Dork Zabunyan's 'Passages de l'histoire' Examines Cinematic Reenactments and Political Image-Making

In 'Passages de l'histoire', published by Le Gac Press, Dork Zabunyan explores cinematic reconstructions of historical events such as World War II and the Arab revolutions. The book critiques the notion that only direct witnesses own history, rejecting both a 'blackmail of lived experience' and mnemonic 'recoding' through stereotypical figures like heroes or revolutionary folklore. Zabunyan argues for preserving the untimely and active dimensions of historical representations through archival reflection, even if it means reconstructing archives via fiction, as seen in Brian De Palma's 'Redacted' or Nanni Moretti's 'The Caiman'. This approach moves beyond retinal cinema toward a 'cinema of the brain' as evoked by Gilles Deleuze. The second part focuses on images' capacity to testify to recent events while retaining their charge of revolt, ensuring struggles remain active. Zabunyan examines images posted on social media, their remixing by British filmmaker Peter Snowdon, and short fictions or pseudo-reportages by the Syrian clandestine collective Abou Naddara—video tracts of counter-information opposing state television. These collective, anonymous reappropriations propose a living history, opposing the petrifying commemorations of biopics, and raise questions about the future of fiction. The book is reviewed by Pierre Eugène.