Die Sanfte

I must confess this. Till the last 20 minutes I had some doubts about this movie. I was questioning some scenes and I was about to see this movie as an average try to make a good movie. But the last 20 minutes completes the whole movie perfectly and all my doubts were erased and I was totally wrong on my questioning. It is like a puzzle and the last big piece comes at the end. I found a piece of Fellini's festive language and Tarkovsky's mystery in the movie but it is totally a brand new approach, not an imitated way, contrarily very fresh approach. Very impressive movie, very impressive direction and performance of all artists. All I can say is just to thank to them. It must be watched!

This incredible movie was hard to watch but it was well worth it. The original story of Fyodor Dostoyevsky was adapted by the director to Putin's time, so much so that I thought that the movie (filmed in 2017) was made after the start of the present Ukraine war. The un-named woman leaves her residence and travels to the prison where her husband is held, without knowing that she enters a kafkaesque maze where the individual is a prisoner of the whim of the authorities. The reader is advised to remember all the passersby because they will be back towards the end. A very unusual movie, worth watching by all means despite its length.

After having watched the trials and tribulations of the lead character in this film for more than two hours, I realized I didn't even know her name. Did I miss it somehow? No, I didn't. Her name is not mentioned even once, and in the credits she is referred to as 'the gentle creature'.

This is symbolic for the dehumanization of the Russian society, which is the main subject of this film. Citizens are not seen as human creatures that need help, assistance or simply a kind smile, but as inconveniences, causes for trouble and objects for complaints. The whole society seems to consist of bitter, demoralized and cynical people.

The film shows how the nameless woman travels to a huge prison in an isolated town in Siberia, to visit her husband. The package she sent him was returned to sender, so she wants to find out what happened. During her long search she has to confront rude prison officials, corrupt police officers, greedy pimps, drunk lodgers, nostalgic nationalists and a disheartened human rights activist. The woman endures everything with admirable patience. Her facial expression remains completely even, whatever happens to her, and she only speaks when strictly necessary.

The movie is filmed in slow, almost contemplative scenes. The audience has to be patient, just as the woman. But the film is far from boring. The viewer completely identifies with the woman. After every deception, you're asking yourself: what next? What can be worse? An important aspect is the very clever cinematography. In several scenes, the director starts by showing a conversation or an event that is seemingly unattached to the story, only to show the connection after several minutes. A good example is the scene in the train taking the woman from her village to the prison town. We see four train passengers discussing the fate of the Russian state, until the camera turns, showing the woman sitting in a corner of the compartment, silently observing the goings-on.

The situations sometimes get so absurd that the viewer hesitates between laughing or crying. When asking for directions, the woman is told: 'Just look out for a burned house. A friend of mine died there.' It's something this film has in common with the films of Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki, who also shows ordinary men and women struggling in their daily existence. At times, even David Lynch comes to mind. That is particularly the case in the last part of the film. This dream sequence takes a quite different turn, and it is open to question if it makes the film better or worse. There's something to say for both, but in any case it adds an extra dimension that is worth thinking about. In this dream sequence, the Ukrainian director seems to hammer home his point: Russia is a deplorable country.

Keep in mind, Ukraine is still at war with Russian-supported militia over the control of its Eastern parts. As an insult to Vladimir Putin, this film doesn't miss its target.

When I first read the premise of this movie (the returned package) I wasn't sure if this would be a horror movie or not.

What I got is decidedly not a horror movie but it is indeed terrifying in its own way.

An ineffably strange and atmospheric odyssey of one woman through a prison town, meeting vivid character after vivid character, each cartoonish in their own way yet at once, almost too real, like a sort of modern day urban Alice in Wonderland.

Valentina Makovtseva plays this unfortunate wife with a quite, smouldering intensity that makes me sure I would recognise her in anything else I see. Even in her resting face she is hard to forget. The candid, episodic narrative tells a story of modern Russia in the numerous people that make it up; a world composed of those desperately trying to make the best of a system that no one seems to have seen coming and those who are part of the system and where the petty criminals and the law enforcement are alike in brutality and apathy.

Although it is not a horror movie, it is envisioned exactly as one should be: the seductive cinematography, the candid angles, the way it always lingers on action even when the scene is effectively at its close; I hope the director of this does direct a horror one day. No need to write it, just give a good script their treatment.

This movie is sort of like a Russian turnip. Not sweet and definitely unsavoury, but on some level I suspect its good for you. Though it's never aggressive, it never relents, it takes no short cuts yet it never drags. It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth that I don't think I'll ever forget.

'A gentle creature' defies categorisation, it is rich with both metaphor and realism. A Russian woman, depicted as 'gentle', searches for an explanation about the seeming disappearance of her husband who should still be in a Siberian prison. Her emotion during this journey is blunted and she gradually weakens further from lack of sleep and tiredness, until she is entirely and completely vulnerable. A courageous woman, she experiences the most extreme bureaucracy and corruption, the type that is the stuff of nightmares. This is masterfully depicted throughout, in scenes that no Hollywood movie is able to match. The viewer feels entrapped like the woman, and her emotional bluntness is understood completely.

Described by other reviewers as bleak, I found the dark mood of this story somewhat balanced by the humanity shown by others, strangers to the woman, who also suffer similar if not worse dilemmas than the woman. Her journey is her own, solitary and with great risk, but she is never invisible to others. Life in this Siberian town may be cold and harsh, but is life in any modern city any less warm?