Marriage and the Male Mystique come under the spotlight in these two fresh psychological dramas.
This November a pair of cinematic dramas from Russia arrived in Kazakhstan to add to the winter chill. They seem to be plotting parallel vectors in that they both lay bare the murkier ends of what is expected of men and women in our times. They do so in an entertaining way, minus anything in the way of sociological agit-prop.
Po Muzhski – the title gets translated as either `Manly` or `Like A Man` (I prefer the latter) -was released by Central Partnership on November 10th and seemed to come out of the blue with a rookie director and a lead actor best known for online comedies.
This is by no means a comedy, however. Indeed, it comes under the label of `drama-thriller` which is as good a pigeonhole as you can get. Nevertheless, there were a handful of people to see it at the Almaty cinema where I went and it has garnered appreciative responses from the online feedback forums.
Like a Man was directed by Maxim Kulagin who has been responsible for shorts until now. The protagonist Gleb, is the 36-year-old Anton Lapenko who hails from the Moscow satellite dormitory town of Zelenograd. A redoubtable talent, he created a fanbase with `Inside Lapenko` on Instagram – a satirical character driven comedy which draws comparisons with Monty Python.
The 34-year-old Ekaterina Shcherbakova takes the part of Gleb’s stunning wife Polina. (With exquisite irony she also turned up in the comedy (Not) Ideal Man from a few years ago).
Whilst the film triumphs in not featuring obvious villains, the 28-year-old actor Sergey Vasin, who has done television work before, portrays a chilling and believable low-life antagonist.
Gleb has it made in today’s Russia. A managerial-cum- entrepreneurial type, he is rewarded in the form of a moderne and swanky dacha on the outskirts of the city. He and his wife have invited some friends over and, while they quaff some choice wines, he cooks on a wok.
Then it happens. A local youth hurls a bag of rubbish into their enclosed back garden. The resulting confrontation with this man of lower economic status leads to Gleb’s wife getting slapped. Gleb responds in a rational manner by herding his party back into the dacha and away from further harm.
A spiral of descent on Gleb’s part ensues. He begins to watch instructional street fighting videos, start trying to lift weights beyond his capabilities at the gym, and takers up smoking again, roaming the streets to cadge a cigarette. Then he buys a gas gun….
True enough he does make some attempt to bring closure to the matter in a civilized way. He goes to speak in person to the miscreant and befriends the man’s wife. However, his own wife continues to feel under threat and his more hothead friends urge him to deal with this `gopnik` with less compromise. Soon the dividing line between his own behavior and that of his enemy becomes ever more blurred.
Gopnik [Kinomail.ru]
Clichés are eschewed: this is no Straw Dogs, despite some similarities. Even with Andrey Bugrov’s stormy score setting the mood, Like a Man does not revel in depictions of gratuitous violence.
In fact, there is – as they say – a lot to unpack here. What is foregrounded is the contradictory demands that a modern males face – still mired in his provider/protector role but not expected to display brute shows of strength -but there is also something here about the yawning chasm between the aspirational middle-classes and those who are less successful. Also, whisper it, but I found it hard not to view the film as functioning as some sort of parable concerning the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.
In any case, despite problems I had with the language level, I was kept rivetted throughout the film’s 105 minutes and it has stayed with me since.
Sisters.
This proved a hard film to get to see. The showing was in a far-flung, vast shopping mall in which the cinema was not signposted. Then the cinema itself failed to advertise that they were showing the film. In short, I reached the booth as the opening credits were rolling. I was alone in the place.
Sisters (Sestri) released this November, constitutes a thriller laced with fantasy elements and was directed by Ivan Petukhov who is responsible for many comedies (and has worked with Uma Thurman). However, in 2020 he was inspired by the quarantines to produce Locked Up which revolves around similar themes of isolation that Sisters involves.Released by Baselev’s Studio/Magic Production Studio and Event Horizon Company, the film provides a meaty role to Irina Starshenbaum (Invasion, Summer,Sherlock in Russia). As well as being Russia’s sweetheart she is a known opponent of Russia’s involvement in the Ukraine. As `creative director` she also must have had a fair bit of input into the product.
Another old hand of stage and screen (who also can be seen in Summer) joins her: Nikita Efremov.
The action opens in media res with Anya (Starshenbaum without cosmetics and looking a little older than her thirty-years) attempting to flee from further physical abuse from her businessman husband, Andrey, with a toddler in tow. Later, after her husband has left for work, she discovers that she has been locked into her flat. Then, in her attempt to reach out for online help she stumbles on a sisterhood who offer assistance. This coven of once abused women hide horrifying powers. They have the means to turn the tables on toxic men with a spot of human combustion….
Throughout the film’s 110 minutes the pace is slow and the mood unsettling. As with Like a Man what we get here is a domestic drama zooming in on the reactions of the main players.
Despite it’s 18 + certification, the cruelty and physical violation that forms the core of the tale is kept off the screen for the most part. Efremov plays Andrey with restraint: he seems calm and even loving at times and yet somehow menacing throughout.
Sisters represents an exercise in ambience. It is a spectral ambience brought about by the interplay of illumination and shadow in the photography and a celestial score from Misha Mishchenko (known for his work with the band Evendice) which provides the nucleus of this state-of-the-art Art Horror project.
The film was released to coincide with something called The International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and the director’s own comments and the statistics about domestic violence put up on the screen as the story closes all suggest that this has pretentions to being an `Issue Movie`. They seem to be trying to do for domestic violence in Russia what The China Syndrome did for the American nuclear industry – that is, blow the whistle on it.
Sisters is, for sure, unsentimental about life in Russia right now yet I am not so sure that its intended message will seep through. Something more social realist than magical realist might have fared better. Then again, Gogol’s The Overcoat – a ghost story – raised the question of lower-middle class poverty in its time.
The bigger question is this: will those interested in the West ever get to see these important films now?
Lead image: Kinomail.ru