Masa i wspólnota w rytmie kroków. Kontranaliza społeczeństw radzieckiego i czechosłowackiego w filmach Ivana Balaďi Metrum i Las
Mass and Community in the Rhythm of Steps: A Counter- -Analysis of Soviet and Czechoslovak Societies in Ivan Balaďa’s Films Metrum and The Forest

Summary/Abstract: At the end of the 1960s, Ivan Balaďa made two short documentaries: Metrum (1967) and The Forest (Les, 1969). In theformer, he observed crowds of travellers walking throughthe spaces of the Moscow metro, and in the latter – the at-tendees of the funeral of Jan Palach, who in January 1969committed an act of self-immolation as a protest againstthe aggression of the Warsaw Pact troops. The authortreats Balaďa’s creative films as a medium for Marc Ferro’scounter-analysis of social structures and power relationsin the USSR and Czechoslovakia. He argues that thanks tothe inquiring observation of, i.a., the rhythm, meter, andpace of the movement of two mass gatherings, the direc-tor managed to visually capture their underlying natureand the mechanisms that define them. Based on a detailedanalysis of the films, which involves musicological con-cepts, the author recognizes the Soviet society as a homo-geneous and involuntary mass and the Czechoslovak oneas an autonomous and sovereign civic community.

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