Allegra’s Blog

I’m glad we got to see at least one Russian comedy. As with many of the films we’ve seen, including The Thief and The Return, plot is not a driving force in this movie. The story focuses instead on the love triangle between Anni, Veikko, and Ivan, and on capturing the exquisite beauty of the Northern Russian countryside. For once in Russian film we are presented with a female character who is not a prostitute, needy girlfriend, or worried mother, but rather is strong, independent, and capable of choosing to love whomever she likes. The lightness of the dialogue and the comedic device of having the three characters speak different languages is counteracted by the cold color palette and sparse, etheral musical soundtrack.

Overall, I liked The Italian. The film is visually compelling (the shots of the orphanage at night are particularly starkly beautiful) and Kolya Spiridinov (Vanya) is a wonderful actor. I love how Russian child actors manage to be serious and adorable at the same time, something the cloyingly cute kids from American Welch’s grape juice commercials or primetime sitcoms don’t seem to have mastered. The only thing that annoyed me about the movie was the ending. Even though we’re all a bit worn-down from all the depressing dead mother, abusive father, unrequited love storylines, this ending was just stock Hollywood material that was so not in keeping with the rest of the film. Even considering that Vanya might be inventing his happy ending (a la Grisha from Mars), it just seemed like a last ditch effort on the part of the director to make this troubling story of a devastating, real problem in Russia appealing to Western audiences.

Maybe I’m just not much of a vampire movie person, but I was not a fan of Night Watch. It was a fun movie to watch in class and appropriate for the holiday but it was definitely not the sort of movie I would watch on my own time. It was unnecessarily gory and had an absurdly bad soundtrack. The semi-incoherent plot seemed like a ripoff of every other mediocre science-fiction/horror bad guys versus good guys story. The fast-paced shots, such as those of the inside of the locked door of the witch’s apartment in the beginning of the film and the flashback scenes that Anton has of seeing Svetlana on the train seemed silly and overwrought. Certain scenes, like when Anton drinks the pigs blood in the walk-in freezer, the spare shots of the apartment projects where Svetlana lives, and the vampiress whispering to the little boy from her hiding place on the roof were visually affecting and managed to be truly creepy. For the most part, however, the movie seemed to rest on the crutches of the fantasy action Blockbuster–unnecessary, expensive production, overuse of CGI, drawn out and uncreative fight scenes–without providing any artistic innovation, good acting, or an interesting storyline to keep the audience interested for the entire 115 minutes. Fantasy action done well can be amazing, as it is in the movies Night Watch borrows so heavily from–Lord of the Rings and Star Wars–but the entire reason those movies work is that the directors created a believable, self-contained universe that allows the viewer get wrapped up in the story and in this respect, Bekmambatov kind of failed.

What I found most notable while watching the film was how un-Russian in spirit it seemed. It’s possible that the 1990s post-Soviet period of chernuxa in film was just particularly dark, but this combination of a loose storyline and playfully quirky moments of surreality seem very Western and removed from the drama and misery of abusive fathers and the devastation of war. The odd but beautiful self-contained world that Anna Melikian creates in the town of Mars reminded me of the green-tinted world of Amelie, the title figure in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 2001 film and the bizarrely funny dream sequences from Michele Gondry’s 2005 film The Science of Sleep. Melikian is very likely aware of these other works and with this movie, she is bringing this new cinematic sensibility to her country.

Mars is a comedy, of sorts, but it’s also a movie about dissatisfaction and feeling misunderstood. This is primarily evident in the case of Greta. She is desperately bored by the small town she lives in and feels trapped by the job she inherited. She’s eager for exploration and longingly asks Boris about the places to which he’s traveled. When she’s describing how her mother believed she was going to die in a freak accident she said, “I don’t want a brick, I want the whole building.” Although the film is lighthearted in nature, the emotions being expressed by the characters are deep, true, and complex. Even though Boris tells Greta that he is a boxer because he loves the sport, he simply isn’t any good and seems constantly disappointed by his weak performances in the ring. Lyuda, the aging beauty, knows she’ll never really go to Moscow to meet Putin. The trains speeding by the town are not vehicles of escape as they are in films like The Thief, but constant reminders of the thrilling modern world that continues to evolve and move forward while the town of Mars looks on longingly, blanketed in a thick coat of powdery snow and make-believe.

The Land of The Deaf is considered lighter fare for this course, which really just means that none of the main characters die and there are no rapes or botched abortions, but it still portrays modern Russia as bleak, harsh, and spiritually bankrupt. All of the men are disgusting pigs (literally in the case of Hog) and women are only empowered if they tart themselves up and use their looks to manipulate men. YaYa and Alyosha are frighteningly self-involved and insensitive to consquences, and Rita, the only remotely innocent one, is used by everyone around her. As entertaining and fascinatingly bizarre as The Land of The Deaf is, I found that its combination of gangster film, dramatic, and art house elements to be mashed together in a way that would appeal to a very narrow audience. The movie didn’t seem to know what it wanted to be which made the second half in particular seem to drag, despite the fast pacing.

I enjoyed the movie, if only because it allowed us to see another style of Russian filmmaking besides long, teary epics. For all that critics may harp on Bodrov’s wooden acting and lack of depth, he seems comfortable behind the camera and manages to make his flawed, boyish characters seem sympathetic and human.

One of my favorite things about the film was the soundtrack. I liked how the repetition of songs and the loose, circular composition of many of the Nautilus Pompilius songs added to the dreamlike, surreal feel of Danila’s St. Petersburg. The soundtrack was also woven in smoothly and in interesting ways, such as the concert and Danila putting a record on at the apartment where they hold the men hostage.

Brother does fail at creating believable relationships. The significance of his underdeveloped relationship with the German and his fling with Sveta are shoved down the audience’s throat within minutes of Danila’s meeting these characters. Delving into the personal connections between the characters would have elevated the film from a stereotypical gangster flick to a far more interesting and mature movie.

The acting in The Thief was phenomenal. Misha Philipchuck’s portrayalof Sanya shows how trusting and naive little kids are, in terms of his eagerness to follow in Tolyan’s footsteps and his believing that Stalin is Tolyan’s real father. The bustle and excitement and sense of unease that Chukraj creates by constantly uprooting the “family” and having many key scenes filmed on trains also seems filtered through the eyes of a child. Sanya is too small to comprehend the strained relationship between his mother and Tolyan or why they must move from city to city but he knows there’s something off. His uncertainty and fear lend the film an enduring sense of dread and the feeling that the lives of the three main characters are steadily careening out of control. The ending brings to fruition all of Sanya’s worst nightmares.

My only problem with the film was the ending, not because it was bleak, but because it was unsatisfyingly abrupt. Since Chukraj bothered to show Sanya as a young adult and stage the reunion scene between him and Tolyan, it seemed odd to just end it there. Sanya’s murder of Tolyan brought the viewer no satisfaction.