In der rumänischen Stadt Onești bewegen sich junge Turnerinnen im Rhythmus der Traineranweisungen. Wenn sie auf den Füßen landen, erzeugt dies in den großen Hallen ein knallendes, widerhallendes Geräusch, das an Gewehrschüsse erinnert. Die Trainingshallen wurden zwischen 1966 und 1968 erbaut und waren für das erste Internat gedacht, das allein Kunstturnern vorbehalten war. In den schwarzweißen Anfangsbildern des Films Giant (2014) zeigen Turnerinnen des rumänischen Nationalteams in weißen Trikots ihr Können. Sie waren damals die besten der Welt und wurden einzeln ausgewählt, hier zu studieren. Salla Tykkä erwähnt im Gespräch, dass Dinge, die außergewöhnlich schön und perfekt erscheinen, häufig aus etwas Dunklem und Gewalttätigem hervorgehen. Giant ist der dritte Film ihrer Serie rund um die Farbe Weiß. Tykkä begann mit der Erkundung eines Bildes – eine perfekten Darbietung auf einem Schwebebalken – und eines wiederkehrenden Alptraums vor dem Hintergrund ihrer eigenen Erinnerungen als Turnerin. Für diesen Film durchforstete Tykkä das gesamte Archivmaterial, das sie beim Fernsehsender TVR (Televiziunea Română) über die Schulen in Deva und Onești finden konnte. Es war nicht mehr viel übrig. Wie die Archivleitung ihr erklärte, waren während des Niedergangs des totalitären Regimes von Nicolae Ceaușescu unzählige Wochenschauaufnahmen aufgelöst worden, um das darin enthaltene Silber einer Wiederverwendung zuzuführen. Einige der Filme wurden auf Video aufgenommen, andere auf Video übertragen, um sie zu bewahren, und Giant enthält einige Fragmente davon. In einem dieser Bilder sehen wir Daniela Silivaș bei Bodenübungen zu einer unheimlichen Filmmusik (Ermittlungen gegen einen über jeden Verdacht erhabenen Bürger, eine Satire von Elio Petri aus dem Jahr 1970). Die Musik stammt von Ennio Morricone, wie die Musik, die Tykkä in ihrem früheren Film Lasso (2000) verwendet hat. Silivaș gewann 1988 in Seoul Medaillen in allen sechs Disziplinen.
Giant (2013)
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Profile Profiles Salla Tykkä
Notizen zu den Filmen von Salla Tykkä Notes on the films of Salla Tykkä
In the Romanian town of Onești, young gymnasts move to the rhythm of their trainer’s orders. In the big halls, the sounds of their landing feet slam and echo, a sound reminiscent of gun shots. These training halls were built between 1966 and 1968 and were used for the first boarding school dedicated only to artistic gymnastics. In the black and white opening images of the film Giant (2014), gymnasts of the Romanian national team are performing in white leotards. At that time they were the best in the world, hand-picked to study here. When discussing the film with Salla Tykkä, she says things that seem exceptionally beautiful and perfect often originate from somewhere dark and violent. Giant is the third film in her series of films around the theme of the colour white. Tykkä started her investigation into an image – a perfect performance on a balance beam – and a reoccurring nightmare based on her memories as a gymnast herself. For this film, Tykkä went through all of the archival material she could find at the TVR (Televiziunea Română) about the Deva and Onești schools. There was not much left. At the archive, the manager explained to her that during the time of the decaying totalitarian regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu, countless newsreels were dissolved, and the silver they contained was collected and recirculated. Some of the films were shot on video and some transferred to video in order to preserve them, and we can see fragments of these in Giant. In one of the images, we see Daniela Silivaș performing a floor routine to an uncanny film score (Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, a 1970 satire by Elio Petri). The music is by Ennio Morricone, like the music Tykkä used in her earlier film Lasso in 2000. Silivaș won a medal in each of the six competitions in Seoul in 1988. Is it possible to really find the real place anymore? The young gymnasts look through the windows of the castle ruins overlooking the town of Deva. Sound is hauntingly cut off from the image, and the gymnasts’ moves are cut together, forming a prodigious series of motion. In an image (cinema) we always see a world that no longer is, a fragment of time. At the time I am writing this, it has been one year since the pandemic hit Europe. The world we see in pictures – the new landscapes, the thrill of travelling, the way of life – will never look quite the same. Film has really become a window to the world in a whole new way, as well as a window to the past – and if you happen to be a filmmaker, it is also a window to a former self. In a shaky Super8 image, we see penguins flocking and seals bathing in the sun on a beach. In Retrospective (2016), Tykkä goes through the cameras she has used in her work over the years. Her handling of the camera equipment reminds us of the muscle memory of loading film and locking the objectives. The Super8 films Tykkä made while travelling in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego in 1997 are juxtaposed with her hesitating voice and words, and this relationship to cameras creates an intimate self-portrait. You become aware and sensitive to the camera behind the images, a feeling stretching to the following films. The film Europe – Europa (2020) had its starting point in 2011, when Tykkä received a letter from someone from her past, an older man she had met as a teenager when Interrailing in the early 1990s. The man had written a short story and used Tykkä and her travel companions
