Tarkovsky came to life under the covers and in the cemetery

Young artists presented their vision of the philosophy of the great director

The ROSIZO Museum and Exhibition Center summed up the results of the second All-Russian video art competition “The Worlds of Tarkovsky”. Out of 72 entries submitted in the Love, Childhood, Nostalgia, Space, Landscape categories, the jury selected 66 short videos. And five winners have already been chosen. The general public will be able to see the films of the winners of the competition in the lobby of Moscow cinemas and at the Koroche short film festival, which will be held in Kaliningrad at the end of August. “MK” evaluated the work of the winners.

Andrei Tarkovsky to this day remains the most famous Russian director of auteur cinema for the whole world. In 2018, the publishers of the Oxford Dictionary even introduced a special term – tarkovskian, which means “in the spirit of Andrei Tarkovsky.” Elements of Tarkovsky’s film language can be found in the smooth panoramas of Alejandro González Iñárritu, in the associative montage of Terrence Malick, in the color schemes of Lars von Trier, in the measured rhythms of Carlos Reygadas and in the films of many other domestic and foreign directors. Competing with such masters is not easy, but the young authors who applied for the Worlds of Tarkovsky competition tried. What came of it?

In the nomination “Love” the best was the work of Roman Sinitsyn “One”. This short video without text is very eloquent. Even too much. Before us is an old man – he came to the grave of his dog. Apparently, the only being close to him who left the world before him. The viewer has the opportunity to peer into a calm face, to penetrate into his sad thoughts, to feel his pain of loss. And together with him go further – to the station, so as not to take a train that goes somewhere, because it seems that the hero has nowhere to move. All signs of “Tarkovskian” seem to be on the face: a long slow shot, attention to detail, panorama. But it seems that this is alarming: Tarkovsky’s tricks are read too head-on.

Alena Polyakova’s The Month of May won in the Childhood nomination. The sketch takes us under the covers, where the boy is trying to deal with the deuces in his diary. He looks at the unpleasant pages with a flashlight, rubs them, tries to rewrite them, and eventually tears them to shreds. We don’t see the boy’s face, but we feel his emotion – naked as a nerve. Everything is concise and clear. Maybe even too much. There is no mystery and dreamy metaphor of Tarkovsky here.

In the nomination “Landscape” the winner was the work “Following the wave” by the creative association “More”. Here, on the contrary, a dream is illustrated. Namely, a poem by the director’s father, the poet Arseny Tarkovsky – “And I dreamed about it …”. “Life is a miracle of miracles, and on the knees of a miracle / Alone, like an orphan, I lay myself down, / Alone – among mirrors – in a fence of reflections / Seas and cities radiating into a haze. / And the mother in tears takes the child on her knees. These lines are visualized by shots where a young man interacts with nature and searches for himself through it: he wanders among forests and fields, jumps on stones on the seashore, strokes tree trunks and wildflowers. His rhythm speeds up, then slows down. The hero either runs, then lies, then loses his balance, then finds it. We seem to be in a real dream, but there remains a feeling of a somewhat artificial attempt to fit into the film language of Tarkovsky.

Anastasia Khrolenko’s work of the same name became the leader in the Nostalgia nomination. This is another dream that brings a grown woman back to a black and white past. In the cozy grandmother’s house, where she spent her childhood, she seems to meet herself. She looks at old photographs, finds her teddy bear, peers into mirrors, where she sees herself as a child. The theme with a mirror, referring to the famous film by Tarkovsky, appears several times, but again, not as subtle and mystical as in the classic.

Perhaps the cutest work turned out in the nomination “Space”. The tape “Water” of the studio of creative music making “Orfika” is a documentary filming of a children’s performance with inflatable balls-planets that “dance” to the sounds of live music. Nothing is invented here – a creative performance is unfolding in front of us in the semi-darkness, which, however, is also not directly associated with Tarkovsky, but it feels the chamber personal sincerity characteristic of the classic.

In a word, it is not easy to be Tarkovsky and shoot even short videos in his language. But each attempt deserves attention and encouragement, because it is experience and search that helps young directors find their own path and truly understand the classics.