WOW!

Personally, I found this film to be amazing. I can't wait to see Daywatch. It does upset me a little that Hollywood is doing the third segment in the trilogy, because Nightwatch had such a unique feel, and if Hollywood would change directors, I feel it'd be a bad mistake.

I loved the crazy scene where the man is about to get hit by the car, but then the car simply does a flip over him. I find that in films like Die Hard 4, the overdrawn, ridiculous action sequences are always what make the film.

In the first battle scene, between the forces of Light and the forces of Dark, the actors almost seemed to be performing in a Capital One commercial. They were overacting rather oddly and it struck me as very strange; however, as I watched the film, I either stopped noticing it, or it stopped happening. Either way the style the director uses is great. I love the spastic shots, almost a montage on crack. Its simply amazing.

This film is something unique, in its own genre, and I love that it's not like any other film I've ever seen. The only one it even slightly resembles is Matrix, and that's due to the sunglasses during night and the fight scenes.

Awesome film.

Russian Ark

Hmm.... I'm not sure I can come up with something intelligent to say due to the fact that I was extremely tired and have to admit to falling asleep during parts of the film. I wish I had been more awake, because I'm sure it was at least semi-worthwhile, but I was a sleepy head.

I know, I'm a bad student. I will say that from what I saw, it seemed a bit too focused on minute details for me. The character, Marquis de Custine, was rather odd. Everytime I would wake up in between nodding off, he seemed to be speaking with a woman about art. It was odd, cause it happened multiple times.

I think it would have helped if I was more aware of Russian history. When the film showed the figures from Russian history that I knew, such as Czar Nicholas, the last Russian czar, I was interested. I was able to stay awake during those points. So I feel a better background in the characters being shown and the time periods portrayed would have been useful.

Sorry Isham.

I love this movie!

I was in Professor Isham's Heritage class, so this was my second time viewing the film. During the second viewing it was interesting to watch the action play out, knowing what the ending was. For me, the moment when the Father is desperately crawling up the side of the lighthouse is absolutely heart-stopping. When he fell the first time, I just kind of gaped at the screen, but the second time I lost it. It's a very sad, moving movie, and I think it's a great work of film.

Zyvaginstev uses many Tarkovsky-esque techniques. From the one Tarkovsky film we watched, I was able to recognize similarities between the two directors. The book that Ivan finds the picture of his father hidden within, curiously resembles a book that the little boy in Mirror looked through, especially the light, what looked like tissue paper, that separate the pages. Also, Zyvaginstev plays with different shots of water dripping and of the dying embers of a fire, both of which are used in Mirror. In the end of Mirror, the camera starts moving farther back into the trees, giving the viewer the feeling of walking backwards, and at the end of The Return, an almost identical shot is repeated.

Despite all the similarities, The Return has a few of its own unique flairs. One interesting aspect of the film was the fact that the father would say something, or do an action, and it would be repeated by Andrey at the end of the film, after his death. For the majority of the movie, Ivan seems to be superior to Andrey, despite the fact that Andrey is the older one. Ivan is easily able to convince Andrey into doing things he may not have otherwise done. Once their father dies, however, Andrey steps up and becomes the one who keeps them going, directing Ivan in the necessary steps that they must do to get home. Andrey mimicking lines that the father said or actions that the father did puts Andrey in the shoes of the paternal role, and he maintains that for the brief amount of film left. For instance, once Andrey decides they need to move their father, he comes up with a plan to use evergreen branches. His lines "get the axe" and "with our little hands" are both lines that the father said in an earlier portion of the film, and the evergreen branches were used to help the father get the car out of the mud. I believe Andrey even repeats a line about Ivan taking his shoes off that was said to Ivan by the father previously.

Andrey's conversion into a character similar to his father may also simply show how much Andrey was fascinated by his father. The two different reactions of the boys towards the return of their dad is fascinating to watch. Andrey almost seems to worship the very words that come from his mouth, and maybe this could explain yet another reason why the director decided to utilize that technique.

I apologize if I wrote a bit too much, but I love this film. It's a masterpiece and I hope to watch it many more times, even if it makes me cry.

Yay for morality!

Surprisingly, since Mirror there have been very few films in the class that I enjoyed thoroughly. I had begun to despair that the rest of the films would be just as gritty as Little Vera or just as frustrating as The Commissar. What came as even more of a surprise, however, was that the film Brother revived my hope in Russian cinema. Who would have guessed that a Russian mob flick would do the trick. I felt that it was slightly gritty as well, but also filled with characters who had depth and were overall, despite all their actions, remembered as good people.

Aleksei Balabanov, the director of Brother, created a film with one of the most interesting protagonists that I have seen in quite awhile. The most interesting aspect of Danila, the main character, is his incredible ability to care for people he doesn't even know, but then kill the next minute. It was odd, because during the entire movie I rooted for Danila. I wanted for him to succeed, and I even began to feel attached to his character. Perhaps its because I watched Batman Begins last night, but I felt that when he killed it was almost for vengeance. He did strike me as a comic book character, but only because he had this odd way of helping others out. When he shot people, I think I realized in the back of my mind that I shouldn't justify his actions, but it seemed like everytime he was forced to, in order to save his brother.

The mercy he shows to multiple people in the film seems to make the viewer know that he's not a bad guy, and that he's killing out of necessity.

The other character who kept surprising me was Danila's lover, Sveta. At the end of the movie, when she decided to stay with her husband rather than leave him for Danila, I was shocked. However it served as just another example of someone in the movie who makes many mistakes (she does cheat on her husband) but in the end his or her good deed is what's remembered.

It was intersting that despite the fact that Danila lived in a town where crimes were rampant and the mob was continously on the rise, he was able to maintain some of his values, while on the other side of the spectrum, Vera's boyfriend in Little Vera grows up in a city that isn't half as bad, and yet maintains no values. Perhaps the hope for the future was able to help Danila maintain his decent guy status.

Hmmm...

Through the excerpt from Russian Cinema in our Time, I learned what the name Little Vera actually means. Its literal translation is little faith, and this seems to be a fitting description of the film. All the people in the film live in this miserable existence. I'm hesitant to say that it is completely devoid of happiness, but I struggle to find an instance when the characters are truly happy.

The film did leave me a little cold. I felt that it was a bit too depressing to watch, with incident of suffering on practicaly every inch of film, but I think perhaps that that helped show a stark reality.

One of the most intersting realities that it portrayed was Vera's father's alcoholism. It was shown in a garrish light. There wasn't any drinking in the film that was glorified or sophisticated. Each time people in the film drank they either hurt those they loved or became utterly depressed. In the previous films that we have watched, drunkiness leads to revelry and fun times. In Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears, drinking has a negative influence on the characters, but it is also shown along with happy times as well.

This film pulls no punches, but tells it as it sees it. A dismal future for the Soviet Union was all I could see from the film. It almost foreshadows the decaying of the communism within Russia. The only time any communist subject is mentioned is when Vera and her lover, Sergei, are lying on the beach, and Vera tells Sergei that they have in common that they're comrades. Its the only mention of governmental ideas in the entire film. Just as the Soviet government is slipping into the background of their minds, it was slipping into the background of the country's focus as well.

The Commissar

The problems the Soviet Union might have had with the film The Commissar seemed rather apparent throughout the film. One of the more obvious reasons I felt it was kept out of the public eye was the Jewish situation. The Jewish family within the film may have caused a bit of a stir in the first place, due to the fact that Jewish sentiment at the time was a bit unsteady. Also, their suffering almost seemed to be caused by the Civil War, a time which was supposedly waged to end the people's suffering. Quite ironic.

The Commissar seemed to present a side of the Civil War that was not seen in films like Chapaev. In the film, the war was stripped of all its heroic trappings and left at what it was, a war.

However, I felt that the most controversial part of the film lay in the main character, Commissar Vavilova. For starters, she gets pregnant, and although when asked where her husband is, she claims he is dead, the film seems to imply that there never was a husband. It is highly unlikely that the Soviet Union desired one of its representatives to get pregnant out of wedlock, although not for religious reasons most likely. The act was probably looked down upon because it put her out of commision for serving the Red Army. She was no longer helping the Communist machine, but hindering it.

For me, Vavilova gave a terrible vibe, that truly made me dislike her. This might have been a cause for the censorship. She isn't an admirable heroe, and the film shows, yet again, the not so beautiful possiblities of a situation.

In the expert from "Kinoglasnost: Soviet Cinema in Our Time", it was mentioned that Vavilova grew as a woman through her experience in Yefim's family, learning from his wife. I think the situation stands otherwise. Vavilova seems to love her baby as time goes on, she begins to wear dresses, performs house chores, but the ending of the film simply smashes any thought that she had been converted into a differnt woman. She leaves her child. She goes against every motherly instinct and abandons her child to go fight for the cause.

Perhaps the director thought that this would help his movie get on screen. The commissar realizes her purpose and goes to help the Red Army. But for me it felt like she had betrayed what mattered. It made me despise her character, and it didn't instill any love for her within me due to her loyalty to Russia. It might have been that the people who decided to shelve this film felt the same discomfort with Vavilova and decided that she wasn't the kind of person that should represent their government.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

The three girls in Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears could almost represent three different prespectives of how to view the whole love search concept, kind of like the three bowls of porridge in Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Katerina is the sensible girl, she's curious about love but she doesn't really want to search too hard. I think her inexperience is a significant player in her story. She hadn't played the game very much at all when she meets Rudolph, and falling for him fast, she ends up getting hurt the worst out of all the girls. She was kind of like the bowl of porridge that was too cold. She'd been sitting out of the game for a bit too long to jump into a relationship with an experience player.

Lyudmila is the crazy one. From my observations about Katerina, it would seem that Lyudmila would fare better in her situation with Gurin. She's played the field, flirted with her fair share of men. But I think her over-experience hurts her in the same way as Katerina's inexperience. She didn't look at love in the right way. For her, it was a game, a way to settle down with a rich man who could support her, not a meaningful relationship. She's a bowl of porridge that's too hot. She's hot out the fire, and not really thinking too clearly.

Antonina on the other hand gets it just right. She doesn't play the field a lot, but she goes with a sensible man who isn't necessarily the apple of all her friend's eyes, but works for her. She doesn't need glamour or money to make her happy in her relationship and her faring in love turns out to be the best experience of all the girls.

The sensible guy theory continues even further once Katerina meets Gosha. He is a down to earth kind of guy, not very rich, but humble and interesting in Katerinas' eyes, which is all that counts. Katerina found her perfect bowl of porridge.

What a terrible analogy!

Caucasian Kidnapping

Kidnapping Caucasian Style reminded me of a Three Stooges flick. Some may say that the physical humor was the thing that caught my eye and made me think of those masters of comedy, but it somewhat seemed to go beyond that. Each of the three henchmen resembled one of the three stooges, and there was a goofball character who acted very much like Curly.

It seemed interesting that even quite a few years after the stooges had stopped creating films, people still imitated their style.

The similarities I found may have prevented me from seeing many differences in this example of Russian comedy to our version of comedy in the West. It seems that humor is a universal concept. People like to see others get hurt, we like interesting situations. The only difference that I've really noticed is that the Soviet comedies seem to feature a bit more song than the comedies that have come from our country. But in all other aspects, besides language, it seemed that Kidnapping Caucasian Style could have been from America just as easily. The humor, the characters, and the filming seeemed as if they could have come from the director of It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World.

Random, but not really at all.

Mirror is a film that seems to have enormous potential in influencing films in the future. As many students in class watched the dream scene where the mother figure is washing her hair, various whispers of “the Ring”, “that looks like the Ring”, were heard around the room. It would not be surprising at all to hear that the directors of The Ring used that scene as inspiration for their own film. The Mirror had an oddly creepy air about it at certain points, such as the one afore-mentioned, that could cause a suspense or horror filmmaker to feel rather motivated.

At the same time, however, the film was also quite sad. The decaying relationship between the colored-screen son and his colored-screen mother was something that felt dismal, and the development of that theme was something that stuck out to me throughout the film. In the average modern movie, plot is the glue keeping all the scenes connected, but within Mirror, themes seemed to be the predominate sticking factor. The theme of the mother-son relationship, the absent father, the significance of mirrors as ways to view things from different perspectives, and war were all ever constant in the film. The article, Sculpting in Time, informed me that the film was partially based on Tarkovsky’s childhood, and this helped me understand the use of the varying themes. The themes that stuck out were definite points that Tarkvosky desired to get across. Prevailing events from his childhood that he desired the viewer to see and even understand perhaps.

Out of all the scenes in the film, the beginning scene was the most striking scene in the film. None of the scenes in Tarkovsky’s Mirror are random, and I felt that this one was especially not so. When the woman helps the boy learn how to get rid of his speech impediment, she clears his speech so that he is easily understood. She enables him to speak loud and clear. It reminded me of The Odyssey. Homer invokes the help of the muse before he begins his tale, because the muse will help him tell his tale at his fullest potential. It seemed that Tarkovsky showed the clip at the beginning of the movie to represent what he desired out of the film. He wanted his voice to be heard loud and clear, and he was invoking his muse in his own abstract way.

Ballad of a Soldier

I've begun to realize that my titles are extremelly creative. I apologize, but sometimes I just can't think up a better name for my blog than the name of the film I'll be analyzing. Go figure.

Today's film was a nice walk in the park after yesterday's. However, it was more like a walk in Central Park, where I get mugged and my purse is stolen. The film was defintely a bitter-sweet experience.

The story of Alyosha was laugh out loud hilarious at certain points, but other scenes, such as the one with his mother, simply made me want to cry. Some of Alyosha's other encounters also threatened to make me get a few tears in my coffee. The film presented the viewer with a huge amounts of obstacles that a soldier had to go through during this time, from worrying about his lover being unfaithful to not having enough soap.

Ballad of a Soldier made me feel as if after watching the film I had a better understanding of the Russian soldier, but it also made me feel as if it showed the plight of every soldier all over the globe. The struggles that Alyosha and those he met faced were situations that soldiers even today face. Missing home and not having enough to eat are things that I think most soldiers, especially in World War two could identify with.

The film seemed to present a universal picture of a soldier. A protagonist that felt as if he could be anyone's family member, anyone that has seen the troubles of war.

Hmm...what can I say?

I have to admit that Ivan the Terrible isn't exactly a movie that I would put on my top twenty list. It was unfortunately, dare I say, a bit boring. The name Ivan the Terrible gives the impression that the film will be bloody and adventurous, and I didn't really find it to be either one of those things.

The movie seems to have a good plot. After Prof. Isham's pre-movie talk in class, I expected an action film. Somehow, in both Ivan the Terrible and Battleship Potemkin, Eisenstein has managed to make two seemingly action movies into anything but that.

However I will give the film some credit. Eisenstein's use of shadows within the film was particularly inventive. One scene especially stuck out in my mind. Ivan is speaking with his 'friend' Kurbsky and his shadow is simply towering over the small diminutive shadow of Kurbsky. It showed, very strikingly, the incredible power that Ivan possesed.

I felt that I really could tell that the film was Eisenstein. Although it seemed to lack the interesting use of montage that he utilized in Battleship Potemkin, the film still incorporated the intense close-ups of the eyes of the actors that was in Battleship Potemkin. Eisenstein also seems to have a knack for picking some of the most awesomly crazy looking actors that he can find. Each movie was filled with ridiculous looking people, all of which look like they came from a place named Pleasant Meadows or St. Mungos. It's one of the things I truly appreciate most about his films.

One more small note, I did notice that Ivan broke a dish. What is up with the breaking of the dishes?! :)

Breaking Plates

One more thing I noticed in many of the films. It might just be the film makers, but in almost every film we've watched so far, someone breaks a plate, or ends up throwing something. I thought it was just an interesting pattern, and curious as to why it might be.

A Jump in Time

Burnt by the Sun was not what I expected. I suppose I was looking for a film that would villanize Stalin by showing dead babies, crying mothers, poor underfed peasants, and general unhappiness.
Surprisingly, that was not the film that I viewed today, but it was an effective movie in spite of its lack of obvious in your face anti-socialism.
The movie didn't really seem truly unhappy until the last few scenes. I felt myself grow very fond of the characters, worrying desperately that an Irony of Fate twist would happen in the love story of Colonol Kotov and Marusia. The relationship between Nadya and Kotov really was what made the film meaningful to me. I wanted to cry at the ending of the movie, not because I felt bad for the general Soviet peasant, or because I saw a man die, but for the breaking of the life that the Kotov family could have had had they not been caught up in the whirlwind of Russia in the 30's.
I felt that Nadya was the subtle weapon used to make me understand the pain of the times, and she was the right choice of weapon as well.

One more slight thing that I can't help but mention was the fireball. I realized later of course that it was the sun, mentioned in the title. At first I felt that it was a bit cheesy, but once the last bit of film played and the quote was displayed, "For those who were burnt by the sun of the revolution", it didn't really matter whether it was cheesy cause at that time it seemed to click and work.

Following the Pattern...

I've enjoyed all the films we've watched in class so far in one way, shape, or form, but I've noticed a similar trend in all of them. They're just a bit too long for my attention span. Maybe its because I'm tired. I'm not sure. But for the last 10 minutes of the movie I feel very fidgety.
I think this was especially true for Circus due to the drawn out propaganda at the end of the film. However, as in Chapaev, the movie was interesting and fun for the entire rest of the movie. Only the endings were sketchy.
The ending of Circus kind of reminded me of the book The Jungle. It's amazing and you're really caught up with the characters... and then BAM... propaganda, propaganda, oh yea and a little more propaganda.

Otherwise the film was the best we've watched so far and I really enjoyed it.

The film Chapaev was a huge blockbuster in Russia. The reasons behind its success were very apparent to me throughout the film. For comparison, I will especially focus on the Battleship Potemkin. The two films both tell of a historic event, and they were both made in a time period when the main focus of the film would be to support the cause of the government at the time. However, a few key differences separate Chapaev from other films of its time.
One of the first things I noticed was the fact that Chapaev identifies its protagonist with the viewer. In one of the assigned readings, the author spoke of how the people of the time that we were watching the movie were not informed of the early days of the revolution. They didn’t know all the details and the author felt that the film, Chapaev, was the perfect tool to inform them. It was very effective because the protagonist of the film, Chapaev, is also not well informed. He doesn’t know the details of the Revolution, yet he still presents himself as an amazing leader. His weakness is the viewers’ weakness as well and they can identify with his character.
Also, within the film, it was fairly easy to identify the hero. Although Chapaev may not have done what he did without the help of his comrades, he is definitely the central character of the film. It is far easier for a human to identify with a fellow human rather than the battleship used in Battleship Potemkin.
One more interesting technique used within Chapaev that helped the viewer enjoy the movie more than other movies of the time was the fact that the characters within the movie had flaws. They made mistakes and seemed like real people. The movie didn’t seem like it was simply communist propaganda, and at that time, the people were sick of simple propaganda. They had learned to see through it and the real characters help mask the fact that the film does have an agenda.
I also can’t help but notice that the beards in this film sometimes made it difficult to determine which heavily bearded man was who. I was slightly distracted.

An Interesting Experience

The film that we watched in class today was rather interesting. Coming from a perspective where the director's goal is to envoke some sort of emotion, and I'm well aware of what that emotion is, I was rather confused on what to feel about "The Man With the Camera". The use of mantage in this film was fascinating. I felt scared when the camera showed the shot of the man laying on the train tracks. I felt that he got smashed for sure. The film was very interesting to look at, and the director had me guessing the whole time as to what exactly he thought I should be feeling at any particular moment.
At one point I almost felt that he saw a director or a camera man as a god almost. One of the repeated shot type, and there were many, was the large man with a camera on top of buildings, making everything else look very small and insignificant. Also the camera man used his lens to distort the buildings and instill fear in the viewers with the train.
It made me feel as if he was demonstrating the different ways a director can distort reality. At least be in god-sized shoes for an hour, making you believe whatever they put up there.
It was an exeperience for sure.
I did find one drawback. The length was a bit much for me. A child of an ADD prone generation. I think 45 minutes of the mantage would have been perfect.

Potemkin

The film The Battleship Potemkin defintely is intriguing in many aspects. I found it very interesting to view the film, focusing on the propoganda being presented. As I read the assigned reading for Wednesday I realized, even more fully, the extent to which the socialist ideals affected the making of the film, its whole purpose for even being in existence.
One interesting aspect of socialist film was brought to my attention through the document written by Eisentein himself, in response to a response on his film. He described how the films that he created were not just the work of one person, not even focused on one person, or one ideal or one subject. They were a montage of ideas as well as scenes. This idea of montage fits in perfectly with the socialist ideals. Each scene is beautiful in its own way, but the goal is to not notice it. The goal is to see the scenes all working together to create a harmonious whole. Seeing the way Eisentein viewed montage helped me understand why this type of film making was so popular in Russia. Not only did the movie itself support the Revolution, but the way in which the movie was put together supported the Revolution as well.
The other interesting thing I noticed through the article was the freedom that a socialist film may lend a director that our modern films may not. Within the modern Hollywood scene, actors and actresses grow their experience, earn more money with each film, and desire to be the center of attention. As a director attempts to put his ideas on screen, he has to take into consideration the fact that the actor or actress is the focus. It's fairly simple to see the degree of control the actors and actresses have by looking at their salaries. The director also has to worry about the writer, and his happiness. The writers are on strike in our country, and we have quickly seen television go down the drain. If movie writers go on strike, the same thing will happen in the movie industry. With all these worries, the director can not solely focus on his project at hand. With a socialist mindset however, the actor is focused on the good of the whole, not on the good of himself, and the writer is also focused on the goal of the project, not on his or her salary. The desire to create something, without individual concerns attached, opens up awesome doors for the director.

A Child of the Big City

The movie A Child of the Big City was intriguing to watch. For me, out of the three films viewed in class, it was the most difficult to understand. There were a few moments where I wasn't sure as to what the action was all about.
However, as the film developed I was pulled into the characters a wee bit more. I found that Mary was an obnoxious sort of creature. In the beggining she seems to be a simple girl, dreaming of a life that she could never have. But as her character develops, and as her life develops, she becomes selfish and almost evil. She uses Viktor and his money, and then leaves him out to dry once he can only support her with his love.
The film seems to bring in the theme that wealth and power corrupts. The first time we see Viktor he is desiring to find a woman who is common, not corrupted by riches, and once Mary recieves the worldy goods that she desires she loses the modest charm tht once attracted Viktor to her.
I'm not sure if anyone noticed this, and it is may be a stretch, but it seems worth mentioning. When Viktor first confronts Mary, before leaving his apartment, he leaves the light on. But once he has learned of her absolute absence of desire for him, he comes home and turns the light off. The light represents in a very simple manner the light of hope that Viktor had in Mary in the beggining, and then afterwards his lost faith in her and his giving up on the situation and eventually on life.

Irony of Fate or Enjoy Your Bath

So I suppose that I'll post on the film "Irony of Fate or Enjoy your Bath". It was quite amusing. I expected it to be, considering it's a Russian staple.
I have very little knowledge of Russian politics, so I was very surprised that the film mocked the apartments that seemed to be a government project. I think I assumed that the censorship at the time was much more prevalent than the movie showed.
All of the characters were extremely enjoyable to watch, and I especially enjoyed Zhenya's friends. Unfortunately, I wasn't happy with the ending. I always cheer and hope for the couples who exist at the beggining of the movie, even if a new-found love is better for the character involved. So I was a little upset when I found that Zhenya and Nadya would be together. By the end of the movie I excepted it and moved on, still appreciating the film, despite its romance.
As this is my first entry I'm not really sure what I should be examining in the movie. I hope this is good for now.