A Father, running from the darkness of the past, takes his Son from Moscow to try to reach the Qırım/Crimean town of Коктебель (Koktebel, also known as Planerskoye). With no money, the winds of fate are their guides (the wind which also aids flight). The father (played by Igor Csernyevics) was a aeronautics engineer, and through the Son (Gleb Puskepalis), there is consistent reflection on the implied freedom of flight. Indeed the boy has the ability to "see from above", like a bird looking down on us.
Talking of the effortlessness of the Albatross, the future transformation of a worm into a butterfly (of which the father knows the latin name), and of the old monument to gliders at their final destination of Koktebel; the present (of no money, little food and the threats of the road), is subtely transformed into a journey of hope. The characters they meet reflect on the warmth and humanity (if not mixed with paranoia in the case of the alcoholic Dacha owner; yet even he keeps his humanity intact) that is present even in the tough, cold and harsh economic climate represented here.
The Directors, Boris Khlebnikov and Aleksei Popogrebskii, measure perfectly the rhythms needed to allow the story to grow. Using just the right blend of stoic determination and magic (magic realism anyone?) for their storytelling, I was captivated. The slight detachment from their characters, and the sparsity of emotional heaviness is perfect in maintaining and driving the metaphorical base of the film intact. As an example, the relationship that develops between the lonesome Doctor and Father, is handled in a perfectly elliptical way, we don't see but we (and the Son) understand perfectly. Indeed much of the film involes understanding without explicit instruction. The camera suggests us a direction.
And so it it is the cinematography of Shandor Berkeshi that is utterly captivating. With a warmth and patience, he gives us a Sea deep and rich with images. For example, as the Father repairs the roof of one of the characters (the alcoholic Dacha owner) they meet, he throws the old metal down to the ground. As it falls, the camera focuses on each piece as it drifts and glides to the Earth and the theme of flight and freedom implies itself against the present servitude they are performing working for some money.
The understated, patient poetry of these wonderfully delicate images gives us the guides to know the protagonists and the the journey on which they travel. The camera is used to give us suggestions, never impose on us some absolute reality; yet those suggestions are lyrical and beautiful.
I went to see Werckmeister Harmonies (directed by Béla Tarr ) with Gabriele last night. After seeing Russian Ark, and reading that Werckmeister Harmonies (based on the book "The melancholy of resistance" by László Krasznahorkai) made Russian Ark look zippy, we kind of knew what to expect. A surreal story told in black & white in a kind of Tarkovsky style - it is apparantly a zippy film for Tarr (whose last film Sátántangó was 7½ hours long) at only 145minutes (and only 39 shots!). 
The 'story' is about the slow metered inwards destruction of a small town, seen indirectly via the experiences of Janos Valushka (played by a German, Lars Rudolph) as he walks and interacts with his fellow townsfolk. He is an emotionally detached, vunerable, eccentric outsider (like a village idiot in a still emotionally detached, but clearly placed community), yet the majority of relationships shown in the film are through him. The opening scene is beautifully comic, Janos choreographs a trancendental telling of a full eclipse using drunks in a local bar - all shot in one take.
The muted and emotionally isolated equilibrium in the town is disrupted when a giant stuffed whale (being exhibited along with a circus freak called 'the Prince') arrives in the town square. The arrival of the whale at night is again shot in an amazing slow single take. The Prince is a malevolent character, who speaks of a philosohy of nihilism, and is followed by a group of desperate 'others'. The film doesn't so much tell a story, as a sequence of visual impressions give us a framework on which to construct 'our' film.
The path to destruction is patiently observered yet always inevitable. The final scenes of destruction are brutal yet beautiful. The pointlessness(circularity) of nihilism is highlighted when the violent destruction of a hospital and senseless beating of it's patients suddenly halts at the glowing vision of an old naked male patient cowering in the shower (a scene of amazing beauty). Law and order are restored in the town, yet Janos, who is always framed as the outsider of the community, seems to be the one who has paid the highest price - he goes insane. A very beautiful and elliptical film…
A brilliant interview with Béla Tarr can be found here, showing a director as hard to objectify as his films. Here is my favourite part, where the reviewers struggle, and fail spectacularly, to get what they want out of him. The whole interview is filled with these elliptical encounters:
See individual entry…FD & MLC: Thematically, your films' depiction of a world on the brink of catastrophe seems to link up with a lot of other films made lately, Pola X for example.
BT: I'm sorry, in the past four years I haven't seen anything.
FD & MLC: Yes, I know...
BT: I just wanted to tell you I know nothing...
FD & MLC: I know, but I just think there is a trend in world cinema towards this sort of existential terror and chaos.
BT: No, I just wanted to make a movie about this guy who is walking up and down the village and has seen this whale... And, you know when we are working we don't talk about any theoretical things. We only ever have practical problems. And it's the same with the writer. Mostly we just talk about life. How it's going on the street. We never talk about theoretical things. We never talk about Chaos or existential things. We just talk about someone coming into the room and he wants something and the other guy who is sitting there doesn't want these things. That's all.
When something transcends the 'intellectualisation' of that thing and reaches so very deep into the pulsing blood-red of our inside - that is art. Art isn't about accurate oil paintings of bowls of fruit, or Velázquez masturbating images of the rich and/or dwarves - it is about challenging the indescribable 'feeling' of experience. That is why paintings by the 'masters' very rarely classify as 'art' to me - and cinema is actually one of the peaks of true 'artistic' endeavour (and not only 'entertainment'). Paintings by Michelangelo and the other poster boys of 'classical art' leave me cold - we are told time-and-again that this is 'art', conditioned to restrict Duchamp's urinal to paraphernalia. Well, classical painting is the dull paraphernalia of what I consider 'true' art - and cinema sits at the core of this vision.
And so Lukas Moodysson (also the director of Together & Show me Love1), has achieved in Lilya 4-Ever a deserved claim to 'masterpiece'. I really can't overstate what a profoundly intense and fucking amazing film this is. I can't (don't want to) approach it intellectually, but it really devastated me emotionally.
It is the story of Lilya (Oksana Akinshina), a 16 year girl in Russia, and her slow slide into prostitution and eventual trafficking to a pimp in Sweden. Core to the film is the desperate and tender friendship with a younger boy, Volodya (Artiom Bogucharsky), who often sleeps on the street because of the whims of an abusive father. I won't really objectify the film into description - it is a film to be felt - combining a transcendent poetry with the raw bloody viscera of reality. It is wonderfully directed and structured, brilliantly acted and flawless in so many ways.
Yolanda (my friend whose MSc dissertation will be on trafficking of women) pointed out (rightly) that the film is probably not representative of many women's experiences of sex-trafficking. Many trafficked sex-workers often live together and have this as a kind of support network, something that Lilya never experiences. I agree it may not be representative, yet this film is about the experience of one girl, and was not for me a film whose aim was overtly 'political' (unlike In This World ), but it was a portrait of a life, a fellow being. It was, from my point above, a real and profound portrait, not like the trivial craftsmanship2 of Raphael, but of the true kind of transcendental art.
1 See an Interview with him here
2 A substantial body of 'classical art' for me is 'just' craftsmanship. Technically impressive and pleasing to the eye - but as reflections that deeply touch us inside and make us think about or challenge our existence (my claim to true art), they fail miserably.
3 Here is a brief sketch I wrote last night in my diary: it is a profound and intense masterpiece. Combining transcendent poetry with the raw bloody viscera of reality - it is a true work of art. Like all such peaks, it has the ability to pierce deep into your heart, and therefore be very disturbing. But the poetry flowing through the film elevates it SO very far above the usual emotional 'shock-tactics' of contrived Hollywood tear-jerkers. A true and profound treasure!
See individual entry…[1] Whereas the real distinction between political or economic immigration is often deeply blurred
[2] Reviled by ignorant xenophobes of course - and sentiments amplified exponentially by the press in baseless and hateful flurries of articles. See individual entry…