Documentary and the question of knowledge

Abstract

Ruthless Times: Songs of Care /Armotonta menoa – Hoivatyön laulujaan (Helke 2002) is an acclaimed musical documentary about the privatization of elderly care. I explore how the film was framed by the director Susanna Helke, in written articles and in an interview, as artistic research, and consider how this research engages with the question of knowledge production in terms of the director’s stated aims and reference points, particularly Bertolt Brecht and Jacques Rancière. I analyse to what extent, as Helke suggests, it can be seen as creating a “rupture”, in Rancière’s sense, in relation to previous documentary forms and languages. I argue that while the film faces some of the same issues that critical art often confronts in terms of spectator address, its process of working with its topic and its participants nonetheless embodies a progressive model of feminist witnessing.