I found it when looking for Mark Zakharov movies. Netflix doesn’t have any, nor are there any on Ebay. But there are some here.
Russiandvd.com not only sells DVDs but has a rental program, too. I’m starting to run out of Russian movies on Netflix. When I exhaust those, maybe I’ll subscribe here.
There is a problem, though. A lot of them do not have subtitles, which means I’ll have to learn a lot more Russian before I can watch them properly. And even when I do, I can’t expect Myra to be enthusiastic. She likes to watch Russian movies with me, but has no interest in learning the language.
During the late 1950s and early 60s, while other kids learned to fear nuclear holocaust, I learned to fear the midnight knock on the door. Not that I had to fear it personally, but my mother and grandfather made me aware that such things happened to other people in other parts of the world and there was no reason it couldn’t happen in our country someday, too. There were some bad dreams about it, though nothing vivid enough to remember now.
I did learn about the threat of nuclear weapons, too, at school. I remember “On the Beach,” which was frightening enough, but I’ve always thought the midnight knock on the door would be even worse. And I’ve long had a morbid fascination with the prison-camp genre of literature. I always read this stuff looking for pointers that might be helpful when it comes to our country.
I say all this by way of introduction to “Tomorrow Was The War”. I’ve watched 3 of the 9 parts so far. I had thought I was inured to this kind of story by now. Some months ago I watched an interview with Aleksandr Askoldov (director of Komissar) where he described how as a five-year-old, the police came for his mother, whom he never saw again. They would have come for him, too, had he not run away. Extremely fascinating, but I’m afraid it was no longer terrifying. And there are Russian movies that try to convey the effect of the fear of the police during the worst of Stalin’s days.
But Parts 1 through 3 of “Tomorrow Was The War” had a way of making it terrifying like it has never been before. I can’t say for sure how director Yuri Kara did it. It has something to do with how we first get to know the young adolescents who see it happening, but that sounds too trite.
I’m watching this film slowly on YouTube, savoring every segment before going on to the next. Maybe I’ll eventually get some clues as to how it is done. (I don’t know that I’ll listen to Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” ever again without seeing this movie in my mind.)
I see that Yuri Kara was also the director of “The Master and Margarita.” In a way I don’t like that series. I read somewhere about an Old Believer who smashed a monument to author Mikhail Bulgakov, or some such thing, because of the blasphemy contained in this work. I say the vandal was justified in doing so. He had a legitimate point. But I also have to say that the movie is one of the greatest productions ever.
There is no English language Wikipedia page for Yuri Kara, but I’ve got to find out what else he has done.
Hmmm. While googling for information, I came across this book:
In this pioneering study, Anna Lawton examines the fascinating world of Soviet cinema under Glasnost and Perestroi-ka. She shows how the reforms that shook the foundations of the Bolshevik state and profoundly affected economic and social structures have been reflected by changes that revolutionized the film industry and in the films the industry produced. Lawton discusses the restructuring of the main institutions governing the industry; the abolition of censorship; the emergence of independent production and distribution systems; the problems connected with the dismantling of the old bureaucratic structure and the implementation of new initiatives. She also surveys the films that remained unscreened for decades for political reasons, films of the new wave that look at the past to search out the truth, and those that record current social ills or conjure up a disquieting image of the future. Together they portray a society in search of its roots and of new directions.
Now the question. Should I go out and get that book to read now, or should I first watch more of these films without someone else putting ideas about them in my head? It’s interesting to have a whole new world open to me one piece at a time as I get into this stuff. I kind of hate to give up my naivete just yet.
Here is the scene from Mesto Vstrechi Izmenit’ Nel’zya where the argument takes place over whether it’s OK for cops to break the law in pursuit of the bad guys. The Sharapov character pictured here says, “If we break the law once, then once again, if we use it to bridge the gaps in our investigations, it won’t be a law anymore. It will be a bludgeon.”
BTW, it’s interesting that as the argument gets heated between Sharapov and the character played by Vladimir Vysotsky, that Vysotsky’s voice becomes more like the voice he uses in his singing. You can google for YouTube videos of it. I decided to learn more about him after watching this series. But that’s not where I’m going right now.
After watching Mesto Vstrechi a few days ago, I watched Cargo 200 (Gruz 200). That turned out to be a difficult, sickening film to watch. It was even more difficult to make myself watch some of it a second time. There are other parts of it I want to go back to watch again, but so far I haven’t had the stomach for it. But it’s an important film. It shows what kind of society you have when Sharapov’s prediction comes to pass. I’ll have more to say about this one.
I’m finally getting back to watching and blogging movies some more. I started this TV movie back in August, and just now watched segments up to the end of part 3.
It’s quite good, and it’s making me take back some of what I said about portrayals of the police in Soviet-era cops ‘n robbers shows. I’ve often explained how, in Brilliantovaya Ruka and others, the police are portrayed as omniscient and virtuous. Vokzal dlya dvoikh is a slight exception, but that one isn’t a cops ‘n robbers show.
Mesto Vstreachi is interesting in that it shows conflicts, corruption, befuddlement and interesting personalities within a criminal investigating unit. And there was one segment where the two main characters were disagreeing about due process — whether it was right for the police to commit crimes to trap the bad guys.
I’m eager to see how that turns out.
There’s a lot more to the movie than that, but that’s all I’ll mention, at least for now.
[slight edits to fix brain vs typing finger mismatches]
I’m looking forward to this. I watched the first segment tonight.
I’ve made some remarks about how the police are portrayed in Soviet movies in the post-WWII era. I’m wondering if this is going to show me that my generalizations were wrong, or if it’s going to confirm them. We’ll see. It looks good so far.
Oh, the English title is “The Meeting Place Should Not be Changed.” I rely on the English myself, but I like to keep the original Russian language titles in my head. It helps me learn.
Yesterday we finished watching “Aguirre, The Wrath of God”. Tonight I read about it on Wikipedia and elsewhere. It seems other people have a lot higher opinion of it than I do. It has its good points, but I’m going to ignore those and talk about something else.
The puppet emperor in one scene is shown gorging himself on delicacies while the rest of the crew are reduced to rationing out the last few grains of corn to eat. (It’s not in the scene in the above YouTube clip, though, even though it’s the same character. I wasn’t able to find a clip of the one I’m talking about.) BTW, All the actors look pretty well fed, the starving ones as well as the upper crust.
Up to this point the movie hadn’t done a good job of portraying the social differences between the classes in any way that would seem to engender resentments, then all of a sudden it shows this scene of stark contrast. It’s a very crude way of putting it, and it’s not a theme that was developed very carefully in the movie.
It reminds me of one of the things that has been surprising to me about Soviet era Russian films. They portray the social differences of the pre-Revolution era in a much more subtle, human fashion than I ever would have expected. I’m talking about post WWII films, not those of the Stalin era. I’ve seen a few of the Stalin-era ones on RTR Planeta, and they are about as crude as you might expect in demonizing the aristocrats. But some of the post-Stalin ones do a nice job. The message is subtle.
I’m thinking about movies such as Siberiade or Unfinished Piece for Player Piano, or even Oblamov. Yes, there is class conflict and there is a social distance, but the movies don’t overplay it. The human relationships seem real, plausible, and very ordinary.
I’m not keeping up with my movie-watching lately. But I enjoyed this segment of White Bim Black Ear. (And did I really call it Black Bim White Ear a few posts back?).
Here are the parts I liked:
I liked the winter scenes with effects you get with the mid-day sun low in the sky. Makes me wish I was there, almost. You can’t do that kind of filming in California, even if you can get the snow.
Ice fishing. But why was the guy fishing when he said he was going hunting? And what kind of rig does he use? Do the Russians drill their holes the same way we do? What kind of bait or lure was he using? And do Russians have darkhouse spearfishing like Minnesota does? (Non-residents are not allowed to do it, so it has been almost 40 years since I’ve done any of it myself.)
Firewood. In this and other movies and documentaries I’ve seen, it appears that Russians who burn firewood for heat have their wood split up into pieces of smaller diameter than we tend to use here in Michigan. But I wish I could smell their wood stacks when the wood is still fairly fresh to see if I could identify what kind of wood they’re burning. Some of those stacks are large enough to suggest wood as a primary source of heat — if the wood is a good quality hardwood. (We’ve burned wood as the primary source of heat in our home for 30 years now. A typical Michigan mix of firewood is mostly oak and maple, with a little hickory thrown in (if you’re lucky) and maybe some cherry. Occasionally there will be some ash or walnut, too. White oak is better than red oak (and doesn’t smell the same, either).)
The storyline? It’s so-so. A bit Rousseauian in that the kids are all virtuous and some of the older people are corrupt meanies.
The conflict in Georgia got me thinking about Russian movies that feature Georgians. Are there any insights to be gained about Russian attitudes towards the people?
Mimino is a big one. The main character is Georgian. He is played as a good-hearted country bumpkin — he talks loudly on the phone, is quick-tempered, carries on an honorable feud, and is an all-around good guy. But now I wonder how the Georgians feel about this movie. The Georgian characters are treated sympathetically. Or is it condescension? It can be hard to tell the two apart in my own culture, so I wouldn’t dare to say how it comes across to someone else. Regardless, I thought it was a great movie.
There are a lot of other movies that deal with the Caucasus, but I don’t know if the Caucasians in them are Georgians. For example, there is “Kidnapping, Caucasion Style.” Those people in it — are they Georgians? And are the filmmakers having fun by stereotyping them? They wear some of the same style hats, if I remember correctly. Again, what do the ethnic groups being portrayed think of the movie? (Not that everyone should have the same opinion.)
“Depuis qu’Otar est partir” features Georgians and Russians, but that one is not a Russian film.
But in keeping with this blog’s mission to deal with the most trivial aspects of movies, I have to wonder about a Georgian references in Kin-dza-dza. One of the two main characters from planet earth is supposed to be Georgian, but what are we to make of that scene toward the end where Uef of planet Pluk says he had a Georgian mother? The two worlds are so different from each other, and had known nothing about each other. All of a sudden Uef says comes out with that line, but it generates no big surprise. I suspect an inside joke.
(Late edit – changed the title to make it more grammatical)
Tonight we started watching Aguirre – The Wrath of God.
I’m not quite sure why we got this one from Netflix. It definitely was in my queue, but I had thought I had a Russian film at the top. Maybe it has something to do with a big mailing mixup Netflix was trying to tell us about, but that doesn’t quite make sense, either.
Oh, well, it’s something I had wanted to watch anyway. But then I was surprised to find that it’s a German film, not a Spanish one. That’s OK, too. I do have a very few German films in my queue.
But I got to thinking again about when I started with Netflix two years ago, it was because an Argentine woman told me that if I was serious about learning languages, that I should watch movies — over and over. At the time Russian and Spanish were at the top of the list of languages I was trying to learn. But the problem is, there are hardly any Spanish movies that I care to watch, while there are a lot of Russian ones. If there were more good Spanish movies, maybe I’d be putting more of my time into learning Spanish than Russian. It’s certainly a language I could make use of where I live. But Russian is at the top now, largely because of the good movies.
The clip above shows an opening scene from Aguirre. It shows more than that, too, but I didn’t want to look ahead on this one just yet. So far I’d have to say the photography and setting area good.
While watching it I got to wondering if the movie is an outgrowth of the German fascination with Native American things. Ten years or so ago we were visiting an exellent historic park in Canada — Ste. Marie among the Hurons. Among other things, I learned that the place gets more visitors from Germany than from the United States. Does their interest extend to Indians from South America, too?
