Kino Reticulator

We finished watching Krylya (Wings) tonight. That’s a very good film, at least the first time through.

Afterwards I looked for reviews with which to compare my reactions, and found this:

She is unable to come to terms with her past nor with the present, in which she is the director of a high school and the mother of an adoptive daughter. Her attempts to compensate for her distraction all lie in the direction of appearing authoritative, but the students and her daughter, with the unerring instincts of the young, distrust and despise her.

That wasn’t quite my take on it. The first sentence is a good description, but the 2nd, about “appearing authoritative” doesn’t seem right. Her character has no trouble appearing authoritative. She can’t help but be authoritative. Even when she tries to treat people well, she ends up not being able to help herself. She sets very high standards for herself — which is probably what enabled her to be a successful fighter pilot. But the authoritative part is not an attempt to compensate — it’s just the way she is. She tries again and again, but is unable to expect any less from her daughter, her new son-in-law, her students, or anyone else. And she is not satisfied with her present position in life, either, much of what is too boring for her.

That may sound like a trite Hollywood character, but it’s done very subtly. There are many occasions on which I was afraid this story was going to take a Hollywood turn, but it didn’t.

Maya Bulgakova did an extraordinary job of playing a complex character. I see from IMDB that this is just one of many roles she played. I’m now interested in seeing what other kinds of characters she was able to play.

Late edit:  I just now found subtitles for “My Friend Ivan Lapshin” (Moy Drug Ivan Lapshin) at mssubtitles.com.   Now if only I could find English subtitles for “The House that Swift Built” (Dom, Kotoryiy Postroil Svift).  But I haven’t even found evidence that subtitles were ever made.  I would even be glad to find Russian subtitles, even though that wouldn’t help Myra watch it with me.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower (who gets a mention in several Soviet-era films, though not this one) warned about the rise of a Military-Industrial Complex. What we have in this screenshot is something a little different: An Industrious Millinery Complex.

It’s from Tot Samyiy Myunkgausen. Duke Herzog (not the major character) is the industrious milliner. He knows about tucks, seams, hems, and waists, and hates it when the proper duties of his position intrude.

His aide has been trying to turn away the Baron Munkhausen’s estranged wife who is waiting outside, saying the Duke is busy with the most important affairs of state. But he reluctantly agrees to meet her. Everyone knows the drill — quickly hide all the dressmaking equipment and pull out the globe, papers, and books appropriate to the business of a duke.

It’s a minor comic theme in the movie — one of several. I was reminded of it by some wordplay on the POLITICS e-mail discussion list that I won’t go into here. It would be too hard to explain.

Though perhaps it is not as hard as trying to explain this movie. As in that other Mark Zakharov film, Obyknovennoye chudo, it’s hard to say which characters are in the story and which are outside of it.

This quartet, for example. Are they a kind of Greek chorus of the kind that Sophocles (whom the Baron has known personally) would have used in his plays to provide commentary? Or are they inside the story?

There may be a terminology to describe this technique of making the characters in the play conscious of those outside who are watching, but I don’t know what it is. Zakharov is a supreme master of it, whatever it’s called. It’s hard to explain, but that’s not even the hardest part of the movie. I’ll leave some of that for later, if I can figure out how to talk about it.

Cute. Music reminiscent of Pink Panther beginning at 3:24.

I’ve watched three YouTube segments of “Beware of the Car,” which will be the 3rd Eldar Ryazanov film I’ve seen.

When I saw this (in segment 2) I thought the guy on the left might be Ryazanov himself. But I guess it’s not.

The scene is in an insurance office, and the main character of the film (on the right) is an insurance agent. The guy on the left is his boss.

I was taken aback by the idea that there was such a thing as property insurance in the Soviet Union. It seems such a capitalist thing. In fact, the following paragraph in an academic journal article about Soviet insurance almost took the words out of my mouth, except that my thoughts on the subject weren’t quite this clear:

Insurance is closely related to the origins and growth of modern capitalist economy and the insurance contract has been identified as the springboard by which small-scale itinerant commerce of the early Middle Ages vaulted into large-scale enterprise of modern capitalism. How, then, can insurance be fitted into a non-capitalist framework and what role can it play?

The quote is from “A Survey of Insurance in the USSR”, by Paul P. Rogers, in The Journal of Insurance, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Jun., 1963), pp. 273-279, published by the American Risk and Insurance Association.

This Paul Rogers also did other writing on the topic. I read a couple of his shorter works, including this 1963 article as well as one published in 1980.

A few things that I learned:

Insurance was a government monopoly, run by an organization called GOSSTRAKH (General administration of Government Insurance.) Insurance was available for agricultural and transportation. Even in a welfare state there was such a thing as life insurance and disability insurance. Insurance was also available for personal property. The purchase of insurance was mandatory for some purposes, and a matter of individual choice in others.

I presume the insurance agents did not work on a commission.

Regarding auto insurance, Rogers’ 1980 article says this:

Citizens may insure vehicles under a separate policy. The policy insures automobiles, motorcycles, mopeds, snowmobiles, sailboats and rowboats for property damage. There is no liability insurance coverage.

I suppose if there had been liability insurance, the premise of that other Ryazanov film, Railway Station for Two (Vokzal dlya Dvoikh) would have been different.

BTW, I am trying to figure out how to use Cyrillic characters in a WordPress blog set up for use primarily in English. So far I haven’t learned a way to do it.