Harun Farocki - Videogramme einer Revolution AKA Videograms of a Revolution (1992)

The compilation video Videograms of a Revolution, new on video from Facets multimedia, concerns the Romanian revolution of 1989 - including the fall, attempted flight, and Christmas-day execution of President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena - and was assembled under the direction of Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujica from independent and state video and film sources. Videograms forms part of the imagistic "closing bracket" of the twentieth century in Eastern Europe. It employs images and techniques used by the early Soviet montagists, especially Sergei Eisenstein's Oktyabr' (October, 1927), a depiction of the opening bracket of the pair - the Russian Revolution. Crowds are seen from above scattering under gunfire; revolutionary leaders seize the platform at popular manifestations, and major moments in the story are presented from multiple perspectives. 

Moreover, like Oktyabr', Videograms presents a popular revolution that took place over ten days. While the montagists' films were often meticulously planned re-enactments, Farocki and Ujica's work consists of found-footage, assembled and intercut with rather awkward titles to gradually reveal the course of history. The process is foregrounded by the presentational press-conference style of many shots, the constant switching between stock type, the representation of cameras and monitors within the frame and voiceover commentary on the historical import of the images and the relationship of film to history. 

Romania became part of the "Iron Curtain" midway through the post-Second World War flurry of the late forties and early fifties when a Stalinist regime took over rule of the country from a monarchy. Yet the country, in some ways, long remained a marginal renegade from the USSR, with significant events including Ceausescu's statements against the Soviet-led invasions of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Afghanistan in 1979. 

He had emerged as a leader in the mid-60s, and for a time some people considered him to be a leader who might be able to successfully reform the failing Eastern European experiment. This clearly was not the case, though, as he continued to tighten his grip on power over the next twenty years. Ceausescu's regime collapsed in December 1989. Today the situation does not seem much better, as the conflict between ferocious privatization and a resurgent Communist Party illustrates.

Videograms begins with a weeping and bleeding woman announcing that she had attempted to defend a cooperative in Timisoara against the Securitate, who opened fire on her. She calls for the defence and continuation of the rebellion against the Ceausescus. The camera then shows two buildings in the foreground, while in the grainy background of the image people can be seen marching. In voiceover, the narrator tells us that they are heading toward the Central Committee Headquarters where they will take part in a protest against the Ceausescus. The woman then comments on the most important events which are presented in the background rather than the foreground, a reversal from standard presentational style that mirrors the reversals of power at hand.