4

Curious and at times very impressive film, directed by Ilya Khrjanovsky, made in 2005
Would be pushing it to say there was a coherent style, but the general idea is that early on we have more static takes, or rather the camera does have, but in slow, at times almost non-perceptible movements. Throughout the film there are very long takes. As we come to focus on the story of the village, the camerawork goes handheld and frankly chaotic, though it keeps the long takes. Their is usually quite a bit of depth, but the later handheld calls for racking focus.
There is nearly always something of visual interest here. Pretty Manichean lighting schemes, and rare for there to be straightforward symmetrical framing. The long take at the bar has a powerful foreground with the characters and drinks adopting balances further back. This is one example of how this isn’t a film primarily about characters; it involves those square pegs trying to fit into the round holes of an existence.
This film lacks any kind of traditional narrative, and switches between supremely long scenes, cutting between our characters from that, before focusing in (with occasional breaks) on one. The story indeed builds a mood, and does move, but generally feels almost associational in so far as content is concerned.
This, combined with the focus on barren landscapes, makes one reach for the Russian t-word; Tarkovsky. This film does deal with metaphysical categories, with the character of the people, and with identity. Also shares a camera separated from narrative or content, that roams and dwells, that sculpts the space and time of the reality. But this film is more in the psychological realist vane, really, for all its formal characteristics. Less dwelling than Tarkvosky, or for that manner Sokurov.
We have the theme of 4’s, with one perhaps dead or asleep. Issues of balancing approached. Perhaps the greatest exploration is of clones/ doubles/ transfers. Almost a kind of revolting lack of self. Characters, images, and even shots (elliptical sequences) structured in fours.
There is surely a streak of social comment, with the younger generation almost unable to live with the idiocies and the nihilism of that older. Some terrific images created through this. The realm of drinking is where the two sides cross. This isn’t a film structured around opposites; at least, if they are, they more than implicitly bleed into each other.
This film has a terrific, dreamy, limbic quality, perhaps enhanced by its lack of pace and camera that almost seems distracted from any kind of content. The eerily empty streets, among the mists in the early morning. The dolls are used in a way where ‘uncanny’ would be inadequate. Crosses themes of double, (quad laterals), transfers, horror, and identity. Never becomes downright weird, you wouldn’t ever find a reason to laugh, but a kind of ‘inner surrealism’, a swampish aspect. The dogs share this path, but are more direct and open to interpretation. At once friends, they are also violent, the terrors that stalk the reality and the country. Wolves.
This film is difficult, to think about and thematise. There is a huge amount going on, that can be difficult to really assimilate. Perhaps it stays better as a vague, purely visual memory. It can seem to get a little lost in itself, and perhaps it does stick with its village theme/ camerawork, a disproportionate amount. All told, though, this is the kind of thoughtful filmmaking that is worth watching. This is a film that deserves one of the highest praises a piece can get; it deserves the viewers time, to be thought about, to process.