self-flagellation with self-accusations, self-punishment and negative self-criticism for the episode: life stops. The reality of death is denied, a simulacrum is created, in which communication with the passed away is perpetuated.
A grieving process is inevitable, but complicated and obscure. It must work to reduce the influence of the deceased, returning the psychological strength for new sentimental contacts. It is not a replacement, it is an obligatory step to recover from the pause of living and proceed with new feelings.
Efforts to reach this level are insidious and tiring; the process is not always successful. Obtaining specific help from family, friends, and groups is one of the fundamental techniques. Above all, the latter is crucial to conclude the elaboration positively. The most important way to avoid suffering is to close in on oneself and in solitude. In a group, the pain is shared, the burden is divided among more people, and there is a chance of overcoming discouragement.
A young man is killed after prolonged torture in the Lithuanian countryside. The brother is upset and asks for support from his ex-girlfriend. They are just two of them. It is a small group, only in this way will they be able to process the tragic, painful mourning. This is the plot of the Lithuanian film Piligrimai - Pilgrims by the filmmaker Laurynas Bareisa presented at the 78th Venice Film Festival. It wins the Winner Venice Orizzonti Award Best Film.
A horrifying homicide has been committed in a village, where everyone knows each other. The murderer is Matas, a young homosexual tortured by Vytenis, a sadist, in love with the dead guy. Before killing him, he transported him to various parts of the city. Many people keep seeing them together. It was an unbearable death, especially for those who loved him. Paulus, his brother, suffers a lot, he is overwhelmed by grief. He can't get out of it on his own, but he would like to heal. He wants to understand his motivations. Therefore, he calls his ex, Indre. All three of them had had a good time. They had been happy. Paulus and Indre will wander in every place where the killer and victim were on the fatal day. A sad and troubled pilgrimage.
The author's themes are delicate. It concerns a private sphere, but Laurynas Bareisa represents it in a hermetic social context, difficult to penetrate. To achieve this, he combines homosexuality, passed away, mourning, ordeal, and the silence of the communities.
For ease of recognition, the director chooses the genre of thriller, defines it as a detective story:
“… it starts as some kind of a detective story … it moves … of an investigation of what do we how do we cope with it like how do you ...” (2)
The journey, in the diverse stages of agony, obviously recalls the fourteen stations of the Via Crucis, the Stations of the Cross of the Easter period. Each step has significance. It is the sacredness of the film, highlighted by Laurynas Bareisa:
“… they just go to the places which are important for them and in a way also like sacral ...”
…
“… this place becomes some kind of sacred place ...” (2)
Each stop is hieratic. This purifies the past events that took place there through a rite. Guessing the reasons is impossible.
The pilgrimage comes from the Latin peregrinum, meaning stranger. (3) The film is a spiritual journey, the author says:
“… pilgrimage is an universal concept ...” (2)
Indre and Paulius are two strangers looking for sacred sites within their own city. They travel to places already known, but nowadays they discover them without identity. And like strangers, they are faced by the residents, until they encounter, in some cases, open hostility.
This community appears mysterious, and Indre and Paulius face it with anger. They believe in collective guilt, an objective responsibility of the inhabitants. They accuse them of not having understood or, worse, of not having prevented or favoured the crime.
The director explains his idea of the community:
“… they are the main characters and also where the community of the town because we have to live there you know and we still you pretend you forget you really don't forget like if something this bad happened in your community your proximity so we are also dealing in a different way maybe in a way that we are not emphasizing a lot but still dealing so ...” (2)
This is the city of the protagonists; it appears pleasant, protected from any brutality. Instead, a heinous occurrence happens there.
Laurynas Bareisa calls it a toxic location:
"... feeling of I am in a place that appears simple that had nothing particular but experimenting very negative, almost toxic feelings with a strong feeling that I do not want to be in that place...” (4)
The question is obvious: did it take a massacre to notice?
The main characters are Paulus and Indre, but the spectre of Matas hovers around them.
Paulus is disconsolate, depressed. He sobbed shamefully on the floor under a sheet. He has an angry temper. He attacks a man for simply asking Indre for a cigarette. These are the characteristics of those who are unable to have a grieving process. He is unable to have a new love object, even though he has another pregnant partner. He does not talk about her and she does not appear. Only at the end, when remorse has been rationalized, she appears and Paulus gives her love. Now, he can have a conscious relationship. If he had not made the pilgrimage, he could not have shown more intense emotions.
Paulus accused himself, punished himself, criticized himself and still felt the presence of Matas. Now, with the help of the group, he is free. A small group, just the ex-girlfriend and him. By sharing the pain with her, he can decipher the truth. Paulus can be lighter.
Even Indre needs to overcome her past because it is tied to her personal struggles. After the murder, she had an abortion. It would have been the son of Paulus. Indre is resolute and leads her ex. Her sadness is more controlled, she is still tough.
However, who was Matas? He certainly was eager to live, to love, and perhaps he was submitted to that relationship. He represents a ghost, constantly present on the journey. A restless spectre, he will free himself when the two boys understand the events.
The author's merit is an in-depth portrayal of characters and an introduction to the environment. The source of the conflict is well-defined and obvious: a violent expression of grief. As a result, both love and fatherhood are approached with mature affectivity.
The director creates a structure with flashbacks, with self-sufficient episodes. Then slowly continues until a general clarification of the murder, as a mystery must be.
When the final catharsis explodes near a dam, both the pain and the torment, blow up, both between the two boys and in the village.
It is the only rational component of the film. Example: Paulus wants to reproduce the same terrible feelings as Matas; the director illustrates it:
"... it was also important for the characters to really immerse themselves in experiences that can perhaps be perceived as rational when, for example, the character in the trunk of the car just to feel how Matas had lived to prove the same emotions, surely this is not a rational path, but a is natural and also from a chronological point of view, the chronology, as we have already said, was important I had also planned a different ending, different endings then I decided to rewrite it because I wanted to show these aspects ..." (4)
It is a ritual. The rites help to free oneself from pain; as the director describes it:
“… they look for a way to relieve their pain and therefore to manage this pain too through real ones rituals… of the characters who return to this place not forgeting how it was a ritual to manage and process the pain they feel. ..." (4)
Rites are not celebrated in a church, but directly in the macabre places of the assassination.
A system of expectations shows the circumstances step by step, allowing the rhythm not to descend within a precise pattern.
The director has his timing. He takes a calm cadence to unfold the story.
The editing is linear, interspersed with flashbacks discovered gradually. The pauses are very long. The pace of the scenes is sometimes suspended as waiting for something.
This is the atmosphere of the film, in every frame, something distressing. It's not Matas' ghost, but an affective block.
It is the social element that identifies pain. The fellow citizens appear indifferent, indolent, and silent, but they are companion villagers and friends. The doubt is evident: are Paul and Indre like this too? Could they too turn their heads to another side if they faced the same circumstance?
This is fascinating Lithuania, where crucifixes emerge at night, although they are shot down by day: “Stat crux dum volvitur orbis”.
Sitography on Catholics in Lithuania:
GCatholic Church in Republic of Lithuania, http://www.gcatholic.org/dioceses/country/LT.htm, Last update 28 January 2022
Roberto Cavallo, TotusTuus Network, Storia della Lituania. Identità europea e cristiana di un popolo,https://www.totustuus.it/Storia-della-Lituania-Identit-europea-e-cristiana-di-un-popolo/, Last update 22 April 2010
Bibliography on the Grieving Process;
Edoardo Giusti, Anna Milone, Terapia del lutto. La cura delle perdite significative, Armando Editore, 2021
Directors: Natasha Merkulova e Aleksey Chupov
Starrings: Yuriy Borisov, Timofey Tribuntsev, Aleksandr Yatsenko
Country: Russia, Francia, Estonia
Year 2021