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Russkiy kovcheg (2002)
A gorgeous and strange exploration of pre-revolutionary culture
Sokurov's Russian Ark is a magnificent exhibition of pre-Soviet Russian high-culture, presented in a wandering and dreamlike single shot from a first-person point of view. The underlying plot is mysterious – two ghostlike figures, a 20th century Russian, and a 19th century European of Dickensian appearance – roam between rooms in the Winter palace, viewing and sometimes participating in a variety of historical events. Sokurov drifts between exhibit, theater, and reality as easily as between eras of Russian history. Actors sometimes portray actors and sometimes portray historical figures, and the aloof European companion treats the historical events the two men visit with the same academic reverence with which he treats museum exhibits. With hundreds of actors in magnificent period clothing, historical events reenacted, and stunning works of art and architecture admired and discussed, the film is a moving work of art that manages to appreciate and interpret itself. The strange European companion, who mocks and chastises Russia for its tyranny, its obstinacy, and its adoption of European culture, nonetheless revels in the aristocratic opulence of the Winter Palace and the grandeur of the historical events they attend, sometimes with religious awe, sometimes with childlike playfulness. The quiet Russian narrator is generally defensive, quietly prideful of Russia's past and persistence, but humble regarding its challenges. Always, the division between Russia and Europe is insisted, although the interchangeability of the two cultures pre-revolution is obvious. There is hidden in this film a thesis of some sort, that when Russia left the Tsar it also left Europe. In one scene, Stalinist-era museum curators worry about the state's neglect of the Winter Palace and Russian history, saying "It will be their doom if the tree falls, there will be nothing left." Sokurov seems to argue that despite the detached opulence of the past, the accomplishments of the Imperial era are of undeniable importance to the survival of Russian culture. The uncertainty of the Nation's future is an obvious concern; when the narrator is asked whether Russia is a republic in the post-Soviet era, he responds with "I don't know." In the final scene, the narrator leaves a magnificently extravagant Imperial ball, saying "Farewell, Europe," to his companion, and stepping out into a stormy and misty sea. Russian Ark is beautiful, illogical, sometimes creepy and sometimes playful, and can be viewed as both a historical exhibit and a commentary on the past and future of Russian culture.
Vor (1997)
Dark, amoral, but never dull
Chukhrai's The Thief (1997) has superficially a lot in common with the films of the Soviet thaw period. It follows the impressionable childhood of a young boy, left fatherless by the war, as he and his mother adjust to living with a new father figure. However, thematically it shares much more with the dark (much of the film actually takes place in darkness or near-darkness), violent, and morally ambiguous films of the late- and post-Soviet eras. The Thief is almost the anti-"Moscow does not believe in tears", depicting a lonely single mother who finds in a charming stranger not a perfect mate and father figure, but an aggressive and morally baseless opportunist who, upon a test of faith, reveals none of the love or loyalty of which he seemed to be capable. Moral uncertainty is a constant theme; despite the 1940s setting, The Thief has all of the loss, disappointment, and listlessness of the postwar films, but none of the hope and ideological faith. The story poses many questions – whether immorality is acceptable in the preservation of a family, whether a poor father figure is better than none, whether violence is preferable to weakness – and answers none of them. Even a murder at the end that might have been redemptive or cathartic is emotionally blank: the main character bleakly narrates, "nothing existed, nothing, nothing, nothing." However, The Thief has little of the crushing psychological brutality of post-war cinema – the film is never dull or trudging, and even contains some of the excitement and humor of western crime films. The film really offers nothing in terms of morality or judgment. Chukhrai does not even indulge in the classic trope of the protective mother and the abusive father. We are faced instead with a 1990s story in a 1940s setting: a boy lives his formative years in an amoral world, loving those he is with, and ending up with nothing but loneliness and ambiguity.
Stalker (1979)
Atmospheric, weird, intelligent, a little too slow
Stalker is quintessentially Tarkovskii and stagnation-era. Tarkovskii's extended silences, slow painting-like shots, color filters, and obsession with dripping water permeate the film. From the stagnation era, Stalker borrows middle age, cynicism, nihilism, listlessness, and unfulfilled desire. The film is remarkably atmospheric; aside from a few strange occurrences, nothing actually corroborates the titular Stalker's claims of supernatural danger in the Zone, and yet the fog, the ruins, the unearthly electronic music, and the apprehension of the characters gives an air of ominous oppression to what is objectively a very simple film. Alienation is a constant theme. In one sense, the Zone disobeys physical laws, traps and kills, and inspires introspection in a terrifyingly sublime way. In another sense, the Zone is the most "real" place in the film – it is in color, it is a place of hope, and it is the only place the Stalker claims to be at home, in opposition to the muddy-brown drudgery of the outside world. The dichotomy of Zone and reality, hope and cynicism, comfort and danger, unconscious desires and active passions are constantly at play, and often flipping. I couldn't shake the feeling that the film had something to say about communism and the stagnation period: the Zone is a place of refuge and also a place of weirdness, it attracts the hopeless, and yet offers possibility. One character wants to destroy it, due to the terrible power it might give to bad men. Another character argues that this cannot happen, because man's inner desires will always trump their ideological positions. The Stalker wants only to bring visitors to the Zone for hope and happiness, and grieves at the inability of "intellectuals" to give it their faith. His wife narrates, "If we hadn't had our misfortunes, it would have been worse
there wouldn't have been any hope." Whether or not these stagnation themes were deliberately placed or an osmotic result of the era is irrelevant – the film is imminently malleable in interpretation. Stalker is nothing if not strange, and there are scenes that cannot be described with any justice in writing. The atmosphere is beautifully wrought, and the film thankfully does not spoil its own premise with over-exposition or ludicrous elements, as science fiction is often wont to do, but scenes tend to drag, and the film might have benefited from some more judicious editing. The most striking and well-timed scene in the entire story occurs in the last two minutes, and one wonders what Tarkovskii might have done with a little more money and a more hawk-eyed editor. Overall, Stalker is strange, atmospheric, introspective, and a little too long for its own good.
Vokzal dlya dvoikh (1983)
Playful, depressing, and complex
Riazanov's Railway Station for Two is a delightfully unique work that jumps between triviality and complexity with a certain grace. On the one hand, the film is a dark comedy about a man for whom nothing goes right, a walking Murphy's law. On the other hand, it is a classic melodramatic romance about a working class woman and a member of the intelligentsia. However, the film is much more than either of these clichés. There is a wonderfully crafted development of relationship at play: over the course of the two or three short days depicted, one is well convinced that these two people have progressed from viciously bickering strangers to being truly in love. Riazanov manages to draw for the viewer the contrasting and overlapping struggles of these disaffected members of opposite social classes with a subtlety that might have been painfully overbearing in the hands of a different director. There are striking sociopolitical aspects to this film as well – casual depiction of the black market, references to the issues of profiteering and shortages, and even outright criticism of communism are remarkable, at least in contrast with earlier Soviet work. The clash of gender equality and tradition also comes into play at several times in the course of the film's brief love affair. All of these themes are dealt with in a wonderfully delicate way, accenting a sometimes saturnine and sometimes playful love story. Elements of Riazanov's style are reminiscent of early Soviet cinema – pressing psychological burdens, long and pregnant silences – in manner that is unfortunately sometimes alienating. The ending sequence in particular, divorced from the train station in which so much of the story occurs, is downright bizarre and troublesomely off-tempo from the rest of the film. The majority of Station for Two, however, is a well-wrought balance of social commentary and bleakly-humorous romance.
Tini zabutykh predkiv (1965)
Difficult, but complex and beautiful
Paradzhanov's Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors has a lot going on. The story is not complex – a young Ukrainian peasant (Ivan) falls in love with the daughter of the man who murdered his father, and struggles in an unhappy marriage with different woman after his love dies tragically – but it is by no means easy to watch. The cinematographic strategies ignore the standards of Socialist Realism; the shooting techniques vary wildly with each scene, and the film actually transitions to black-and-white for a period. Shots come from below the actors, high in the air, spinning with dancers or sprinting with horses. The effect is very voyeuristic; we see lovers screened through a lattice of branches and leaves, and in one scene, what appears to be a first-person shot from the eyes of the Ivan going prone at the sight of a deer is muddled when he appears in the shot, making one suddenly very aware of the cameraman's presence. This documentary feel permeates the film – the elaborate costumes, the nearly constant presence of folk music, and the extreme attentiveness to details of ritual and labor have a completely immersive effect – one gets a real sense of the village culture. Paradzhanov also has a strange predilection for recurring motifs: three horn-players are shown repeatedly, a necklace is torn from a naked chest in two different scenes, Ivan's brother and lover are buried with identical birch crosses on different hilltops. These subtle but unmistakable recurrences, tied with the progression from Ivan's childhood to adulthood, keep one mentally tied to the story, despite Ivan's general muteness. In a creative opposition to the relative lack of dialogue, Paradzhanov frequently accompanies scenes with narrative descriptions from various participants, as if talking to a friend, after the fact. The film is not without flaws; some alienating aspects of Russian avant-garde cinema are present, at certain points it is unclear how or why scenes are occurring. Intertitles are sometimes present to demystify the action, but the film is, for lack of a better word, difficult to watch. However, the beauty and attention to detail, as well as the almost astonishing variety in thematic elements and camera-work, make this film impressive and worth one's time.
Sorok pervyy (1956)
A Romantic Take on Revolutionary Film
The Forty First is pretty much a Soviet Romeo and Juliet. Romance aside, the film offers some praiseworthy elements cinematographically. While detail-oriented aspects of Soviet montage are absent, some long shots of Red soldiers stumbling through desert dunes have a desolate beauty, and scenes in a small Kazakh village are wonderfully authentic. However, bulk of the story takes place in aesthetically blank isolation, where romance and ideology can clash beyond of the confines of armed conflict. Like Chapaev, The Forty First introduces the Whites through a prisoner of war. Unlike Chapaev though, and in a step away from Stalinist film standards, the captured counterrevolutionary lieutenant is unrepentant, and yet still a sympathetic character. The Red and White forces as a whole are depicted in the typical fashion; the Whites as lofty bourgeoisie officers performing acts of unjustified brutality, the Reds as under-supplied and struggling in the face of insurmountable odds. However, the prisoner, Lieutenant Otrok, is merely a wealthy intellectual. Otrok pines for the loss of his pedagogic comfort, not the fall of the monarchical system, and in this sense he is a relatable character. He is apologetic for the conditions that caused the war, and views his captors with good natured derision rather than hatred. We are treated to a well crafted, if utterly predictable, romantic progression as the dogmatic sniper Maryutka, assigned to guard the prisoner, is slowly enchanted by Otrok's charm and intelligence. The film is not a story of bourgeois contamination, though, as Maryutka remains disgusted by the Lieutenant's detachment from the ideological issues of the revolution. The film ultimately determines that regardless of motivation and culpability, the proletariat and bourgeoisie are incompatible. Admittedly, the romantic progression at the center of The Forty First is unremarkable from a modern perspective. However, the film deserves praise for addressing the generally rigid revolutionary genre in a novel and more liberal manner.
My iz Kronshtadta (1936)
A revealing example of Stalinist cinema
We are From Kronstadt (1936) follows the story of a Baltic Fleet sailor recruited to defend the road to Kronstadt from the advancing White army during the Russian civil war. Hearkening back to many of the revolutionary films of the Soviet golden era, particular characters are de-emphasized in favor of character types and groups. However, Kronstadt completely lacks in the avant-garde style of those earlier films; the narrative is mercifully straightforward, but this comes at the cost of any originality. Save for a few touching scenes – Reds being executed by White soldiers, band members playing patriotic tunes while a battle rages around them – Kronstadt is a pretty predictable tale of an apolitical sailor who is inspired to activism by the heroic deaths of his comrades and their commissar. The film's strength derives from its (probably unintended) juxtaposition of idealism and terrible sacrifice. Akin to Battleship Potemkin, one of the opening scenes shows sailors complaining to their commissar of reduced rations, to which he responds, "Where's your revolutionary spirit?" Despite the inspirational tone, one can't help but acknowledge that these men are suffering from some of the same basic injustices for which they overthrew the imperial regime. Likewise, a scene in which injured Red soldiers are called to return to the front is deeply saddening, and manages to highlight the unfortunate deficiencies of the Red army rather than the ideological loyalty of its members. These displays of patriotism range from disturbing to ludicrous: in one scene, the Red marines are hesitant to allow a young boy to join their ranks, but concede when he claims to have fought in the revolution. These scenarios suggest that Soviet society was built on necessity and regrettable sacrifice rather than ideological and moral righteousness. It's hard to imagine that self-criticism of this kind was tolerated in the restrictive atmosphere of Stalin's cultural revolution, which brings up the ironic possibility that Kronstadt is a piece of such staunchly mainstream dogma that it has managed to become social commentary.
Arsenal (1929)
Not entertaining, but good revolutionary cinema
I'm having a difficult time coming to grips with Arsenal. The film follows a coherent narrative: a WWI soldier, Timosh, returns from the front to his hometown in Ukraine and sides with the Bolshevik workers in his former factory against a nationalistic anti-Soviet uprising. However, the story lacks narrative logic in a way that bugged me – a train carrying demobilized soldiers stops, the train is threatened by nationalist soldiers, the train starts again, the train has faulty brakes, the train crashes – scenes occur without any particular regard to the preceding context or the overall storyline. Add to this a dash of avant-garde styling – images of people apparently frozen in place, strange camera angles – and the effect is quite disorienting. Thematically and ideologically, though, the film is successful. Arsenal is remarkably even handed with regards to the conflict between the nationalists and the Bolsheviks. In one scene, a Ukrainian soldier laments "three hundred years of Russian oppression," to which a Russian soldier quite reasonably asks, "What did I do?" A frustrated peasant attacks his gaunt horse, to which the intertitles respond, "You're hitting the wrong one, Ivan." Ukrainian aggression against the Soviets is depicted as misguided, rather than malicious. All people, not just Ukrainians or Russians, are shown mourning and starving at the hands of the Germans and the negligent Tsar at the beginning of the film. Timosh's decision to side with the communists over the nationalists is not divisive; in the end he identifies himself as "a Ukrainian worker" to a nationalist squad, whose bullets he miraculously survives. Communism is universal, and the Bolsheviks do not deserve to be the target of nationalistic ire stirred by the Imperial era. The metaphor is obvious, but is refreshingly unintrusive for a revolutionary film. Arsenal is not easy to watch, but has more complexity to it than one might expect from a work of state-sanctioned cinema.
Padenie dinastii Romanovykh (1927)
Not quite propaganda, not quite documentary
Fall of the Romanov Dynasty seems to not know what it wants to be as a film. Presenting a chronological set of not uninteresting documentary footage, Dynasty fails to present historical information in anything but the most barest of terms. On the other hand, the film completely lacks in dramatization or characterization, and so apparently styles itself as a historical narrative. The entire structure of the film is characterized by strange choices. The opening sequences, comparing the lives of the aristocracy and the lower classes in Tsarist Russia, are a fine exposition, but consume a whopping third of the total screen-time without much variation. Dynasty suggests that WWI was some sort of money-making venture among the ruling classes and industrialists of Europe, which leads one to believe one is watching a work of socialist propaganda. However, when the revolution is finally reached, it is depicted almost entirely as a reactionary movement to the horrors of the war and the inabilities of the monarchy rather than an ideological battle. The images of mobilization and war are the most exciting ones, and in that sense, fail to fulfill the apparent goal of denouncing imperial injustices. Perhaps the strangest element is the choice to relegate the Bolshevik revolution to the final three minutes of the film: we see Lenin denouncing the provisional government, and then a cut to credits. It may be the case that film-goers had tired of the revolutionary story by 1927, but this eliminates what is probably the most compelling part of Russia's role in WWI. The film's strengths lie in the candid footage; we see the big names – Nicholas II, Kerensky, Lenin – in living movement, and perhaps the only view that many Russians would have gotten of them. Images of imperial and religious ceremonies are well juxtaposed with shots of toiling peasants and marching protesters in a sort of a slide show of pre- and post-revolutionary norms. On the whole, though, Fall of the Romanov Dynasty is rather directionless, and fails to either present a compelling revolutionary ideology or a historical reflection of any depth.
Po zakonu (1926)
By the Law is a good emotional exploration with some narrative issues
Lev Kuleshov's "By the Law" is a largely psychological piece that suffers from some poor narrative choices. In the film, the frustration of a group of prospectors in the Alaskan wilderness turns quickly into joviality at the discovery of gold, and then unexpectedly degrades into sudden and chaotic violence. The remainder of the story, while not thematically complex, is an exercise in emotions. Each character descends into his or her particular brand of madness, emphasized by the silent, cramped, and (due to the weather) inescapable quarters in which the majority of the film talks place. Dennin, the murderer, displays spasmodic rage, and later, acceptance, with perhaps a degree of repentance. Nelson, the group's leader, shows a righteous but disturbing form of anger against Dennin, which he expresses through strangely repetitive or violent action. Edith, his wife, remains a defender of civilized justice, but suffers the most visible strain from remaining the voice of reason, and becomes progressively more frazzled, exhausted, and prone to attacks of grief. These driving psychological themes suffer, however, from strange choices in timing and storyline. Poignant scenes that might have better established the characters' growing exhaustion and stress tend to be rushed and frantic, leaving a lot of the emotional content ungrounded. The motivation for Dennin's crime is revealed late in the film, which is an interesting choice, but it turns out to be disappointingly hollow in comparison to the emotional weight of the preceding scenes. The crushing grief Edith displays after bending her previously steadfast morals to her husband's version of trail justice is likewise frustratingly undercut by the inscrutable decision to bring Dennin back to life after his ostensible death. Overall, "By the Law" is a good piece of psychological drama, but fails to present a satisfying narrative.