Annoyed by the Sun

10. 7. 2010 / Ema Čulík

In order to make his awkward continuation possible, he employed retroactive continuity, bringing all his characters back to life even though they had all finished at the end of the first film. At Uherské Hradiště a few years ago, Britské Listy asked one of the filmmakers how this could be possible, and received the reply that "The KGB can do anything". The KGB can do what it wants, but Mikhalkov is not so great that he can take back his own story -- all it does is undermine the conclusion of the original and prevent the sequel having any credibility.

The very premise of the film is rather puzzling in general. It is set in 1941 at the very start of WW2, and also several years later, when Stalin sends Chekist Dmitrij Arsentiev (who now hasn't commited suicide...) to find out what happened to Kotov (who now hasn't been shot).

The overarching story is the gradual uncovering of the stories of Nadia and Sergei Kotov. (That's his cute little brown-eyed daughter from the first film, played here and there by Mikhalkov's own daughter, Nadia.) Obviously it's going to move across history and the war until they are finally reunited (à la Zhivago). I have to say 'obviously' and 'going to' because last night's three-hour bonanza was only one part of a massive-scale epic that Mikhalkov is going to pile onto us.

I guess Mikhalkov is aiming for the same spiritual power that Pasternak's novel emanates. He told us in his lengthy introduction, "Don't pay too much attention to the action, this film is about the philosophy of war, the psychology of war, and where God resides in war." The difference is that Pasternak is a poet, penetrating and sensitive. And Mikhalkov nowadays is a big rhino who stamps over everything.

His attempts to show that "God is present in war" are so heavy-handed, sanctimonious and false. This theme is most present in the storyline of Nadia, a goody-two-shoes komsomolka, who is converted in about two seconds by a priest -- the only other survivor when their boat is sunk by the Germans. Nadia later finds herself in a small village. A couple of Germans fall back from their unit, and follow her into a barn to have their way with her. Another woman hiding in the darkness, who had been raped by soldiers earlier, kills them in self defence. One more German finds the corpses of his two friends and runs back to get the rest of his unit. The two woman run and hide up a hill.

The Germans pull all the villagers out of their houses and threaten them that "Someone must answer for this. If no one owns up, we'll kill you all." And they do. They drive them all into a barn and set fire to it. Uphill Nadia is wailing, "How can I live after this!!" and wants to go and own up to killing them, but the other woman pulls her down and notices the cross around her neck. She says, "Oh, you are a believer! You mustn't interfere with God's will! He wanted it this way -- he wants us to stay alive, we are important!" Nadia cries a bit, and then agrees, sighing in awe at the mystery of "God's plan". In a massive cop out, the two deny responsibility for just causing the horrible death of hundreds of people, and then comfort themselves with the idea that "God wanted this". Mikhalkov doesn't give us a single reason to believe that this might be God's will. God is quite absent from the film as a whole. Apart from people praying a couple of times, and a bomb landing on a church and yet not destroying an icon, there is no spirituality in the film whatsoever. Film gives so many possibilities to create spiritual atmosphere, it allows the storyteller to make things into symbols, and the power of time and silence can be wonderfully effective to create a mystical presence. Mikhalkov doesn't need to look far for an example of it -- his fellow Russian Tarkovsky was the master of this. Mikhalkov, however, thinks that a couple of false miracles have the power to move us. True spirituality lies not in these spectacles but in a spirit that resides in people and in time. This film has no such spirit.

I was quite amused at the statement, "God wants us to stay alive". It was such a cowardly statement, not even filled with the despair that might explain such an outcry. In fact, it makes more sense if we look behind it and read, "The writers want us to stay alive." Both Nadia and Kotov seem to be indestructible, for no apparent reason. Just like in Hollywood films, when you know that the 'good guy' is never going to be killed. Even in battle Kotov is never hurt. He is fighting in a penal division together with Red Army Cadets against a much stronger German attack (complete with tanks -- against the ex-cons' sharpened spades) and even though all of the highly-trained Cadets and almost all of the penal division are killed, Kotov and his five closest friends all survive. What an amazing coincidence!

This film is filled with terrible Hollywood stereotypes. One would think that it was a parody, only the film is not ironic. For example, the typical action-movie cliché of two people running away from a building and jumping into the air as it explodes behind them. Here the building is a church, bombed by chance by German fighter pilots who needed to get rid of the bomb. This banality has been parodied so many times that no one would touch it with a bargepole. I just wonder -- does Mikhalkov believe he is great enough to do what he wants, or is he just unaware of how films are even made nowadays?

The visual style of the film is unremarkable. Instead of using the many possibilities of the language of cinema -- composition, style, tempo and rhythm, original ideas -- Mikhalkov just uses slow motion to emphasise the moment. Similarly, the actors' performances are extremely strained, and would be best described as what Stanislavsky called "ломание" - being affected, posing. Mikhalkov as Kotov tries to be innocent, virtuous and youthful, so he opens his eyes wide and grimaces like someone with a few eggs missing in their basket. The film stars many good actors -- Menshikov, Makovetskij, Garmash, Zolotukhin.. and somehow Mikhalkov has made monkeys of them all.

I could see, though, that in some places he was trying, despite himself, to be modern. In a couple of places it actually worked -- the scenes with the penal division have some sincere moments when the criminals are bringing their commander and the Kremlin Cadets down to Earth. These mild elements of Satire are the most successful moments as they do not try to be high flown or monumental. The humour here is a wonderful relief, before we go back to the overly sentimentalised sugary rubbish that Mikhalkov's films are now always poisoned by.

The other 'modern' thing about the film is the detailed and gory detail of bloody ripped off arms, bodies crushed by tanks and frozen corpses. Unfortunately they are not always done very realistically, and appear somewhat incongruous against the sappy hotchpotch of everything else.

The film has a confused structure, it fails to capture the viewer, and the mixture of violence, insincere evangelising and lame sentimentalism just leaves you feeling confused. Maybe it's time Mikhalkov stopped focussing on his ego and thought about how to actually make a film.

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