In the Holy Land with Koudelka | Babelia



"How can people do something like that to such a beautiful landscape?" Josef Koudelka (Boskovice, Czech Republic, 1938), while, with the parsimony of one who has seen almost everything, he prepares the camera, ready to shoot in front of the wall that separates Israel from Palestine. "Those on both sides can defend themselves, or try to defend themselves. They don't have much of a choice either. But the landscape cannot defend itself, and they are destroying the most sacred landscape of our civilization. "

Forty years after legendary Magnum photographer risked his life to photograph the Soviet invasion of his country, the photographer traveled to Israel for the first time. Over the next four years his travels were repeated giving rise to Koudelka: Shooting Holy Land (Koudelka: Shooting in the Holy Land), a documentary directed by Gilad Baram and produced by Nowhere Films, which can be seen these days in Filmin. The film shows the artist's creative process in his journey along the separation wall built by Israel in 2002. A barrier, of more than 700 kilometers, which the Israelis call “security fence” and the Palestinians “the wall of the apartheid”, And that serves the author as a metaphor for the failed relations between closely related cultures, as well as the fissure between man and nature.

"I grew up behind a wall. All my life - until I was 32 years old I left Czechoslovakia - I wanted to go to the other side. For me it was a prison, I was caged ”, points out this artist who was born the same year of the Nazi occupation of his country, and grew up behind the Iron Curtain later experiencing the yoke of the Soviet dictatorship.

Baram was a photography student at the Jerusalem Academy of Arts when Koudelka was invited to participate in The place. It was a project directed by Frédéric Brenner who, in order to explore the complex nature of the region, had the participation of big names in photography (among them Gilles Peress, Stephen Shore, Thomas struth, Jeff Wall and Martin Kollar). The young man was assigned as the artist's assistant. "I have never met anyone like him in my life," says the filmmaker. “From the beginning I was fascinated by his absolute dedication and absorption in photography. This has not changed over the years. I don't know whether to call it obsession or dedication, but he gets up and takes photos, later he edits them, and he thinks about them until he falls asleep. ” Baram soon perceived that the photographer's artistic work, apparently sullen and distant, did not demand the figure of an assistant. In this way, little by little he was perfecting a system through which, from a certain distance, and without the artist feeling very embarrassed, he managed to film his work with a Canon 5D Mark II.

The people in Koudelka's photograph have long since disappeared. His interest is now focused on the landscape. In austere panoramic views in black and white, where the lament of those who inhabit those lands resounds. His sensitivity and empathy for social groups threatened by expulsion or extinction (as the Roma were in his day) has been reflected in his nomadic spirit. In that feeling of not belonging anywhere, which he had to grab onto to face his own exodus, and which made him a chronicler of uprooting and exclusion. Gypsies (1975), Exiles (1988), and Chaos (1999) are among the best-known works in a career spanning more than five decades. "I have never taken photographs of 'people', but of those who have something to do with me," he stresses.

"Koudelka was an idol to me. I knew all his books, and admired the social conscience with which he approached each subject. I imagined someone very fast. Someone who reacts with speed. Someone who runs. However, I was surprised by his slow pace, his way of waiting and waiting, to return again and again to the same place, sometimes up to thirty times. It was the opposite of what I could have imagined, ”recalls the filmmaker. “I think it is something that happens to many artists with age. They are developing infinite patience. Perhaps, if the meeting had taken place 30 years ago, it would have been very different ”.

True to his belief that "the images wait", throughout the 72 minutes that the documentary lasts we see the artist observe in silence, in front of that cement fort that reaches nine meters in height; We watch him impatiently as he crawls carefully along the ground, loaded with his three cameras and avoiding not to dig into the barbed wire spikes. You will repeatedly return to where you took your first image until you are convinced that you cannot get a better shot than you already have. On one occasion he will fall so surrendered in front of the beauty of the Judean Desert, a place that he has previously made his own through his camera, that finally he will simply choose to enjoy the place. "If Jesus exists, I would not be surprised if he returns to this desert," exclaims the author, who claims not to believe in God, "but in certain things that have to do with all religions."

"I try to find beauty, but looked for the landscape that suffers, where the tragedy exists. In tragedy there is also beauty ”, highlights the photographer during an interview included in the extra material offered by the documentary DVD. Thus, the majestic panoramas taken during the journey, and published in the Monographic Wall: Israeli and Palestinian Landscape, they are happening throughout the documentary. They remain on screen for a long time, inviting the viewer to a more detailed observation, in keeping with the slow pace set by the author. It is striking the absence of any sound during its exhibition. "From the beginning, the editor of the film and I asked ourselves how to highlight and respect the difference between the photographic and the filmic image." Says Baram. “The result was a problem in managing television broadcasting, where it is seldom allowed to maintain absolute silence for an extended period of time. But we insist on it. There is no sound in photography, and this is a documentary on photography. I wanted to avoid that filmic character that photographs often acquire in films about their authors ”.

Visibly moved, Koudelka will remember the hard experience of visiting Auswitchz for the first time. “I will never forget the barbed wire. Every time I go to a place and see them, I immediately visualize it again ”. Also his initial reluctance to get involved in a project on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for fear of being emotionally involved. He would not succeed, aware that: "The occupation is the same everywhere."

"We live those days in an extremely emotional way," says Baram. “I began to become aware of how my society had contributed to the destruction of another. It was a hard lesson for both of us to see how the construction of this incredible separation infrastructure has affected the lives of many people. But for me it was harder. Here are my roots. Josef knew it and perceived my sadness when we said goodbye every day. In part, my decision to leave Israel and settle in Berlin is related to this experience. "

"As photographers age, they tend more and more to photograph the landscape," says Koudelka. “There is a huge difference between photographing the landscape and people. When you photograph people, you are constantly losing something, chasing something that has already ceased to exist. If you photograph the landscape, you are waiting ”.

Koudelka: Shooting Holy Land. Turn Baram. Nowhere Films. 72 minutes.

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