TAVA LAIME / YOUR HAPPINESS BY ADA NERETNIECE: IDEOLOGICALLY DATED FILMS AND EPISTEMIC IMPERIALISM OF DISCURSIVE FIELDS

Abstract

In Latvian filmhistoriography, the feature film Tavalaime / Your Happiness (1960) by Ada Neretniece is considered the worst film ever made. In order to reassess the film, it is first necessary to uncover the ideologically conditioned reception of the film in the 1960s. I will use archival research to uncover the conditions of production of Your Happiness and how they may have contributed to the notorious fame of Neretniece’s film. Both – the history of production and the history of reception – and their respective underlying narratives belong to separate discursive fields. And both are deeply rooted in Soviet ideology. Now, sixty years after Your Happiness was made, we can remove it from the discursive field defined by the values of the Soviet state and establish a new reading of it by applying contemporary film theoretical concepts. With regard to the intratextual features of films made during the Soviet occupation, the concept of dated film (Jamie Baron), which encompasses cultural and aesthetic datedness, can be supplemented by ideological datedness. Thus, thanks to the digitisation and restoration activities of the archives and the updated theoretical agendas of film scholars, following the line of thought of Pamela Hutchinson, films of the Soviet period now constitute our “new cinema”.