Change Your Image
kril10
Reviews
Vozvrashchenie (2003)
An Eternal Misunderstanding
Andrei Zvyagintsev's The Return was a beautiful dramatization of the theme of misunderstanding and conflict between fathers and sons, executed in a mercilessly authentic way. Throughout the film the viewer's preferences switched from sons to father and vice versa, and culminated in the sudden accidental death of the father over behavior that was questionable from both parties. The lack of an explanatory story of the father or a continuation of what happened after the sons returned from their life-changing voyage perhaps serve to emphasize the idea that one is not supposed to understand exactly why this happened, why sons may never understand their fathers and vice versa.
Much of the voyage to and on the island that Ivan and Andrei's father took them to was an oscillation between the naïveté of the sons and overreactions of the father. At times one would feel that Ivan and even Andrei were just being stubborn to be "rebelliously cool," such as the scenes where Ivan refused to eat his lunch, Andrei talked back to his father when pushing the car, or Ivan complained about having to leave the first fishing spot. At these instances the audience's respect lay with the father as he was portrayed as a disciplining figure who must be necessarily stern to help his sons mature. However, in many of these scenes, the father reacted in what would seem an excessively cruel manner, such as hitting Andrei in the face or leaving Ivan in the rain. At these moments the sympathy shifted towards the sons as victims of an abusive father. This constant reversal, combined with the fact that little is ever known about the father, establishes the complexity of the father-son relationship as perhaps something that is never to be fully grasped. Sons often do not understand why their fathers are so seemingly sadistic in helping them grow up, while fathers often do not understand why their sons must be so bold and impudent.
This theme seemed to be further accentuated by certain film mechanics, such as the profuse use of blue as a background color, combined with strange music, to provide an overall sense of an eternal mystery throughout the film. Overall The Return was a successful depiction of the impossibly complex father-son relationships and should be enjoyed by both fathers and sons alike. It would also be quite interesting to see if one's interpretations of the film change as a son becomes a father.
Pro urodov i lyudey (1998)
Of Freaks and Men: A Modern Capitalistic Reflection
Alexei's Balabanov's Of Freaks of Men was a quite strange yet interesting viewing experience. The film mechanics and overall setting seemed to contradict the content that was being portrayed, perhaps to construct a novel "Balabanov" perspective. For instance, the use of pre- Revolutionary Tsarist Russia as a setting, complete with bourgeois colonnade backdrops and 19th century luxuries and proprieties, to display an underground pornography business that slowly takes over the lives of the main characters was quite an unexpected juxtaposition. The use of "brown-screen" (black and white?), intertitles, and classical music further strengthened this divide, almost making it seem like the organized crime of Balabanov's Brother 2 existed and was captured on film in the early days of cinema!
There are several ways one can interpret this artistic leap. One interesting perspective is to view the decline of the doctor's and engineer's Bourgeois families at the hands of the exploiting Johann as yet another example of the failure of Capitalism in the eyes of a Communist. The fathers of the two families made their money in a hog- eat-hog Capitalistic world, and their children (Tolya/Kolya and Liza respectively) ended up being used by a bigger Capitalist hog, Johann the pornographer. An alternative view would be a demonstration of how post- Soviet Russian organized crime was not an artifact of that particular era, and that it existed underground since before even Communism. That would have turned the movie into a nationalistic excuse for the deterioration that occurred in Russia after Gorbachev.
Although other views can be constructed, I feel like this movie was nevertheless a very successful and creative experiment on Balabanov's part. He has captured the new in the style of the very old to create a unique movie.
Kuryer (1986)
The Messenger Boy Brings the End of Communism
The Messenger Boy brought the "gritty reality" of the time approaching the end of the Soviet Union to the screen in a much more enjoyable way than other Chernukhas like Little Vera. Although the main character Ivan represents the rebellion and insolence that was associated with the young generation of the time without any restraint, there was an underlying positive quality, almost a purity, in him that singled him out as an authentic, "good" person of the time.
A great way to describe this masked purity would be to compare Ivan with Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Both characters share a certain "unlikeability" among their elders and the older generation of the society of which they are part, but their frankness is seen as a positive directional icon to their own generation. Each dropped out of school and flops around society with either a poor job or none at all, but is nevertheless seen as a lost child in a dirty world, and hence pitied for their genuineness. Katia enjoyed Ivan's tactless mannerisms much like Holden's friends (however few) enjoyed his general apathy--they felt a bond with each representation of the "lost generation."
The movie truly made one feel for Ivan's plight--it's not that he did not care, it is simply that the society of which he was part was falling apart, so their expectations on his behavior did not do much. It is precisely this truth, this authenticity, that made Ivan, and the entire movie, so enjoyable to watch. Finally, props to Oleg Basilashvili, the actor who played Katia's father, to be able to switch roles so effectively from The Autumn Marathon as Bouzikin to The Messenger Boy-- it almost seemed like nothing had changed, it is just that time has passed between the two, which further adds to the truth value of this particular film.
Zerkalo (1975)
A Cinematographic Masterpiece: A Logical Nightmare
Watching Andrei Tarkovsky's 1975 Mirror was like reading something from the "stream of consciousness" style of literature—it seemed like a journey into the memories and considerations of a Soviet narrator, perhaps Tarkovsky himself. As such, plot, in the way both modern and contemporary think of it, was entirely absent. The random, often anti- chronological leaps to and from memories of pre-war, war, and post-war eras made fluent understanding nothing short of impossible. In this way, the film was quite disenchanting, if not downright bad. The best way I can describe it is attempting to piece together the thoughts that a person thinks right before he falls asleep—the random, loosely connected ideas or memories that only make ideal sense for the one who is producing them.
That said, there is merit to be given for the filmography. The intercutting black and white scenes, although not exactly depicting a jump in time, went along well with slow motion, and emphasized dramatic moments, like Masha running away from the criticism of a colleague when she overacted about a misprint in the newspaper. On the flipside, color scenes, although not particularly faster in pace, featured less tense dialogue, and more emphasis on how everything is so hurried, tense, etc. The color scenes, like that of the doctor meeting Masha and talking about the serenity of nature produced this effect of a "needing to slow down." The use of doors as portals to different people and different times was also an effective move. The disappearance of a strange woman talking to Ignat made her message (in the form of Pushkin's letter) regarding the history of Russia being "uninteresting" much more dramatic and believable.
Overall however, the exemplary camera tricks, despite effectively detaching me from my seat and placing me into a pool of somebody else's thoughts, did not make up for the fact that I am simply unable to swim in this pool. I took no message from this film, either than the fact that I simply need to "think" or "slow down" or "understand" something that is not really there for me to understand. In my mind, Tarkovsky has produced a cinematographic masterpiece but a logical nightmare.
Svoy sredi chuzhikh, chuzhoy sredi svoikh (1974)
A Great Red Western
Nikita Mikhalkov's 1974 At Home among Strangers, a Stranger Among his Own was a truly enjoyable "Eastern," a Soviet parallel to the American "Western." It did a great job in glorifying the Socialist Revolution and its ideology, while at the same time preserving the advantageous, "badass," gun-slinging attitude that audiences loved in the Western. I feel like contemporary viewers of this film would have savored it—a dramatized, heroic account of Soviet values set in the "wild east" would seem like the perfect soothing remedy for a disillusioned Soviet citizen during Brezhnev's period of stagnation.
Our Soviet western hero is Shilov, who was tasked with defending a large Cheka shipment of gold for the starving citizens in Moscow following the Russian Civil War. Naturally, the plan is quickly ruined as assassins kill everyone on board the train carrying the gold to steal it, drug Shilov, and let him loose in the town street, hence framing him for being the inside man for giving up the gold. As Shilov sets out to recover the gold and clear his name, the plot further thickens as the assassins get killed and bandits take the gold! The leader of the assassins, Lemke, lived however, and joined up with the bandits to try and discover where their leader, Brylov, was taking the gold. Shilov ends up killing Brylov and recovering the gold, and denies all of Lemke's pleads and temptations to share it with him and escape. Shilov maintained adamant in his Socialist position of giving up the gold, claiming that "even God taught us to share."
All of this activity is surrounded by recurring themes of train robbery, horseback chasing, rafting and mountainside firefights. Even the soundtrack emphasizes moments of male camaraderie as Shilov's name is mentioned among his Civil War friends with majestic trumpet solos. As Shilov returns to his wartime friends with the gold, they rush to him, barely holding back tears as they greet their "western Soviet" hero. The film shed some positive, adventurous light upon the Soviet values of collectivization and honor over corruption and private enterprise.
Komissar (1967)
Thaw Values taken Too Far
It is understandable why Commissar was banned at its original 1967 release. Chronologically one of the latest films that can be classified as a "Thaw film," it takes the theme of the "individual over the collective" and extended it into dangerous, perhaps even un-Soviet territory. Despite deStalinization, the Soviet Union and its Communist ideals still stood—the collective was still to be seen positively, and the pure, militaristic attitude of the people was still important. By introducing Commissar Klavdia as an emotionless, militaristic "maiden" with male mannerisms at the beginning, and proceeding to reveal her personal, human side through her feminineness, pregnancy, and change of clothing as she was cared for by a Jewish family, the film interprets the Revolution as a "softening of Communist values." By changing Klavdia from the officer who ruthlessly sentenced a Red deserter to the tribunal at the beginning to being a scared, doubtful mother who seemed unsure of whether or not the new regime would bring "trams and success" when the idea was challenged by Yefim, Commissar, is questioning the validity of Leninism altogether! It becomes a defiance, not a "Thaw" reinterpretation, which is why it likely got banned. Another huge factor to its banning may have been the heavy sympathy for the Jewish faith that it evokes—anti-Semitism was prominent in the Soviet Union even after Stalin. Once it was released under Gorbachev however, the film was allowed to intrigue viewers with its whirling camera shots depicting Klavdia's flashbacks, and its interest in the effects of the Revolution on the psychology of children, by showing how messed up kids got under switching regimes. Understandably banned during its time, but it is a good film about the Revolution nonetheless.
Ballada o soldate (1959)
Another Great "Separation Film" of the Thaw
Chukhrai's Ballad of a Soldier is a great example of several important values of Soviet film of the "Thaw" era. Films of this time are known for a movement away from Stalinist ideological monumentalism and towards individual self-expression via the protagonist's struggle (and often failure) to find coherence. A common theme of Thaw films, especially those about World War II like the Ballad or Kalatozov's The Cranes are Flying was the lack of communication between soldiers leaving for the front and the people who they loved who stayed behind. So important was this theme that in these films, the actual war, in the sense of guns and shells, took backstage. Very few combat scenes were shot—the fighting was always implicit, but not central, in the overall plot.
Ballad of a Soldier follows many of these ideas. For example, the only real combat scene in the entire film is at the very beginning, when Alyosha takes out two German tanks. For the rest of the film, everybody he meets on his journey to visit his mother inquires about the war, or complains about it, or is among other evidence of war, like destroyed buildings and news flashes of events on the front. In addition, despite bringing peace to certain individuals, and revealing the evil in the actions of others during his journey, Alyosha never truly finds this peace himself. Despite bringing couples back together or chastising an unfaithful woman, he never got to proclaim his feelings for Shura before he left her, and even the visit to his mother itself was unsatisfying. He never got to finish his dealings before he was killed in the war. He never got a chance to communicate.
Furthermore, in terms of form, the Ballad is representative of the loosening of the conditions on montage after Stalin. One sees interesting camera views (like the experimental ones of the 1920s) again, like the upside-down camera when the tanks are chasing Alyosha, or the recurring shots of the moving backgrounds when Alyosha and Shura are on the train. Like The Cranes are Flying, this was another very enjoyable "separation" film of the Thaw.
Okraina (1933)
Not a Film for the Millions
Boris Barnet's 1933 film Outskirts was created during a time when the only films acceptable for public Soviet cinemas had to obey the motto: "films for the millions." If it was not simplemindedly portraying Communism, the Revolution, or the Party's role in improving Soviet life, it was not screened. Every viewer had to be able to understand their message about these themes. Although Outskirts did indeed depict Soviet class struggle, its relationship with World War I, and the Revolution, it did so in a way that very few contemporary moviegoers could fully understand. I say this because even I, a modern viewer with much more cinema-watching experience than the common Soviet citizens of the 1930s, had trouble following the film. Its many subplots were allowed to run their respective courses with little to no connection at all, and some of these subplots were not even adequately concluded. As a result, Outskirts provides little more than a series of incomplete stories with confusing messages at the end.
To get right into it, the purpose of the German tenant at the Russian hotel is unclear—other than to perhaps depict bourgeois indulgence through whimsical games of checkers, why is he even in the film? All he does is play checkers, get angry at the bourgeois Russian owner at the outset of World War I, and leave without any further explanation. Furthermore, although the role of the captured German soldier is more understandable in the film's goal in representing Communist ideology, it was not concluded clearly at all. When the Russian shoemaker protected the German soldier as being "a fellow shoemaker" against the wounded Red Army soldiers, he made a point about the fact that Proletarian struggles transcend national borders, but what happened to the German soldier afterwards? Was he a convinced Communist? Did he fight again in the war? Outskirts failed to answer any of this.
While all of this is going on, there are even more subplots—the relationship between the Russian shoemaker and his superior shoe factory owner with a large government order of boots, his two sons who fought and died in the war, an emerging love story between the Russian hotel owner's daughter and the captured German soldier, and a final sequence where the shoemaker may have murdered the hotel owner during the Revolution. There is a point where as a viewer, I have to say enough is enough. Although most of these do in fact represent Communist themes, I feel that Outskirts was a desperate attempt to compress the entire Party's ideology into one movie. In my opinion, the film's grand scope is what led to its confusing message and consequent failure.
Konets Sankt-Peterburga (1927)
Leave the Symbolism to Eisenstein
The End of St. Petersburg would have been a good dramatic account of the two Revolutions of 1917 if Pudovkin had used less symbolism and focused more on developing the specific characters of his film. During the time of its production, Sergei Eisenstein was considered to be a master of generalization and symbolism, with all of his movies lacking many well- developed characters, while Pudovkin was associated much more with the individual. The End of St. Petersburg seems like a failed attempt on Pudovkin's part to be more like Eisenstein—certain symbolic actions were somewhat confusing and detracted from the coherence of the plot.
There were several instances of such "failed symbolism." One was the image of the crying bronze statue as Russian soldiers left St. Petersburg to go fight in World War I. Although on the surface it would seem that this image represents the suffering of the city and the unnecessary loss of life, when this action is placed in the revolutionary context of the film, it is unclear what it means. The statue, possibly of Peter the Great, represented monarchist Russia, so why would it cry for the Proletarians being sent off to fight? Another problematic piece of symbolism was at the end, after the overthrow of the Winter Palace, when the mistress of the bald man passed around her potatoes to wounded revolutionaries. This is likely to demonstrate the collective ownership ideal of Communism, but why would it be a Proletarian woman to share? Why did the revolutionaries not raid the overthrown bourgeois palace for necessary supplies?
All this was also done at the expense of some confusion revolving around certain characters. For example, was the first peasant to leave the countryside the same as "the bald man," i.e. Lenin? What happened to him while he was detained and before he ended up on the front? Explicit scenes to answer these questions may have helped in solidifying the film about the revolution.
Pudovkin did a decent job in representing the revolution through the eyes of a few specific characters, like the bald man, the younger peasant, i.e., "the lad," the bald man's mistress, the leader of the factory and his stock market representative, and the chief of police, but he should have stayed in this realm, since he believed in cinema through the individual. The Eisenstein-like attempts at grand symbolism partially spoiled the film.
Turksib (1929)
Turksib—An Emotional Journey in Connecting North to South, and South to North
Turksib is a gripping documentary illustrating the societal struggles resolved with the construction of the 1445-kilometer Turkestan-Siberia ("Turk-Sib") railway line through Kazakhstan in 1930. For a silent film, Turksib features exemplary organization to guide the reader. First, the viewer is exposed to the problems affecting the people of Turkestan without a railway connection. Next, the film displays the unfaltering determination of man and machine as they battle nature to construct the Turk-Sib line. Finally, upon the line's completion, one is given a happy conclusion showing montages of successful harvest and manufacture of cotton and wool products from Turkestan, aided by the railroad.
The repetitive use of inter-titles, often just single words displayed on multiple occasions, added a lot emotional power to the three aforementioned parts of the film. For example, the words "water," "grain," and "waiting" were frequently repeated in between images of the people of Turkestan miserably awaiting water or not being able to transport their cotton to the market, making the viewer sympathize and understand the need for a Turk-Sib line. Furthermore, during the construction of the line, repeating words like "forward," "man," "machine," and "civilization" emphasized the stubbornness of man in conquering nature, shown with montages of workers digging up the land and detonating mountains to lay track. Finally, the words "north-to- south," "south-to-north," and "cotton" were continuously redisplayed towards the end, underscoring the successful railway connection, shown with montages of successful harvests in Turkestan and of cotton mills springing to life again.
Throughout the film, the viewer remained engaged through the repetitive inter-titles and logical organization, feeling the struggles experienced by the people of Turkestan, sharing in the intrepid attitude of the workers ripping apart the land to build the railroad, and celebrating alongside the people when the pulse of the mills picked up again after the Turk-Sib was completed. All in all, Turksib is a great account of a huge accomplishment, Soviet Russia's version of the Darlington to Stockton-on-Tees line in Britain, or the trans-continental railroad in the United States.
Stachka (1925)
Flashback to 1905—Why We Revolted
Sergei Eisenstein's Strike is a stunningly accurate portrayal of the events and ideas revolving around Socialism and the Revolution of 1917. In fact, the entire film can be considered a reflection of Russian society during the years 1905-1917 on a micro scale.
Strike features cruel mistreatment of the proletariat at a factory under the hands of the greedy capitalist administration, revolutionary plots among the workers, a shaming overthrow of the administration and strike, and the use of government spies and police to eventually disperse, hunt- down, and kill the strikers. These major themes place the film into the category of post-revolution Soviet patriotic films, many ordered by the Bolsheviks as Socialist propaganda.
The aforementioned themes were quite effectively presented by Eisenstein as montages on the screen—the oppressed workers making plans in the factory bathrooms, the fat shareholders sitting in extravagant chairs drinking and smoking, the abrupt stoppage of the elaborate factory machinery during the strike, the break-in and defilement of the offices, the public humiliation of the manager, and the hosing and mass execution of the workers by the army at the end. Although several themes are dramatized, like the overly pig-like attitudes of the bosses, the wanton vandalism of the offices, or the merciless killing at the end, they are nonetheless accurate as a brief anthology of the problems of capitalist class struggle.
Each montage grasps a concept in the class struggle in Russia and expresses a miniature of it in the context of the factory. Some of these portrayals are even clear historical references-- it can almost undoubtedly be said that the massacre at the end is a flashback to "Bloody Sunday" in 1905, considered by many to be one of the sparks leading up to the revolution.
Strike has succeeded as a dramatic representation of the issues with capitalist inequality in Russia, and can be considered a valuable piece of early Soviet patriotic propaganda, a symbol of "why we revolted in 1917."