Night Watch

HELL YES!!! Ok, now that I have admitted my nerdy unrequited love of the fantasy/scifi genre we can move on. What was most interesting about Night Watch was how it differed from the established fantasy thrillers in cinema, especially the powerhouse Hollywood blockbusters. Most obvious is the fact that, at least in this film, the bad guys win. If there is one true rule of the fantasy genre, it is the good guys have to win. The fantasy genre thrives on the sorts of cultural archetypes that have grown into euphemisms and mentalities in our cultures, the white knight must always triumph over the black knight, etc (admittedly, I don't know a lot about Russian folk tales or myths, so I can't really set up a paradigm for thinking about archetypes in Russian culture). This is why I find the film so interesting, it takes what we think we know about fantasy adventure movies or stories and turns it on its ear.

The "Warriors of light", the good guys in the film, are sneaky bureaucrats who work in the shadows and licence the very evil they seek to destroy, all in the name of balance. It is no surprise that we do not hear one of the night watch espousing the virtue of good over evil, they instead regurgitate the mantra "its our job". It would probably be a little far-stretching to say that the bureaucracy of the night watch and the battle of good and evil is satire for Russia's social situation at the end of the 20th century, but it is not hard to imagine that the film takes on the cultural aspects of the society in which it was created.

Moving on to Anton, the main character, the hero... the white knight. Anton is a semi-violent drunk, who in order to get his wife back tried to murder his unborn child with the help of a witch... frankly if he was not the character most on screen, we would assume him to be the villain. He is in fact the impetus to the breaking of the one true archetypal rule of fantasy film; it is his betrayal of his son that eventually causes the boy to join the warriors of dark and tip the balance in favor of evil. Anton is not completely evil, he does have compassion for people and his recently realized son, its just that his choices have condemned him to be the harbinger of doom.

Ultimately, I liked it, and I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that it did invert the fantasy paradigm. On a minor note, the plot tends to jump at a few points, which is a little characteristic of many Russian films, you have to get used to not being spoon fed the plot. Also, you can definitely see the trend in Russian film to look like it was made ten years prior than its release date. But if you can get past the graphics and plot jumps, its a pretty good movie (but keep in mind that I love that great cinematic milestone and pinnacle of film achievement "Krull").

The Return

Ok, so here's what's what, I'm torn on this movie's interpretation, so let's get the basic stuff out of the way. First the "visual quotes" from Tarkovsky. Water is the defining element to this film, bordering on the obsessive. The sight of it, the sounds of it, the water's movement all create the perpetual water motif in The Return, the movie involves itself with so much water that by the end of the film even the audience feels just a little soggy. Whether this is a concrete metaphor or more of a Tarkovsky-esque nature theme is a little hard to discern, the water could be a metaphor for emotion, possibly fear or sadness in particular. It may also be an emulation for those emotions already being experienced by the main character Ivan. Then again, it could just be water.
Now, moving on to the father. This character is enigmatic, on one hand his cruelty to his sons is inexcusable, but on the other he seems to have squeezed 12 years worth of parenting into the course of a few days. Keeping in mind the end sequence when Ivan and Andrei must drag their father's body back to the car, all the skills they use from the point of the father's death are from lessons he himself taught them. Even certain lines of dialogue are used in refrain, like "with our little hands". It is obvious that the father did not nurture his sons on their journey (which was really just his journey, although we don't know for what, suggesting possibly that parenting his children was the last phase of his journey and he was meant to die), but he did instill them, however harshly, with certain values that resonate at the end of the film once the boys have to fend for themselves. So even though he was the biggest ass-hole dad of all time, he was still a dad.

Brother

Aleksei Balabanov's Brother marks Russian cinema's first foray into the mafia/gangster genre, and Sergei Bodrov's Danila contends with many classic film mobsters. His arrival in St. Petersburg is sort of vague, we understand that Danila was a soldier doing some kind of war, and although he claims to have been a clerk at HQ, his familiarity with violence and guns seems to suggest otherwise. He is in this sense enigmatic, he is a kind, genuine, and generally amiable character who just happens to be good at violence. This is ironic then that his brother is the contract killer, when his brother is mean and apparently horrible at killing people. First, Viktor is not seen actually killing anyone throughout the entirety of the film, and gives all of his assignments to Danila; second, he sells Danila out to Kruglyi. I think Danila could best be characterized as initially apathetic (aside from his love for music), just doing things for his brother because they are brothers, not because he likes killing. He merely does the things that he is good at, and it really isn't until the end of the film when he makes a choice to continue people when he begins hitchhiking to Moscow. Keep in mind that all the killing he has done so far (and really everything else he has done so far) has been reactionary, the assinations are done for his brother, and the extra killings of other hitmen are done for the safety of people he meets and cares about, even his defense of Sveta is because her husband beats her, which actually suggests a moral code for Danila, which is in turn supported by his love for his family. To put a capstone on it, Danila Bagrov is like Michael Corleone on steroids and with an itchier trigger finger.

Little Vera

Pichul's Little Vera takes place in the starkly different Perestroika period. Amidst the crumbling of the Soviet Union we follow the life of the titular protagonist Vera and her struggle to fit with her surroundings. Prof. Isham asks in the prompt to this blog if we can call Vera a heroine, and the answer is yes. Although she is not necessarily a perfect character (she's disrespectful, impulsive, and dismissive), she induces that sort of mixture of admiration and pity which we often find in tragic heroes in literature. We are meant to understand her desire to be her own person (whether or not we like the person she is becoming is ultimately irrelevant). It would be a little cliche to say that Vera is a product of her environment, but it is not difficult to she how an impoversihed dysfunctional family coupled with a lack of direction in her countries social structure have lead Vera into a problematic life situation. This film is also presented as much grittier than other films we have watched (Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears, Irony of Fate) even when tey are temporally similar, this add to the dismal gritty realism that Pichul is trying to portray.
But what I found most singularly interesting about this film is when Vera attempts suicide. I personally found myself hoping she would succeed in her attempt, yes she would be dead, but she would be free of her f*#$@ed up situation (and yes, that is the only way to describe it). So I suppose the tragedy of the whole situation is that she has to live to deal with the seemingly unmerited circumstances of her own life.

Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears

Vladimir Menshov's Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears is the story of the factory worker Katya and her abrupt transformation into adulthood upon the birth of her illegitimate child. The film depicts Katya as the moderate character between two extremes. Antonina, who is loyal, caring, and in a steady marriage through most of the film, and Liudmila, who is somewhat of a gold digger and is constantly scheming to find a wealthy well-to-do husband. These two characters represent the extremes in which Katya fluctuates, the boring or the scheming (the irony being that she reaps the benefits of neither lifestyle and ends up with a fatherless child because of Liudmila's schemes).
The transition in time for the film also gives insight into the collective mentalities of the film concerning both the thaw and the era of stagnation. It is evident at the beginning of the film that all the characters are filled with dreams and hope, and this is amplified by their youth. The second part of the film deals with the realization that all the dreams were ultimately illusions. In this regard Katya has the distinct advantage of finding out early that her dreams were illusory, and this might account for her success (at least socially) in the second half of the film. It would appear that this film impresses itself with idea that the era of stagnation was a time of realization for people and in the case of Katya it would be the triumph of personal happiness over the choices of her past.

Ivan's Childhood

The most impressive part of Ivan's Childhood was really the most impressive part Tarkovsky's films in general, his ability to recapture reality. We saw in Mirror, Tarkovsky's lack of the Socialist Realist imagery or message that had dominated Russian cinema, and this trend id really perfected in Ivan's Childhood. Tarkovsky's depiction of Ivan is problematic in this way, as I wrote in my paper for this class (and yes, this is blog cheating, but I don't care). Ivan's Childhood could be seen as anti-Nazi or anti-war, but what seems more poignant in this film is Tarkovsky's recapturing of the dismal situational aspects of war in general, otherwise he would probably not show his protagonist as a strong-willed, and almost unstoppable character, but rather as an unwitting victim (although in the case of Ivan it is probably both). This attempt to capture reality by the director then really has no message itself; it only has the message which we, the audience, project onto it. Tarkovsky's film is not anti-Nazi or anti-war, but instead it would be more fitting to say that we ourselves are anti-Nazi or that the war itself is anti-war through the progression of its own atrocities.

Mirror

Ok, so this one was tough. I could try and make some broad sweeping analysis, but it would be shallow and most likely wrong. So instead here's what I can figure out...

- The main character is one actress playing both Alyosha's mother and wife.
- Tarkovsky is playing with major elemental imagery using water, fire, wind, and earth. (but I can't seem to figure out what it means exactly)
- The sequences in black and white are either dreams or bridges between the "mother" and "wife" phases of the main character.

... I know, its not a lot, but the only analysis I can offer is that the lives of the two women (wife and mother) are mirrors of each other, especially concerning Alyosha.

Ballad of a Soldier

Grigori Chukhrai's Ballad of a Soldier marks a transition (at least in the scope of this course) from the ideologically heavy Socialist realist films under Stalin to something more individualist. The focus of this film is simply Alyosha. This is not to say that Alyosha is not representative of anything, but we'll get to that in a moment. Alyosha's journey home becomes a mechanism for discovering the character, his qualities and naivete. Alyosha is simple and honest, and ultimately just desires to not be where he is, namely the war. Ballad is so personal and focused on Alyosha that it would be difficult to identify the trademark propagandist elements found in the Socialist realist. So in this sense this film is more about the actual reality rather than the Socialist reality, and to that end it is wonderful. We love Alyosha, we identify with his honesty and strength in the midst of WWII. But this film is really not pure entertainment as a lack of propaganda would imply. The message lies with the strength of the human spirit. Through Alyosha we can see that the Soviet Union would have to be driven by its people instead of its ideologies, that its would be the strength of character that would support the ideas and not the other way around. Through Alyosha's exploits, helping the wounded soldier, delivering (and then un-delivering) the soap, his devotion and love of Shura, we can understand the true aims of the Russian people.
Overall, this film encapsulates the tragedies of war on a world scale. Alyosha's struggle is indicative of all soldiers in war, not just Russian soldiers. He only wants to be home with his family, and then he becomes a victim of his own good nature, suggesting that suffering belongs to people like Alyosha or even Shura who are ultimately products of a indiscriminate war torn society, uncaring of even good people.

Ivan the Terrible, Part 1

What I found most fascinating about Eisenstein's Ivan was how the director, Eisenstien (who became famous for his work in silent cinema) transitioned into talking pictures. It was as though the film held fast to the most prominent elements of silent film and adapted them to a film with sound. Take for instance the scene in which we are to believe that Ivan is on his death bed, the movements of his eyes and the expression of his face make words almost superfluous, and this type of acting and staging will continue throughout the film.
Eisenstein does use his signature symbolism in this film when he shoots large seemingly endless lines of people walking and trademark shots of cannons, but my personal favorite bit of symbolism was by far the chess theme. A chess board only appears once in the film while Ivan contemplates his strategy alone with his shadow cast over the room, but the idea of chess is recurrent. Returning to the scene of Ivan's deathbed we can see through the coloring of clothing (even though the film is black and white) how Anastasia, in white, defends Ivan while the matriarch of the Boyars, in black, stands menacingly. As though it were a face off, white queen versus black queen. Its is also interesting to note in this scene that Kurbsky wears white. Some interpretations suggest that he is against Ivan from the beginning, but if he is wearing white in this scene, it suggest that he is on Ivan's side, making the betrayal of the white knight all the more poignant.

Burnt by the Sun

Interpretation of Nikita Mikhalkov's Burnt by the Sun really must begin after the film itself has ended, when the director dedicates the film to "all those who were burnt by the sun of the revolution". This homage to the tragic byproducts of Soviet rule in Russia is largely driven by its characters, with the focus of course being Kotov and Mitya. Although we do not realize it initially, Kotov is the hero, not the charismatic Mitya. Col. Kotov is a kind, loving, family man, who cares for the people around him as exemplified through his interactions with his family and more particularly when he stops the military from running through the peasants' wheat fields. He is the ideal symbol for the Socialist realist aesthetic, a man of the people who's loyalty is to the Soviet party, and as such he has prospered. Aside, of course, from being a hero.
Mitya on the other hand is more complex. He is also a byproduct of the revolution, but he is representative of the darker necessity driving the Soviet regime. We come to understand during the film that Mitya was the former lover of Marusia and that for an unknown reason he was forced to leave many years prior and somehow Kotov was involved. Although Mitya appears to be bright and cheery, but we come to realize that he is only momentarily relishing in the life he feels should have been his own, and to add insult to injury the man whose life it actually is had something to do with Mitya's having to leave. Mitya's involvement in counter-espionage ultimately forces him to bring in Kotov, but you can not really sense malice or disdain for Kotov in Mitya, which implies that Mitya is not necessarily the villain. The true villain is, as we learn when the banner of Stalin's face rises from the hill at the end, is the system itself. The level of paranoia created by Stalin's Soviet regime causes it to turn eve on its most decorated heroes. The floating sun is at this point just the symbolic manifestation of this paranoia, for as glorious as the revolution was, so the dysfunction of the system increased.

Circus

As far as comedy from the 30's goes, Grigory Alexandrov's Circus seems pretty standard, which is actually kind of interesting given its status as a Socialist Realist film. Most of the film seems to lack the ideal Soviet imagery that consumed Chapaev, until the end which in a way seems tacked on to appease the Soviet film committees. The comedy of Circus seems pretty universal (until the last ten minutes of the film) which is strange because there does not appear to be clear propagandist content (again, until the end). One would have expected the film to be funny, so as to appeal to audiences, but not so whimsical that it leaves out the Socialist ideology that was required of Soviet films at the time. Until the end of the film this is the case.
Now to the last ten minutes. What the film initially lacks in Soviet imagery it more than makes up for the thick Propaganda of the last ten minutes, in which Von Kneishitz outs Mary as having a biracial child, claiming that neither she nor her child are fit for "civilized society". The comes the Russian audience's protection of the child, Martinov's unhindered love for Mary, and of course a parade celebrating the racial acceptance of the Soviet Union (which makes perfect sense). The message is obvious, in fact it is painfully so, the Soviet Union does not suffer from the debilitating racial issues that either Germany or even America did. This is in a sense ironic because where we can see huge strides from the Soviets in social equality in terms of race and even gender if we look back to Vertov, but Circus was released in the midst of Stalin's midnight van visits and forced vacations to Siberia. All in all the film is a delightful little comedy, not cutting edge, but amusing and cute with a strong Soviet message tacked to the end.

Chapaev

The appeal of the Vasilev brother's Chapaev takes root in its ability to reconcile the entertainment and propagandist aspects of its own creation. As the readings have stated, most Soviet propaganda project were rejected by the masses in favor of more character driven comic or lighthearted fare. The fundamental problem was of course that by 1934, when Chapaev was released, the government had strict policy involving the propaganda content of film. What this film did was to establish the protagonist as a man of the people, the relatability of Vasily Chapaev must certainly have appealed to the lower classes (the bread and butter of the revolution). When asked about his political persuasions he replies, somewhat flustered, "I am for the right [political party]." surely no one could have exemplified the Russian worker better than Chapaev, and when partnered with his Comissar Furmanov, the audience sees the success of both tactic and character in their now beloved commander. Or to put it into its propagandists formula, the uneducated Russian peasantry will prosper in all ways once the ideals of the socialist Soviet regime are accepted. Propaganda fulfilled. But this does not stop Chapaev from being a character driven war drama, with the admirability of its protagonist, the simple honest love story of the idealized Soviet youth found in Petka and Anka, or the undeniably villainry of white army Colonel Borozdin.
Although this could all be superfluous in the face of the fact that this film had sound. Characters could now talk to each other, and although this may have forsaken the necessary imagery and subtle body language of silent film, dialogue is frankly more relatable.

Man with the Movie Camera

To say that this film was avante garde would probably be a bit of an understatement, especially for the 1920's. Vertov's Man with the Movie Camera is a dizzying sequence of polarized Soviet imagery set to the increasing tempo of the directors apparent musical notation. The first thing that struck me was actually the use of music in the film. Although the music was recorded by a modern orchestra, the score was apparently based on Vertov's notes; what struck me the most about the music was the use of tempo in corellation top the montage of the film. Vertov structures the film by starting out slowly, using the tempo of the quintesssential Russian city to time his film, and gradually building to a manic pace until the montage collapses and the film begins again with a differrent series of images.
Vertov's juxtaposition of images, such as excessive drinking with hard work, sets up a paradigm for viewing the film, excessive burgeois activity with righteous communist activity. these images compete against ech other while the tempo increases until, as the score suggests, they become manic and collapse; as though pre and post soviet Russia can not coesxist without destruction.
The setting of this film also gives a sort of universality to Man with the Movie Camera, the sort of non descript city with the everyday occurences does not seem stereotypically Russian, which really adds to the propagandist intent since the Soviets saw their revolution as the revolution of all societies.
Ultimately, the purpose of this film seems to be to bombard the audience with the constant movement of imagery, taking the idea of montage to its extreme; effective, but a little intense.

Battleship Potemkin

What I found most interesting about Battleship Potemkin was the massive leap in cinematography. I could not have (nor am I sure that anyone could have) anticipated the difference montage made in cinema. After watching Bauer's films, with the long drawn out scenes in stationary sets, and camera unmoving, the switch to Eisenstein's Battleship is like night and day. The ability to splice smaller shots into bigger sequences must have left the film community where montage had been all its life. This not so surprisingly in turn enhances other aspects of the film. The film becomes easier to watch when better cinematographic techniques are employed (keeping in mind that montage is only one of these), and because it is easier to watch it is more entertaining, and because it is more entertaining it is easier to convey a message, which, especially in the case of Battleship Potemkin, makes propaganda (if included) more effective. When we are not forced to follow the same scene for an extended period of time, we are able to get a fuller more multifaceted impression of the film. Shots of the ship moving in relation to the water, multiple camera angles, and especially shots of character's faces (particularly important in a silent film where facial expressions can take the place of words) increase the illusion of reality which allows the viewer to enter the world of the film instead of looking at it through a lens. This is not to say that we are seeing a complete world, we still in fact only seeing what the director wants us to see, primarily because they were created for that express purpose, which is probably what ultimately separates film from reality. But then again it is the directorial choices that create an effective propagandistic tool, and when the viewer is entertained it is easier to make that impression, as the Soviets learned the hard way when their initial propaganda films were unpopular.
Overall, Battleship Potemkin is a film that we can buy into, or more to the point perceive as a suitable mock up of reality. This allows a smoother transition between the aforementioned factors of film, with each one enhancing the others.

Evgeni Bauer: Child of the Big City

Evgeni Bauer's Child of the Big City tells the story of Mary an orphaned seamstress who is pursued by Viktor and Kramskoi, two "well-to-do" young men who vie for her affection. It is unclear initially whether Kramskoi is interested in Mary and is just extremely forward, or whether he is in some way trying to assist Viktor by playing the villain in the restaraunt, either way Mary ends up with Viktor. When Viktor is ruined financially by Mary's new found extravagant lifestyle, Mary leaves him in favor of a man we are lead to believe was a servant or at least a lackey of Viktor. The film culminates in a letter written to Mary by Viktor asking to see her just one more time, she crumples up the letter and the film ends with Mary stepping over Viktor's body in the gutter.
Bauer's statement about the corrupting nature of wealth is typified in his characterizations of Viktor and Mary; Viktor who is wealthy only desires the simplicity and genuine nature of the formerly lower class Mary, who when given the wealth that would elevate her from the working classes turns her back on Viktor's love. The irony is in this sense tragic, and further amplified by the fact that the protagonist's name is derivative of victory when he is in fact the loser.
Since the film is silent there is of course no dialogue, making a little difficult to understand the exact circumstances of the scene, for example it is difficult to understand the relationship between Viktor and Kramskoi. Since we can not hear the words the say to each other, we may only judge their relationship by how they interact, and although it seems like Kramskoi gives Viktor a hard time regarding his love life in the beginning, Viktor still dines with him. This really speaks to the nature of silent film, while we normally rely on the images on the screen as the primary form of perception in movies, the importance of dialogue as well as sound must not be understated. This being said, the lack of sound in Child of the Big City creates the necessity of reading body language and facial expressions. This type of viewing involves something more creative about the watching process, we must imagine the dialogue, the ambient noise, even the voices of the characters in order to complete the scene. In this sense there is less about the film that we dislike, barring overly large movements, odd facial expressions, or poor set choices (which are really the challenge of the director, although probably more difficult in a silent film). We really only have to contend with the aspects of the film that we ourselves create in our minds, and in this sense we become part of the movie.

Irony of Fate Part 2 and Kenez ch. 1

My overall impressions of Irony of Fate remains about the same as my impressions of the first part. The comedy stems from the issue of mistaken geography, namely that Zhenya lives in Moscow while Nadya lives in Leningrad; if, as the title implies and the end of the film illustrates, their relationship is fated to be, then the identical suburban layouts of Soviet Russia, which from the beginning lines of the film are (however tamely) being prodded at. The film maintains some of the standard comic elements of what would be called romantic comedy in America, wherein the two romantic leads turn loathing into love, while maintaining the somewhat hollow illusion that they will not, in fact, end up together. This then becomes reminiscent of the reading from Kenez where he discusses the trend in early Russian cinema away from happy endings. Irony of Fate drags a little during the second part where it ditches the comedy in favor of the more dramatic interchanges between Zhenya and Nadya, but seems to return full circle to the type of comedy exemplified early in the film, using Zhenya's friends as the mechanism for a more straightforward comedy, but in doing so it illustrates the major comedic refrains that dominate the film both in dialogue and circumstance.

And now on to something almost completely different...

We can see in the first chapter of Kenez the middle class and democratic tendencies of early Russian films, and although this probably did not constitute a precursor to the socialist revolution, it is possible that the culture of these early films revealed something characteristic about the Russian people. This chapter also shows the sort of international nature of film culture, and although the subject matter may be germane to each individual nation like Russia, film tied all of these individual cultures together through people's desire to watch movies.

p.s. The guy who plays Zhenya looks like the love child of Dana Carvey and Sting.

Testing the waters

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