Rainbow (1944) is a Soviet
patriotic propaganda film about the brutal Nazi-German occupation of a village
in Ukraine. Filmed in 1943 while Ukraine was still occupied, the film was shot
in the U.S.S.R. in central Asia rather than in Ukraine. The plot centers on the
efforts of Nazi captain Kurt Werner to get a resistance (partisan) fighter to
reveal where her group was heading. The woman is stark (strong), for she
does not budge even as the Germans torture her both mentally and physically. I
contend that the film pivots on a few lines spoken by an old Russian man in the
village on the nature of power itself. Those lines stand out for being the only
philosophical abstractions in the dialogue of the film. The film is about the
nature of power.
The ubiquitous presence of German
troops holding guns sends the audience a clear message that the basis of government
is raw force: the ability to kill. A preponderance or monopoly of the use of
force is decisive. Although the villagers vastly outnumber the German troops,
both use of the guns to kill many people in succession and on the other side the
(irrational?) psychology of passivity engraved in the Russian psyches and
perpetuated by the decentralization of a village population (mass meetings
being controlled by the Germans) maintain the status quo as if the village were
a closed system until the Russian army liberates the village from the outside. Although
it seems that if the villagers turned on the guards all at once, the German regime
in the village would quickly fall, the Hobbesian instinct of self-preservation
and the lack of a selfless ethic of sacrifice prevent what would be necessary: a
group of villages to start “the ball rolling” in anticipation that an onslaught
of villagers inside their houses would quickly join so the troops would be
overwhelmed.
So we tend to equate power with actual
brute force or the threat thereof. The real foundation of a government (i.e., a
“state” in political realism) is its ability to kill threats to its very
existence as well as its presumed entitlement to tell people what to do and
thus be obeyed. Locally, this means that the last-resort basis of a city
government is actually its police force, rather than its mayor or city council.
The ability to shoot or arrest a person is the foundation of government. From
this foundational vantage point, lofty speeches by heads of state seem peripheral
and perhaps even luxuries.
The film, which is actually
misnamed Rainbow because in extreme cold where ice-crystals are in the
air, the sun’s rays hitting those crystals actually create “sun-halos,” proffers
a different conception of power. In the few lines on power itself, an old Russian
man tells a few other villagers in a basement that power is not holding a gun;
rather, power lies in not saying a word when the Nazis want information. To
resist even torture by not giving in so the aggressor gets what one wants is power.
I contend that such power is internal, which admittedly can have
external effects (e.g., the Nazi captain is not told where the partisan group
is based), whereas holding a gun can be external power (i.e., getting another
person to do something, or not to do something).
The interaction effect is
significant. Holding a gun does not in itself give the holder power over
another person; the interior power to resist temptations (e.g., to talk
to save oneself or one’s child) can be sufficient to render the power
inoperative. In the film, the villagers withhold bread even though the Germans
have taken hostages. High external power and low internal power render the
external power effective (i.e., power). The combination of low external power
and high internal power is a worse-case scenario for an aggressor. High
external power and low internal power is what an aggressor counts on in being
able to gain or maintain power over another person.
Therefore, I contend that the old
Russian man was only partially correct. Holding a gun is a case of power,
assuming that the other person has weak or low internal power in being willing
to resist temptations. Having the self-discipline or control sufficient to not
say a word when an aggressor (bully) is using (the threat of) force to get
information, as in the film, is also power. The Russian village is largely in a
stalemate because no one is giving up bread or speaking to the Nazis and the
latter have the guns (the ability to kill the villagers). Captain Werner kills (and
has his troops kill) mostly out of frustration. The nature of power is not as
one-sided as it appears; the force of will of the partisan villagers is strong
as is the force of the German guns.
