Films on how to cope with the loss of loved ones were shown at the Moscow Film Festival

Athos policeman refused to be trusted

The first Open festival of auteur films “Winter” is coming to an end in Moscow. At least two competition films touched upon the problem of loss of loved ones with subsequent survival. Deal with the offender or withdraw into yourself? Recipes for survival turned out to be specific.

“Aita” by Stepan Burnashev, well-known not only in Yakutia for the films “Black Snow”, “Cursed Earth”, the very fresh “Our Winter”, amazes with the variety of creative style. It seems that all these paintings were made by different people. Among other things, Stepan is so efficient that he shoots two films a year, which in itself is phenomenal.

Night. A car is moving along a road wet from rain, shimmering with all shades of anthracite. A small Yakut village is sleeping. Investigator Nikolai Sirditov (played by actor of the Oyunsky Theatre, Innokenty Lukovtsev) is urgently summoned to work. The schoolgirl tried to take her own life. She will find a note: “Afonya, I hate you.” Under suspicion is a 35-year-old police officer, the only Russian there (actor Andrei Fomin). He recently arrived in the village, works somehow. If a Russian, and even a policeman, there is no trust in him. For him, all Yakuts look the same. It is curious that the second Russian – a traffic police officer – was played by the Yakut director Dmitry Davydov (“Scarecrow”, “Illegal”, “Bonfire in the Wind”). The Yakuts say about him: “You, Russians, all look the same.” And it’s a very funny episode.

There is no evidence of guilt, but the whole village sharpens knives. Russian must be taken out. Otherwise, lynching is guaranteed. It’s not so much a pity for the Russian – it’s sad that because of him his own people will go to jail. And not only tragedy pushes people to certain death, but the desire to show that it is not strangers who should dictate their own rules. Since the roads are washed out, and it is impossible to stop the heartbroken father, the investigator Nikolai develops a cunning plan. The final monologue of the Russian, who has rethought his worthless life, is unnecessarily edifying and slightly spoils the general mood. The film keeps in suspense, it is impossible to calculate all the moves. It is, however, very picturesque. It would seem that what could be beautiful in a peeling police station, but it looks infernal.

Once a film critic and teacher of film theory at the Universities of New York and New Orleans, Mikhail Brashinsky, who made his debut in directing Ice Ice and 10 years later directed the zombie horror Shopping Tour, presented his third film Waves. This is also not so much a story of loss as a subsequent return to reality, where careers and communication with loved ones do not matter. The hero, played by the eternally brutal Vlad Abashin, goes “there, I don’t know where”, and finds himself in an unreal world: either in a zone, or in a sect.

According to the director, he started thinking about this story in 2010 and only in 2018 took up the script. They started shooting – the actress fell ill. They waited for her recovery, and then they replaced her with another one, inviting Victoria Tolstoganova. Mikhail relied on the ideas of Nikola Tesla, who is credited with the most incredible things related to the influence of an alien mind on human consciousness. “I believe that in any society it is necessary to cultivate exclusively individualism,” the director said after the premiere.

Mikhail invited actress Irina Brazgovka of the Botticelli beauty to play the role of a pig, surprising her in such a way that she immediately agreed. It seems that she is dumbfounded by the result, not ready to give an explanation to everything. However, for her, the picture is that a person can find himself only in himself and no team can save him from falling. In general, all attempts of the collective unconscious were in vain. We continue to rely only on our own strength.