russian movie week, plus bonus = perfect song
last week at casa tiff they had a mini-russian film festival, with one movie per night for freee in one of their weird rooms. i only did 4 out of 7, because that's how it happened. did i have a lot of fun and think it was worth it? hell yes.
carmen generalizing about her experience of russian art forms:
1. they take everything seriously!! part of my initial wave of love for everything russian came with my love for non-irony. i am a person who laughs a lot and doesn't kid herself that that constitutes a sense of humour...but continuous use of irony makes me insecure quicker than anything. russian is so much more black and white.
2. russian art (anecdote/story/movie blah. music.) is black-and-white even when describing grays. it's as if their technique is to take every complicated thing ever and distill it into its black and whites so they can concomitently judge it and give it a medal.
3. clichees are in-your-face, which makes it easier for me to deal with the fact that they are cliches. there will be a hero, and he will be macho, and perfectly flawed and this will attract women. the grandma will be selfless and flawless. the young girl who screwed up will be deserving of love. they work with the clichees instead of avoiding them or trying to demolish them.
4. the vintage-y nostalgic feel of mostly everything contemporary that i encounter is beyond real. it's as if there's a slowness, a stolidity in every produced narrative that doesn't let it take off too far. as if the realities continue to be the same realities our parents dealt with, and the ways of expression the same, as if there hasn't been the break of ...gosh, i dunno, communism falling, internet being accessible. it's the same stubborn shades. i love them because i recognize them, but do i really? they're so much more mythical than real.
i recognize it in the language that i love, which feels like archaic romanian mostly because romanian a) has a latin/i.e. non-slavic base and b) has been borrowing heavily from french/english over the last century and a half, so we might have an archaic slavic word plus a newer latin-origin one for the same concept.
for me consuming russian anything is like squinting so i see life in instagram.
okay, the movies:
1. kraj (on the edge, english translation)
alexandra's summary: "russian 'speed'" - which i wouldn't know, not having seen 'speed'. movie is set in siberia!!! there are locomotive races!!! there is a german heroine who spent 4 years living in the taiga inside the wreck of a locomotive. then a locomotive kills a huge bear! you need more incentive?
also, alexandra looked up the movie and was very disappointed to find out it wasn't a comedy. you mean they weren't being ironic...? nope. just sayin'.
2. literally "history of my...cosmos?" - ok ok, story of my world. something like this.
very light comedy. very. and when i say very, though, this includes a dead grandmother who haunts the granddaughter to push her to get married. and all sorts of other ordinary life forms that you can imagine living in a shared apartment in a russian town. i may have mentioned before that russians have an obsession with cosmonauts? YES THEY STILL DO. because obviously the only way out is leaving the earth. that makes perfect sense to me.
so basically this is a movie about fantasy/escape and how to reconcile your dreams with reality (answer: just do it! i.e. get married already why don't you! all of you!) (also: growing a moustache signifies that a russian man is now a serious family guy and father and will stop cheating on his wife. so watch out. i guess.)
3. "granny" / "grandma tosia"
so i cried.
which is not so much a tribute to the quality of the movie (i loved the movie, okay) as to the pulling-at-the-heartstrings that they did there. i have a grandma who happens to have died recently etc, also everyone has a grandma. and almost every eastern kid in my generation was raised by a grandma, because the parents were busy building communism. so we are a direct product of this structure...and also: villages are full of old helpless people. old people are not priorities for their grandchildren. money is always a problem. if there is money, it comes with strings attached. people want to live their lives etc.
so how can one not cry?
it's amazing to think that the grandma character is played by a non-actress. look at this picture: they just went into a village and found an old lady with that face and those eyes. and it's true, she doesn't say anything much, just smiles and loves everyone...and exists - until she doesn't.
4. "the greenhouse effect".
if there is a metaphor here (there must be!) i do not understand it. it seems to refer, on the surface, to the fact that the homeless characters have found a space to live in a greenhouse.
also: they wash in a carwash. the boy begs at the railway station and pretends he's mute. the girl is pregnant and has come to moscow to look for the presumed father, who of course gave her a false address. the borrowed dream that circulates throughout the movie is...going to greece. because it's warm there, and there are olives and palm trees. i mean it's closer than an interplanetary mission, but...i need reassurance from someone that the ending was a joke. because it wasn't either realistic OR...anything else.
but wait let me finish on an apocalyptic note. if you still don't believe me re: russian sensibilities, here is my go-to song (with text included) to enlighten you. it's perfect and i adore it. feel free to use it for the soundtrack of your lives.
c.
carmen generalizing about her experience of russian art forms:
1. they take everything seriously!! part of my initial wave of love for everything russian came with my love for non-irony. i am a person who laughs a lot and doesn't kid herself that that constitutes a sense of humour...but continuous use of irony makes me insecure quicker than anything. russian is so much more black and white.
2. russian art (anecdote/story/movie blah. music.) is black-and-white even when describing grays. it's as if their technique is to take every complicated thing ever and distill it into its black and whites so they can concomitently judge it and give it a medal.
3. clichees are in-your-face, which makes it easier for me to deal with the fact that they are cliches. there will be a hero, and he will be macho, and perfectly flawed and this will attract women. the grandma will be selfless and flawless. the young girl who screwed up will be deserving of love. they work with the clichees instead of avoiding them or trying to demolish them.
4. the vintage-y nostalgic feel of mostly everything contemporary that i encounter is beyond real. it's as if there's a slowness, a stolidity in every produced narrative that doesn't let it take off too far. as if the realities continue to be the same realities our parents dealt with, and the ways of expression the same, as if there hasn't been the break of ...gosh, i dunno, communism falling, internet being accessible. it's the same stubborn shades. i love them because i recognize them, but do i really? they're so much more mythical than real.
i recognize it in the language that i love, which feels like archaic romanian mostly because romanian a) has a latin/i.e. non-slavic base and b) has been borrowing heavily from french/english over the last century and a half, so we might have an archaic slavic word plus a newer latin-origin one for the same concept.
for me consuming russian anything is like squinting so i see life in instagram.
okay, the movies:
1. kraj (on the edge, english translation)
also, alexandra looked up the movie and was very disappointed to find out it wasn't a comedy. you mean they weren't being ironic...? nope. just sayin'.
2. literally "history of my...cosmos?" - ok ok, story of my world. something like this.
very light comedy. very. and when i say very, though, this includes a dead grandmother who haunts the granddaughter to push her to get married. and all sorts of other ordinary life forms that you can imagine living in a shared apartment in a russian town. i may have mentioned before that russians have an obsession with cosmonauts? YES THEY STILL DO. because obviously the only way out is leaving the earth. that makes perfect sense to me.
so basically this is a movie about fantasy/escape and how to reconcile your dreams with reality (answer: just do it! i.e. get married already why don't you! all of you!) (also: growing a moustache signifies that a russian man is now a serious family guy and father and will stop cheating on his wife. so watch out. i guess.)
3. "granny" / "grandma tosia"
which is not so much a tribute to the quality of the movie (i loved the movie, okay) as to the pulling-at-the-heartstrings that they did there. i have a grandma who happens to have died recently etc, also everyone has a grandma. and almost every eastern kid in my generation was raised by a grandma, because the parents were busy building communism. so we are a direct product of this structure...and also: villages are full of old helpless people. old people are not priorities for their grandchildren. money is always a problem. if there is money, it comes with strings attached. people want to live their lives etc.
so how can one not cry?
it's amazing to think that the grandma character is played by a non-actress. look at this picture: they just went into a village and found an old lady with that face and those eyes. and it's true, she doesn't say anything much, just smiles and loves everyone...and exists - until she doesn't.
4. "the greenhouse effect".
if there is a metaphor here (there must be!) i do not understand it. it seems to refer, on the surface, to the fact that the homeless characters have found a space to live in a greenhouse.
but wait let me finish on an apocalyptic note. if you still don't believe me re: russian sensibilities, here is my go-to song (with text included) to enlighten you. it's perfect and i adore it. feel free to use it for the soundtrack of your lives.
c.
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