Sasha

Aleksandra Khokhlova: Sasha / Саша (SU 1930) with Mariya Sapozhnikova.

Саша.
    SU 1930. Director: Aleksandra Chochlova. 42 min
    Scen.: Oleg Leonidov, Lev Kulešov, Aleksandra Chochlova. F.: Naum Naumov-Straž. Scgf.: V. Pokrovskij.
    Int.: Marija Sapožnikova (Saša), P. Il’in (Kotov, suo marito), Andrej Fajt (Pepel’nik), Pëtr Galadžev (Ivan Semënovič), Daniil Vvedenskij (Smirenin), Ljudmila Semënova (donna arrestata), Leonid Kmit.
    Prod.: Belgoskino Leningrad. 35 mm. Bn.
    Unreleased in Finland.
    Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020: Early Women Directors in the Soviet Union
    Print: Gosfilmofond of Russia. The finale is missing.
    Russian intertitles, e-subtitles in Italian and English.
    Introducono Irène Bonnaud and Bernard Eisenschitz.
    Digital piano: Antonio Coppola.
    Viewed at Cinema Jolly, 25 Aug 2020.

Irène Bonnaud and Bernard Eisenschitz (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020): "A simple story set in the years when country dwellers were pouring into the city, with a hint of a crime film. Sasha, a young peasant woman, arrives in town pregnant. One police officer takes her under his protection, but another denounces her as the wife of a detainee accused of having murdered the village teacher. The film’s ending is lost but easy to assume: a flashback shows that the husband is innocent and reveals the real killer. The film was made at Belgoskino, a small studio in Leningrad. “To study the militia’s character and its mechanisms”, Khokhlova spent time in a police station, observing arrest procedures, witnessing a prisoner having a seizure, from which she drew inspiration for a memorable episode with Liudmila Semionova (Chertogo koleso / The Devil’s Wheel, Tretya meshchanskaya / Bed and Sofa). It seems that the heroine comes out of her inertia in this moment of female solidarity, as she does when she befriends the police officer’s wife. In her memoirs, Khokhlova seems to be mainly concerned with her actors. She had studied with Stanislavski and his creative principles seem to oppose the expressive acting style developed by Kuleshov (decomposition and mechanisation of gestures and movements), of which she had been the most notable practitioner: “I was above all trying to make people look real, not like actors. So I was pleased when they thought that my leading actress was a cleaning lady, and they asked me why was I taking her with me, when she was an actual actress who had studied at the GTK”. On the other hand, the editing style is Kuleshov’s, and the cast combines members of the collective – Andrei Fayt, Galadzhev – and actors from different backgrounds." Irène Bonnaud and Bernard Eisenschitz (Il Cinema Ritrovato 2020)

AA: A woman from the village arrives at the city, and her helplessness and confusion seem so plain and convincing that it is still possible to believe that she is portrayed by an amateur. But this is the debut role of Maria Sapozhnikova, in the process of being launched to a long and illustrious career that lasted until the age of Glasnost, often cast in small roles in prestigious films.

Aleksandra Khokhlova: Sasha / Саша (SU 1930) with Andrei Fait as the police officer Pepelnik and Mariya Sapozhnikova as Sasha.

Sapozhnikova's performance as Sasha stands for the millions of village people who have moved to the cities, almost run over in the traffic, lost and with no place to go. She is taken to police protection, and it turns out that it is a police case that has led her to move in the first place: her husband has been framed for the murder of the village teacher, a crime actually committed by the big farmer Smirenin.

Aleksandra Khokhlova provides a lot of humoristic detail charting Sasha's ordeals in coming to terms with city life. In montage sequences we get acquainted with life at the police station. After initial helplessness, Sasha takes things in her own hands. She helps with women prisoners. She helps do washing.

She displays surprising energy in carrying heavy corn sacks to the attic. It turns out that she is pregnant, and when she gives birth to a son, it is a cause for joy for the whole police station. No longer does Sasha feel lost, instead she is beaming with joy and happinness.

A sense of reality and authenticity is the hallmark of Khokhlova's visual approach. The story is often conveyed in fast edits, illuminating vignettes and unexpected camera angles.

The propaganda aspect (the villain behind it all is a kulak, a big farmer) is sinister in a period of a violent persecution of big farmers, which spelt doom to them, including deportations, executions and Gulag sentences, and contributed to famines of world-historical magnitude.

The finale of the movie has not survived, and the source of this print seems to be duped, in low contrast and with marks of damage.