Surematu / Immortal

Ksenia Okhapkina: Surematu / Immortal (2019).

Ksenia Okhapkina: Surematu / Immortal (2019).

Surematu / Nemirstīgie / Бессмертный.
    EE / LV © 2019 OU Vesilind / VFS Films. P: Riho Västrik. Co-P: Uldis Cekulis.
    D+SC: Ksenia Okhapkina. Cin: Aleksandr Demyanenko, Artem Ignatov, Ksenia Okhapkina – 1,85:1 – 25 fps – 4K – digital – release: D-Cinema. M: Robert Jurjendal, Arian Levin. S: Alexander Dudarev. ED: Stijn Deconinck, Ksenia Okhapkina.
    Among the advisors: Memorial.
    Soundtrack selections include: "State Anthem of the Russian Federation" (comp. Alexander Alexandrov, 1939, lyr. Sergei Mikhalkov, 2000).
    A creative documentary film.
    Location: Apatity (Murmansk Oblast, Russia). Apatity House of Culture, Angazhement, Zapolyarie, Theater Dialogue.
    Language: Russian.
    61 min
    Festival premiere: 2 July 2019 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
    Corona lockdown viewings / Midnight Sun Film Festival (MSFF) online edition.
    Viewed with English subtitles from the MSFF FestivalScope screening platform, viewed at a forest retreat in Punkaharju on a tv screen, 20 June 2020.

AA: An eternal night has set into an industrial town far north. Massive freight trains are passing through. Children enjoy neither family warmth or play. Little girls are drilled to dance. Little boys engage in military exercise. Between exercise children visit the war museum. Homes are in dismal barracks. Children sleep in severe dormitories. Barbed wire surrounds the premises. A stray dog wanders on the tracks in freezing cold.

This dystopian view is not Enki Bilal's Immortal (2004). This is a documentary film by Ksenia Okhapkina about the mining town of Apatity in the Murmansk Oblast in Russia. It is a center of heavy industry, essential for world economy in producing apatite. The famous Murmansk Railway traverses the town. It is also one of the most polluted districts in the world.

The apatite mines were opened in 1929, and during Stalin's Great Terror in 1935 a prison camp was established in Apatity, a major unit in the Gulag Archipelago. Prosperous peasants of North Russia were dispatched there for slave labour in the mines.

The Soviet Union was dissolved 29 years ago, but Ksenia Okhapina's film proves that it remains immortal at least in Apatity. Dilapidated Soviet symbols and slogans appear on walls, buildings and memorials. The time of the town seems to have stopped to an eternal Great Patriotic War. The ghostly figure of Putin hovers behind it all.

Apatity is not far away from Sodankylä: 435 kilometers, that is, within a drive of five and a half hours. The Eternal Night dystopia is being viewed at Midnight Sun Film Festival, albeit online.

Ksenia Okhapkina's artistic vision of a modern Sparta is strong, consistent and single-minded. A monolithic way of life is conveyed in a monolithic interpretation. There is no midnight sun in the movie. Viewers may want to react against attempts of mind control. But what Okhapkina shows us has true gravity.

PS. A meta-text of the movie is H. C. Andersen's fairy-tale The Snow Queen (Snedronningen, 1844). An evil troll has made a magic mirror that distorts the appearance of everything that it reflects. The magic mirror fails to reflect the good and the beautiful, and magnifies the bad and the ugly. The mirror falls from the sky, splinters are blown by the wind, freeze people's hearts like blocks of ice and make their eyes like the troll-mirror itself. In search of the ice-eyed Kai Gerda is carried away to the Snow Queen's palace in Lapland. Her tears of love melt the ice in Kai's eyes. When they stop dancing the splinters fall down to spell "eternity". (I riff on Wikipedia's formulations in this Snow Queen resume).

Russian Lapland belongs to the Murmansk Oblast like Apatity, but Apatity is just a little bit to the south of Lapland.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DATA FROM MSFF AND KSENIA OKHAPKINA'S INTERVIEW FROM THE PRESS KIT:
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DATA FROM MSFF AND KSENIA OKHAPKINA'S INTERVIEW FROM THE PRESS KIT:

IMMORTAL
Ohjaaja: Ksenia Okhapkina
Maa: Viro, Latvia
Vuosi: 2019
Kesto: 1.01
Kielet: venäjä / tekstitys englanniksi
Alkup. nimi: Surematu
Kategoria: Dokumenttielokuvat, Subtitles in English, Uuden elokuvan helmet

Timo Malmi (MSFF): "Jos parhaan venäläisen kirjallisuuden sanotaan tulevan nykyään ulkomailta, niin osa puhuttelevimmista Venäjää käsittelevistä elokuvistakin tuntuu syntyvän nyky-Venäjän ulkopuolella. Virolais-latvialaisena yhteistyönä tuotettu Ksenia Okhapkinan Immortal palkittiin 2019 Itä-Euroopan huomattavimman festivaalin Karlovy Varyn parhaimpana dokumenttina – eikä syyttä: kyseessä on hyytävä, omalla tavallaan runollinen näkemys stalinistisen nationalistisen militarismin jatkumisesta putinilaisena aikana."

"Ollaan vain viitisenkymmentä kilometriä Pohjois-Suomen rajasta, Sallan korkeudella sijaitsevassa Murmanskin alueen Apatiitin 60 000 asukkaan kaivoskaupungissa, jonka tienoot ovat ympäristötuhojen raiskaamat. Missä aikoinaan kärsittiin komennuksella neuvostovankileireissä, asutaan nyt niin normaalia elämää kuin arktisella vyöhykkeellä vaatimattomissa oloissa pystytään."

"Ksenia Okhapkina keskittyy nuoriin patrioottisen valtiokoneiston rattaissa. Tekijä ei tarvitse mitään selostusta tai tekstiä, kun hän tallentaa tyttöjä harjoittelemassa omaa osaansa balettitanssijoina sekä saman ikäisiä varhaisteinipoikia saamassa Kremlin masinoiman nuorisoliikkeen asekoulutusta Kalashnikovin käytössä. Lämpöä ei kaivata kasvatuksessa eikä kuvien sävyssä, kun kuri, järjestys ja ikiaikaiset sukupuoliroolit ovat todella kunniassaan." (TM)

KSENIA OKHAPKINA (s. 1989) on Pietarin valtion yliopiston elokuva- ja tv-linjalta 2012 valmistunut dokumenttifilmien käsikirjoittaja, kuvaaja ja ohjaaja. Vuodesta 2009 hän on valmistanut useita lyhytfilmejä, pari puolipitkää sekä Immortalin ensimmäisenä pitkänä elokuvanaan. Okhapkinan mukaan Apatiitti voisi siinä edustaa mitä hyvänsä vastaavaa venäläistä pikkukaupunkia – vaikka kyseessä onkin ”asumiskelvottomassa” pohjoisessa sijaitseva paikkakunta. Tekijä toteaa filmanneensa nuoria takaapäin välttääkseen tunteen propagandasta. Hän kiistää elokuvansa olevan kommentti venäläisistä sukupuolirooleista, koska problematiikka on laajempi. (MSFF)

KARLOVY VARY INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (KVIFF) 2019

"How do the mechanisms of political power directly influence the lives of a country’s inhabitants? In seeking an answer to this difficult question, this cinematic essay looks at everyday life in a small Russian industrial city, uncovering along the way how dangerous and furtive an all-permeating ideology can be."

Synopsis

"Russian documentary filmmaker Ksenia Okhapkina’s essay portrait looks at the strict order that governs life in a small industrial city in Russia. With her talent for visual composition and perceptiveness regarding local events, she puts together an audiovisual collage of seemingly minor details that enable us to observe a society bound by the regime and political power. Scenes of young girls learning about discipline at ballet school or adolescent boys training for the army are eloquent examples of citizen indoctrination, but the filmmaker avoids psychologizing the participants. Instead she portrays the dangerous ideology without excessive words or narration, thus perfectly capturing its furtive omnipresence and inconspicuousness." Sandra Hezinová

About the director Ksenia Okhapkina

Ksenia Okhapkina (b. 1989). Filmography: The Smoke (2009, short), Snowstorm (2010, short), Liudians (2010, short), The Night Performance (2012, short), In the Beginning Was… The Cube (2013, medium-length), Red (2015, short), Come Back Free (2016, medium-length), Immortal (Surematu, 2019) KVIFF 2019

....

WENDY IDE (SCREEN DAILY) QUOTED BY DOCPOINT 2020:

"This striking documentary is a multi-layered portrait of a heavy industry churning out components for a machine. But the machine is Russia and the components are the model citizens who are shaped and moulded from an early age."

"The setting is the ice-bound north-western reaches of the country, an area first populated by gulags intended to facilitate the industrialisation of the Arctic region. But, we are told on a title card (the only piece of context in this largely fly-on-the-wall film), when the prison gates finally opened following the death of Stalin, the people doggedly stayed on."

"Okhapkina’s film, which won the Grand Prize for Best Documentary at Karlovy Vary, is an oblique and sometimes almost abstract look at the forces that carve out the kind of inhabitants who can survive this unforgiving life. Okhapkina weaves together footage of a town which seems to be mired in the perpetual darkness of winter. Shrouded figures blend into the night, and Okhapkina’s use of silhouetting means that many of these figures remain faceless and anonymous."

"The sound design emphasises the industrial nature of the way the youth of the community are hammered into shape: the clattering heels of dancers drifts into the next shot, of a thundering train toiling through the icy lands."

Wendy Ide, Screen Daily

PRESS KIT

MOTTO:

Born to march to the rhythms of the power, they follow the promise of immortality.

IN SHORT:

The film, set in a north-western industrial town in Russia, reveals the mechanism that entices human beings to voluntarily become a resource to the state. Can a person ever be free in an imperialist society, where intricate and obscure structures take control of their mind-set from an early age? The film looks at the making of a Russian citizen from a fresh angle. The director’s subtle but demanding look reveals “the system” at work in the most benign-looking situations, in all aspects of the  everyday. What happens to people’s free will and self-determination in such conditions? The film is a Nietzschean treat, asking the core existential question: is a human being ever born free?

SYNOPSIS

The film reveals the mechanism that entices human beings to voluntarily turn themselves into
submissive, faceless creatures. Thus, they become a resource to be used by the state – a grey
lump of ore oblivious to the innate value of their individual life.

The town of Apatity first came into being as a concentration camp. Today, 50 years is considered
a ripe old age in the industrial town of Apatity, while the environment is at the brink of an
ecological disaster. The adults while away their lives at the factory bus stop whilst the children
– the token of their immortality – miss out on family life and warmth. Instead, they are left in
the care of state structures that inculcate in them the traits of prisoners, making use of celebration-
like dancing and marching trainings. Neither the children nor their educators are aware of this.
They are convinced that they are bringing up a generation of patriotic heroes, fated to become
legionnaires of the Earth and the adjacent cosmic expanses. The only way out of this system
is death. However, if you die for the state you become an immortal hero.

The dancing and marching fall into the conveyor-belt rhythm of the moving trains, full of grey
lumps of ore that are also destined for immortality: they will become phosphorus fertiliser on which
new life will grow.

CATEGORIES: human rights, state structures, propaganda, industry, children

DIRECTOR’S SHORT BIO

KSENIA OKHAPKINA graduated from St. Petersburg State University of Film and TV in 2012. Since 2014, she has collaborated with the Estonian producer Riho Västrik and his film studio Vesilind. Her first documentary produced in Vesilind, “Come Back Free”, won IDFA Special Jury Award for Mid-Length Documentary in 2016. “Come Back Free” is a poetic documentary about life in a war-torn Chechen village with local cemetery as its symbolic focal point. With her previous work, Ksenia has shown her ability to capture “the poetic in the profane”. She avows to the meaningfulness of a single frame and has strong commitment to composition.

THE PRODUCTION COMPANY

VESILIND (est. 1996) is an independent Estonian production company focused on documentary films and TV-programs. During its 20 years of existence, Vesilind has produced and co-produced over 40 documentaries and hundreds of TV-programs. The company started with mountaineering films, then moved on to producing wildlife and environmental documentaries, which then grew into producing creative documentaries.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

My previous films were about unique places and people with strong personality and had no direct connection to my own biography. I enjoy exploring the world through the camera lens, observing events and people’s behaviour a little from the side. “The Immortal” is my first work, which has something to do with my childhood and teenage experiences in post-Soviet Russia, a place with its own rules that a young person took for granted rather than questioned.

One of the objectives behind creating the Declaration of Human Rights was to protect people from slavery. It was motivated by the tragic experience of the Second World War when human life had been devalued to a statistical unit. Who could have imagined 70 years ago that slavery can be voluntary? In the USSR, a powerful propagandistic structure was created, based on the sense of belonging to a community and unconditional acceptance of authority that is typical for a patriarchal society and perpetuated in modern Russia. The foundation of this structure is the idea of gaining immortality through sacrificial service to the interests of the state. Immortality is a candy for which the totalitarian state, with its economy based on the exploitation of natural resources, buys a person’s will, strength, talent, and lifetime, turning the human being into another resource, faceless as a grey lump of ore.

Perhaps they have died already… but the imaginary glory of being an “immortal hero” veils the reality. The race for survival in the labour camp like living conditions kills them slowly and takes from them their future: their own children. We come to this world absolutely free, and our will is an incredible force capable of changing the reality. However, it can easily be manipulated by restricting resources and depriving people of the most powerful protection: a loving family. This is how the mechanism of voluntary slavery, carried on by generation after generation, enables irresponsible
exploitation of natural resources and enrichment of the elites.

LONG SYNOPSIS

The film reveals the mechanism that entices human beings to voluntarily turn themselves into submissive, faceless creatures. Thus, they become a resource to be used by the state – a grey lump of ore oblivious to the innate value of their individual life. The town of Apatity first came into being as a concentration camp. For the government, this is a very lucrative way of organising society so as to make the mining of natural resources cheaper. Today, 50 years is considered a ripe old age in the industrial town of Apatity, while the environment is at the brink of an ecological disaster. And yet,
every day people celebrate behind tall barbed-wire fences, despite of the polar night and the freezing cold. There is singing, dancing, feasting, garlands in all colours of the rainbow, and of course, the most important thing: military marches. Our curiosity was roused – what are they celebrating? We found the answer: the inhabitants of Apatity were promised immortality.

The adults while away their lives at the factory bus stop whilst the children – the token of their immortality – miss out on family life and warmth. Instead, they are left in the care of state structures that inculcate in them the traits of prisoners. However, neither the children nor their educators are aware of this. They are convinced that they are bringing up a generation of patriotic heroes, fated to become legionnaires of the Earth and the adjacent cosmic expanses. The future legionnaires rest in box-like dorms, crammed full of identical beds, as is customary in the army.

Once the children finish nursery school, their parents, still condemned to standing at the bus stop, send them off to various groups. At some point, these groups start replacing the children’s families, while the teachers take the place of their parents. Thus, a new generation appears that will at some point take their parents’ place at the factory stop. The strongest among them will become overseers of the voluntary prisoners of the labour settlement of Apatity.

The only way out of this system is death. However, if you die for the state you become an immortal hero. The propagandistic model of the new nationwide association “Youngarmy” is founded on precisely the idea that the path to immortality leads through a heroic death for the fatherland. The “Youngarmy” in Russia is based on patriotic circles dating back to Soviet times. The boys attending Apatity’s patriotic military club “Leader” also prepare for immortality via an initiation ceremony – they become Youngarmymen and then serve in the military.

The dancing and marching fall into the conveyor-belt rhythm of the moving trains, full of grey lumps of ore that are also destined for immortality: they will become phosphorus fertiliser on which new life will grow.

IN CONVERSATION WITH THE DIRECTOR KSENIA OKHAPKINA

Why Apatity? Is this settlement in the north-west of Russia outstanding in some way? Or did the place represent a phenomenon, a wider issue you wanted to highlight?

This place is very typical for Russia. There are hundreds of such towns, former labour camps and military bases. Some of them have numbers instead of names. Apatity as well as other such towns are a Soviet phenomenon. They are the backstage of the Soviet empire, built on propaganda and the labour of prisoners. I chose Apatity because there was no settlement there before labour camps were established and railroads built in the 1930s to mine and deliver ore. The town was named after the ore minerals, apatites.

Apatity has no national or cultural background since the prisoners were an international community. Therefore, it is a perfect place to explore the Soviet way of living as inherited by modern Russia. Moreover, one of the biggest chemical industries in Europe is situated there. Apatity is one of the three towns involved in this industry. These three towns are at the brink of an ecological disaster.

In that sense, this town provides an example of how national economy is built and the elites enriched in Russia. It is a playing ground for mechanisms that steer people to support state power all around Russia.

Your film is very poetic albeit it deals with some existentially heavy topics. There must have been both heart breaking and positive moments during the filming. Can you share some of your highs and lows with us?

What is really breath-taking is the cold beauty of the Khibiny Mountains. It feels like another planet, made of ice and snow. Everything is very powerful there: the night lasts for half a year and the day lasts for half a year. There is absolute darkness but also absolute light. In this place, human life seems so fragile. Especially the life of children.

I felt as if I had arrived in the land of The Snow Queen from Andersen’s fairy tale. The surreal situation of the people I filmed reminded me of the boy Kai from this story who had a splinter of ice in his heart, was bewitched, and fell in love with the cold beauty and power. He collected pieces of ice to spell the word “eternity”.

The only warm-hearted Gerda I found in this strange industrial documentary adaptation of “The Snow Queen” was a dog we met by the factory railroad when filming at night. There is a dog shelter not far from there; another prison-like establishment. The dogs behind the high fence, pulling on their heavy metal chains, bark neurotically, madness in their eyes. From time to time dogs escape from the shelter, although the cost for this is their life – they can hardly find any food in the snow desert expanding outside the shelter.

The dog we met had probably escaped the shelter as well. She was wandering along the empty railroad, shaking of cold. Then she came to us, and when I started to talk to her, she started to bark. However, this barking was not aggressive; it was more like a cry. Her’s was the only sincere story, coming from a warm heart that we were lucky to film. If I did not have this scene, there would be no reason to make this film at all, because the dog is the only free living creature in the film. My poor warm-hearted Gerda!

Probably this film itself is like barking in the darkness. I cannot fight big corporations or state structures with a film. But I hope that there is someone in the darkness of the cinema whose heart will get a bit warmer after seeing it. Otherwise, this Gerda dog escaped the shelter-prison in vain.

“Immortal” is a very powerful title. What does it mean to you? Is there anything in the world that is immortal?

This film is about time. For me the idea of immortality is something artificial to start with, as it underestimates and devalues the integrity and personality of a moment of time. I feel that everything in the world is very fragile and in constant motion. Even the mountains disappear, they just live longer. The same goes for human personality: we’re being born and we die every moment because we change all the time. In my point of view, only the process of changing itself is truly immortal. I think that if we appreciated things in their unique integrity and treated every moment as a person, that has absolute value as it will never repeat, we would violate time much less and organise our lifetime and the world around us in a more beautiful and respectful way.