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My loyal translator who helps me to translate my reviews from russian: Marina Kuprina (Mari.533@mail.ru).
Reviews
Eto Edik. Skazka o podarennom i ukradennom detstve (2020)
The inside world of an artist
The main theme of the film is a confrontation between the artist, Eduard Uspensky, and the outside world. We are shown Uspensky's conflict with Souyzmultfilm (The Union Cartoon studio), the Soviet regime and children's writers who used workarounds so that their works could be published freely and not get censured. His difficult childhood helped him identify his calling and influenced his relationships. We see the artist in a paradoxical manner as both a storyteller who created whole worlds and a miserable man who fought fiercely for his works, became obsessed with money at the end of his life and had bad relationships with his daughters and all three wives.
The plot is rather coherent. The film is divided into chapters; it starts with the chapter named "Son, I Don't Love You" and ends with the chapter "The Last War". Some of the chapters, "Money" and "The Sect", focus on the writer's addictions. He even dragged his daughter into a religious sect thus hurting her mental state. The review of his personal life consists of the three last chapters which may be symbolic of the little value Uspensky placed on his relationships. The worlds he created on paper and battled for were much more important to him.
The creators of the film take an unconventional approach to shooting interviews that are stylised in one manner. For example, before each interview with people close to Uspensky we see titles with their short names written on screen. The characters behave in a childlike manner and the interviewer sometimes asks silly questions like "Does art end at the point where money come into play?", the answer to which seems obvious. I assume these childish questions are also a stylistic solution.
The authors use interviews with Uspensky and show a puppet of Edik "coming to life" and answering the questions. Puppet animation plays an important role here, it illustrates conflicts and shows up in interviews, the puppet ages and changes with time. In the sect part the puppet Edik and Stolbun are similar to each other which symbolize the writer's dark side, his inner flaws which had made him treat his daughter like he did.
The camera uses dynamic footage, filming through mirrors and other objects, experiments with focus and exposure. This leaves an impression of restless exploration of the world. The newsreel combines with puppet animation and modern shots. There are interesting scenes like the one in which we see a newsreel being watched by a puppet on TV. Voice-overs usually comment on the events in a humorous way.
The editing is also dynamic, sometimes it uses clipping. The tempo-rhythm immerses you in the film from the very beginning until the end, filling every second with new details, associations, symbols and metaphors.
The music sets the mood turning melancholic or joyful to anxious. It doesn't take up more attention than necessary and embellishes the film instead. Sound and noise effects create new meaning or change the mood, e.g. During archival footage.
Vash syn i brat (1966)
The big heart of the Russian folk
A film by a Soviet writer and director Vasily Shukshin "Your son and brother" was released in 1966. The plot has three parts each of which is connected to the previous one and to the first. The film is an adaptation of Shukshin's stories and tells us about a family. The parents, their son Vasily and daughter Vera live in a village, two other sons, Maxim and Ignat, live in Moscow and another one, Stepan, flees prison. The film starts with country scenes. Stepan escapes and his family celebrates his return without knowing it's illegal. A policeman comes for him, takes him back and the only one who sees that is the dumb sister Vera. The action moves to the city where Maxim gets a letter from his mother saying she has sciatica and asking him to buy snake venom. He runs all over the pharmacies but can't find the medicine or buy it over the counter. Maxim comes to the hospital to get the prescription but still can't get the drug and finally the head of the hospital decides to help him. The last part takes us back to the village. Ignat and his wife come to visit the family and bring everyone gifts and medicine for the mother. At the end a letter from Stepan arrives which says he is probably going to be released soon.
Shukshin's characters are simple and frank. There are no complex individual portraits, only a diverse portrait of folk. That diversity is where conflicts stem from - the conflicts of village and city, of fathers and children. They are reflected in Ignat's dialogue with his father - the father wants him to live and help him in the village while Ignat doesn't want to move out of Moscow.
Moving on to technical details. The majority of the scenes is shot on location in village. The camera is always in motion, following the characters and showing rural views. There are a lot of scenes shot in one take. We see symmetry and positioning in the frame which is made with the help of the interior (doorways, a woodstove, curtains, windows, etc). For example, there is a scene in a bathhouse where one of the characters stands in the foreground and the other is far from him and that positioning creates depth. In the final scene the camera moves continually from one character to another stopping only at Stepan's letter. There are almost no details, only master shots, medium shots and close-ups to communicate emotional states, e.g., in the scene where Vera sees Stepan being taken back to prison. The scenes of the village and the city are different in color shade and light. In the village scenes gray is more pale and pastel in tone which adds more light. The film also uses voice-over, e.g. In the scene of Maxim and father talking about the medicine. The editing tells a story, it is narrative and also parallel in some scenes like those with Maxim, Ignat and his wife. The overall pace of the film is even and slow, as if time has been stretched out. Unlike most Soviet 1930-40s films, the World War and love themes aren't present here. The film shows a life of regular Russian people, each with their own problems, people who aren't burdened by dreams about the unattainable.
Die große Ekstase des Bildschnitzers Steiner (1974)
I ought to be all alone in the world
"The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner" was released in 1974. According to the sources, Herzog saw Walter Steiner on TV after his taking the last place in a ski jumping competition and decided to make a movie about him in which Steiner won the world championship. And it was possibly the filming that made Walter win.
The name of the movie refers to a woodcarver, however the movie shows ski jumping -- Steiner's main activity which he devoted his whole life to. It is shot as footage and the director sometimes appears on camera to comment on what's happening. There is an interview with the character which reveals much about Walter as a person as well as a jumper. The movie is centered on a big event, the world championship in Yugoslavia. Before that we are shown Walter's preparation, dozens of bad jumps and injuries - he even goes to the competition having just recovered from one of them. The culminating point is Walter's three jumps at the championship. The first one is preparatory and successful, and then he gets a small injury during the second one which makes him wonder if he is able to perform once more. Still, he makes the final jump only to not frame Yugoslavia and to prove to himself he can do it.
Walter Steiner is the kind of man who doesn't care about the result. He says he could have jumped higher but knew life can't be exchanged for a record. For Steiner it is the moment of flying that is most important and not the result he gets. He even jokes that they want him to beat the record and jump higher and higher every time but he lowers his standards instead.
Herzog shows a lot of failed jumps of other sportsmen before Walter's performance. These shots terrify and make us ask ourselves if this is going to happen to our character as well But the ending shows that Walter's perseverance is not in vain - he leaves Yugoslavia having not only won the world championship but also overcome himself.
At the end Steiner tells a story about a little raven who he was raising as a child. Every day Steiner watched other birds mock the raven for having lost the ability to fly and he had to shoot him. This story is highly symbolic because Steiner would have never forgiven himself if he wasn't able to jump. He only gets the sense of absolute freedom from jumping. This state is his ecstasy. He says, "I ought to be all alone in the world, just me, Steiner, and no other living thing".
After the film we start to understand why he is also fond of woodcarving - he is moved by forms, grace and curves. A beautiful figure comes out from an unshaped log, it breaks free just like Steiner finds freedom during a jump.
As for the techniques used, slow motion is worth noting; using it Herzog shows every single movement of the jumper, his total focus and tension in the whole body just before the landing. The shots are sometimes hand-held which creates the effect of presence. Soulful music sets the mood but isn't very noticeable by itself.
The method of filming involves experiencing dramatic situations along with the character. The camera allows us to be near Walter right after the jump when he is attacked by fans and paparazzi longing for his autograph, it is there when he's training persistently and starting over and over when he fails. It is even there when Steiner spends some time in solitude in a forest to recover from a bad jump. The camera is an unseen character of the movie, through it we see records being beaten and history being written.
Herzog makes a movie about a seemingly ordinary person. Steiner attracts the audience with his sincerity, simplicity, calmness and focus. But on the inside he is in a perpetual conflict with other people and with himself.
The movie lets us partly into Steiner's world. As we approach the ending, we begin to see his motives, the reason why he has chosen that career, what drives him and what he lives for. Steiner has dreamed of flying since he was in school so we can conclude that ski jumping is the most important part of his life, something he has always aspired to and continues to live for.
In my opinion, this film is important for the history of cinema, just like all other films by Werner Herzog. The movie shows an internal conflict along with an external conflict and the way they influence each other and observes a rich inner world and a delicate constitution of a sportsman. What's more, it tells us what extraordinary abilities an ordinary man can possess and proves that there are no limits to human powers.