I’m really enjoying my Kira Muratova viewing. Chekhov’s Motifs is silly, like Passions, but with a more sardonic edge, and more meaning in its crazy tableaux. The screenplay combines two works by Chekhov, a short story about a poor farming family and a banned play about a wedding in the ‘rich and famous’ set. It reminded me a bit of Sokurov’s Mournful Unconcern, with its Chekhovian ridicule overlaid with modern cynicism.
The film has a timeless feel, helped along by its 19th century roots, lovely black and white photography, and the ancient rites of the Russian Orthodox. The farming family are anachronistic to an extreme. (Imagine the Mennonite family in Silent Light if they were screaming at each other and breaking dishes, haha.) The SUV-driving ‘artistic’ crowd at the wedding are a strange sight in the ornate church, yet they bring a ‘medieval rabble’ vibe to the ceremony with their scornful, yet still superstitious attitudes.
I keep reading how irritating some people find Muratova, how patience-trying. But I can’t understand this at all. It’s true, the wedding ceremony is staged in real time, barely a chanted word is elided. But there’s constant humor: the bridegroom sees a ghost and chokes on his wine, suppressed tears make the bride sneeze, the guests gossip and complain and dash out for smoking breaks. And, in case I’ve given the impression that it’s all cold and loveless, there’s plenty of Chekhovian affection for humanity throughout. Children provide light and love, as well as a realism that grounds the dark comedy. And music offers solace and beauty that pulls the segments (and classes) together. I love it!
I really enjoyed Kira Muratova’s Passions, but The Asthenic Syndrome makes the former look like a cartoon. (Which, to be fair, it basically is.) There’s a two-part structure here: first a grieving widow’s rage and then a high school teacher’s depression. I’d understand if someone found the former off-putting, but her grief tore me up. The teacher’s fatigue is more safely comic, with his passivity and inappropriate naps. And he’s not alone! If the other characters in the second segment aren’t falling asleep, they’re wandering aimlessly, or partying, or playing pranks. Since it was made the year the Berlin Wall fell, it’s impossible not to read in some politics at least. Certainly there are complicated emotions, with an angry undercurrent in even the silliest episodes. That’s why the two-part structure with its mournful echoes is so crucial. Together, they end up a lot more than the sum of their parts.
I’ve read that some people find Muratova too esoteric, too Russian, to be understood in the West, but I heartily disagree. I’m sure there are plenty of details I’d understand better if I’d lived in that place and time, but Syndrome is set in a country of frustration and disappointment; and it just happens that’s a country I know quite a bit about!
I think I’ve found another niche subgenre to love: screwball “art” comedies by female directors. It’s a very, very small subgenre (haha), occupied at the moment by two rather fantastic films, Kira Muratova’s Passions and Sally Potter’s The Gold Diggers, both completely crazy comedies about two central female characters, both ridiculously fun.
What is the horse’s primary calling in life? Mysticism!
Passions is a very, very crazy combination of absurdity, slapstick, and horses. I find it completely charming and rewatchable, yet it almost brought this thread down, because I had such a hard time describing it. The look is very low-budget, with an emphasis on goofy tableaux. The plot, if you can call it that, revolves around silly people who are seriously passionate about their calling in life. For some reason, the actress playing Violetta is doing a dead-on imitation of a seven-year-old girl, wardrobe and all. The actress playing Lilya, on the other hand, drifts through the film taking naps and declaiming unique stream-of-consciousness monologues, which she wrote herself and, apparently, made her popular in Russia. The dialogue ranges from silly non-sequiturs to surprisingly serious soliloquies about respect and beauty and… horses; and it’s always worth paying attention to, both for the gags and for some surprising things it does with rhythm. For example, there’s an amazing, crowded scene in the stables where the overlapping (polyphonic) dialogue amounts to extended variations on the theme, “What is pace?” as each voice brings up the theme at a different time point amid the surrounding babble. It’s a fugue! As in Sokurov’s own crazy comedy, Mournful Unconcern, there’s inexplicable artillery fire in the background, completely ignored by the characters. Russian war humor! Also like Sokurov, Muratova uses a classical score (by Beethoven) in a way that could have been ironic, but is instead joyful and sincere. “Beauty!” it says. “See the beauty in the horses… in enthusiasm… in everyone!”
I’ve been kept in the dark. Those are the conditions, the necessary conditions for my existence.
After the colorful frivolity of Passions, The Gold Diggers may seem much more solemn, with its stark, icy landscapes and economic/feminist preoccupations. But don’t be fooled! It may appear to be about women seeking to understand the role of money in society and striving to break free from stereotypes. And that’s all in there, for sure. But by the time it rushes to its rousing and deliriously silly climax, I’m not thinking about the economy. I’ve figured it out: Potter’s true passion is film!
Its slow start, with the Kafka-esque humor and ominous men in suits, is simply establishing the melodic themes. It hits its stride in a surreal theater scene, which wraps around and in on itself and… drumroll! It’s time for a crazy, all-stops-out finale, reprising all the visual themes with increased energy and deliriously comic variations. It’s fantastic, and it makes every moment leading up to it more than worth it.
Besides the perfectly orchestrated craziness of the ending, my favorite thing is the flashbacks to her childhood which haunt Ruby. Are they poking fun at film conventions, since it turns out she’s only a piece of celluloid? They’re no more ‘real’ than the unicorn dream in Blade Runner. And yet— ! They’re as evocative and haunting and beautiful as anything in film, skillfully repeated to give them the feel of real memory, real yearning. It’s movie magic of the best kind.
Maiden's Voyage 