Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Vash syn i brat

Ваш сын и брат / [Poikanne ja veljenne] / [Er son och bror] / Your Son and Brother. SU 1965. PC: Gorky Studios. D+SC: Vasili Shukshin - based on his short stories "Stepan", "Snake Ointment", and "Ignat's Homecoming". DP: Valeri Ginzburg - b&w. M: Pavel Tshekalov, a lot of folk songs. LOC: Altai Krai. CAST: Vsevolod Sanajev (father Jermolai Vojevodin), Anastasija Filppova (mother), Aleksei Vanin (Ignat Vojevodin), Leonid Kuravljov (Stepan Vojevodin), Leonid Reutov (Maksim Vojevodin), Marta Grahova (Vera Vojevodina), Svetlana Zhgun (Njurka), Viktor Shahov (Vasili), Juri Sarantsev, Vadim Zahartshenko (врач). 91 min. Print: Gosfilmofond. E-subtitles in Finnish by Pentti Stranius, operated by Tuulia Lehtonen. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 18 Aug 2009. - Print has a beautiful definition of light. - Revisited Shukshin's masterpiece, his second feature film, full of life and profound feeling. - STEPAN. Tremendously affecting from the start. The ice drift of the magnificent Katun River in Altai Krai. The long wordless prologue, with a plain intensity of feeling. The homecoming of Stepan in a sequence to be compared with Griffith and Ford. The looks of the home folks. The looks of the women. - THE SNAKE OINTMENT. The hurly-burly of the city. "Excuse me, there isn't any". The art of queueing. The wrestler brother Ignat and his wife Njurka work in the circus. The wrestlers and the ballet dancers rehearsing in the same hall. - IGNAT'S HOMECOMING. The culture shock. The mother is bed-ridden since Stepan was taken back to prison. The father clearly doesn't care too much about Ignat and Njurka. The mute daughter's joy about the new dress. - VASJA. The fourth brother has stayed at home. Swimming in the powerful river. The estrangement of the generations. The poetry of the everyday. - I had tears in my eyes all through the picture.

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