TORONTO RUSSIAN FILM FESTIVAL at various venues, Friday to Sunday (May 14-16). torontorussianfilmfestival.ca. See Indie & Rep Film listings.
If you’ve seen Timur Bekmambe-Tov’s Delirious Night Watch movies or Géla Babluani’s 13 Tzameti, you know there’s some new blood in Russian cinema.
Raised on Hollywood blockbusters and music videos, the new generation of filmmakers has arrived and declared their explicitly commercial intentions. Never mind building clever allegories or commenting on social issues these days, Russian cinema is all about straight-up entertainment.
But even those mainstream productions rarely make it to our screens. Besides the titles listed above, Sergey Bodrov’s Mongol and Nikita Mikhalkov’s 12 are the only other Russian features I can think of that received commercial runs in Toronto. Which makes this weekend’s Toronto Russian Film Festival even more valuable.
There’s no reason Karen Shakhnazarov’s Ward No. 6 (Saturday, May 15), 6 pm, Innis Town Hall rating: NNNN) couldn’t get a Toronto run. It’s an excellent adaptation of an Anton Chekhov story about a depressed psychiatrist, Dr. Ragin (Vladimir Ilyin), who finds solace in philosophical conversation with his most articulate patient (Aleksei Vertkov) – though he ultimately ends up becoming an inmate in his own institution.
Shakhnazarov (who co-wrote the screenplay with Aleksandr Borodyanskiy) frames Chekhov’s story with an ingenious narrative device, introducing the ward, its staff and its patients through the eyes of a documentary crew who stumble upon the mute, blank-eyed Dr. Ragin and wind up investigating how he came to be there. As they interview his colleagues and friends, Chekhov’s story plays out in flashbacks. It’s an excellent way to bring a modest, cerebral tale to vivid life.
Also vivid, in its own particular way, is Vladimir Mirzoyev’s The Man Who Knew Everything (Saturday, May 15, 7 pm, ROM Sunday, May 16, 2:30 pm, Innis Town Hall rating: NNN). This film has no designs on the highbrow audience. A weird combination of psychic thriller and vaguely overheated romantic drama, it follows the adventures of a Moscow loser (Egor Beroev) who gains the ability to answer any question imaginable after an office-tower electrocution. Just don’t ask him about the afterlife.
His new powers make him a desirable asset to intelligence agencies around the world, but he just wants to win back his wife (Ekaterina Guseva), who’s left him for a sado-masochistic relationship with a local gangster – allowing Mirzoyev to alternate scenes of mild intrigue with soft-focus erotica. The movie literally begs for an American remake (it ends with an open plea for Hollywood’s attention), and as weird as it sounds, I could see that happening with the right director. Imagine what David Lynch might be able to do with this material.
If you’re in the mood for more stereotypically Russian fare, try Sergei Snezhkin’s Bury Me Behind The Baseboard (Saturday, 11:30 am, Innis Town Hall, rating: NNN). Set in 1983, it’s the glum tale of Sasha (Alexander Drobitko), a fresh-faced urchin trying to navigate life with a monstrous grandmother (Svetlana Kryuchkova) and distracted grandfather (Alexei Petrenko), while his mother (Maria Shukshina) and her lover (Konstantin Vorobyov) steel themselves for their annual visit in a nearby café.
I spent the first reel trying to figure out whether the movie’s overwrought tone was intentional or director Snezhkin – adapting a memoir by Pavel Sanaev – simply had no idea how to direct his actors.
But then Kryuchkova’s character fakes a seizure over little Sasha’s desire to see his mother, and everything suddenly comes together. This is a Tolstoy family saga on crystal meth, with everyone screeching and wailing to the heavens over the slightest hint of disrespect. And in its own weird way, it’s sort of commercial. Tyler Perry’s movies still make money, right?
normw@nowtoronto.com [rssbreak]
