La face larvée de l’Europe: Breivik’s Statement de Milo Rau

Abstract

Since the turn of the century, in a manner both covert and indisputable, the West has been consumed by a disturbing political and ethical contradiction. The definition of European identity as democratic, liberal and cosmopolitan is no longer unanimous: the patriots of a new conservative revolution dream of a Christian Europe, an authoritarian nationalism and an ethnically purified society. The heroic figure of the identitarian movement is the warrior (spartan or chivalrous) who saves Europe from its decline and decomposition.As part of the aesthetic movement of New Realism, Swiss director Milo Rau, created in 2012 a documentary performance Breivik’s Statement. Within a minimalist scenic device, without recourse to fictionalization, Rau (ex)poses on stage the speech that Anders Breivik himself addressed in April 2012 to the Federal Court of Oslo in order to ideologically support his actions. Instead of reshaping reality aesthetically, Milo Rau’s stage reenactment simply put the viewer in the presence of world events. His theater demystifies, literally illuminates – even the hidden face of the shared narrative that we call Europe.