From anxiety about the future of the state in the interwar period Lithuania to the tragedies of the World War II and the jump of Simas Kudirka into the freedom, the sea remains a silent yet expressive witness of history which retains the traces of collective memory. Intuition of an approaching catastrophe is strong in Karolis Kaupinis’s film “Nova Lituania” (2019) which brings us back to the late 1930s. Vilnius Region has been lost, Klaipėda annexed and Kaunas was permeated with a heavy feeling of the approaching war. The sea, which is the object to visit for a prime minister Jonas Servus (actor Vaidotas Martinaitis) and a geography professor Feliksas Gruodis (actor Aleksas Kazanavičius), reminds of a vision of “spare Lithuania” and unimplemented idea of the maritime state. The sea in Vytautas Žalakevičius’s film “Weekend in Hell” (1987) obtains another meaning. Two fugitives from a concentration camp find themselves in a Nazi resort camp by the sea and jump into the water to escape. Here, they find a shelter for a short time because, once a one undresses, one remains simply a human who breaks free from superimposed political and social identities. A feature film by Giedrė Žickytė, “The Jump” (2020), recreates an exciting story of a Lithuanian, Simas Kudirka. In 1970, he jumped from a Soviet ship “Soviet Lithuania” to a U.S. border guard cutter “Vigilant”, but was returned back. The Atlantic Ocean where this renowned attempt to escape took place becomes a setting for resistance and a symbolical place between Soviet “concentration camp” and the free world. That world is also admired by “The Children from the Hotel America” (director Raimundas Banionis, 1990). A rock music festival taking place at the seaside allows young people experience the feeling of freedom and community, if only for a short period of time; however, early in the morning, it is destroyed by Soviet militia squads armed with rubber batons. In Lina Lužytė’s film “The Castle” (1990), the sea becomes a metaphor for the way back from emigration. A grandmother (actress Jūratė Onaitytė) living in Ireland still feels a sense of attachment to Lithuania and continues living on memories, whereas her granddaughter Monika (actress Barbora Bareikytė) is more focused on the future. In the final part of the film, Monika allows her grandmother to walk into the wide sea (in the final scene, the grandmother keeps wading into the sea and her granddaughter is unable to keep her) which separates her from Lithuania.
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“When looking at the sea from a shore, it seems vast, endless, eternal, and this comforts; it will not disappear anywhere, it will stay forever. When I’m away, it will definitely be here.” (Lina Lužytė)