Shinel

Watching Mira Nair directed film 'Namesake' eventually brought me to this Russian movie. One of the iconic lines mentioned in 'Namesake' is 'we are all from Gogol's Overcoat'. The quote is attributed to Dostoevsky, who meant the whole Russian literary world owe their ideas and styles to Gogol, the pre-eminent satirist and literary realism.

Gogol's Overcoat had made it to the silver screen many times over. From the silent film production in 1916 to the 2018 animated version, some of it carries different storylines.

This 1959 Soviet production stays true to the original short story. I also managed to catch up with a made-for-TV adaptation for 'Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Presents' starring Buster Keaton named 'Awakening'. Both of these movies are available on YouTube.

Akaki Akakievich, the protagonist in Gogol's story, is a sad character who leads a boring life. He works in a governmental agency doing seemingly mundane job of keeping records, writing and copying documents. In his mind, he is doing something quite profound. He knows all the figures and numbers like the back of his hand. His eccentricity is actually the butt of joke among his co-worker. Akaki earns pittance, and it shows. He lives in a rented room in the poor side of town. His overcoat is so worn out and cannot be patched anymore, according to his tailor.

He stinges through to be able to sew a new coat and receives attention from his co-workers when he shows up with his new overcoat. The usual socially awkward Akiki is feted with an office party in his honour. Akiki is extremely happy with his decision, but still, his new purchase cannot change his awkwardness. He personifies his coat and cares for it dearly, sometimes over the top. He even removes the coat when it snows, not wanting to get it wet.

Going home, his flashy coat draws unwanted attention. He is mugged. Muggers scoot off with his pricey possession. Next comes the lengthy bureaucracy of reporting his theft. He is given the runaround. His loss and exposure of cold proved too much for Akiki. Akiki succumbs to pneumonia and haunts the neighbourhood. A meaningless death to a person leading a meaningless life.

The Buster Keaton version (The Awakening) has a slightly different ending. Akiki does not die, but instead, is determined to relive his dream where he raises up to assassinate the chief of the tyrannic system.

The story is a symbolism of a broken system. Even though people's patience has been stretched thin with ridiculous policies and unwise decisions, the people go on thinking that they are doing alright. Not realising that the joke is on them, they blindly give themselves a pat on their back for a job well done. Unbeknownst to everyone changes can be detrimental, but then, the Truth or generation after them will rise to the occasion. This is shown as Akiki coming back as a ghost to haunt the living daylight of the people of St Petersburg.

"Shinel" is adapted from Nikolai Gogol's story about Akaki Akakievich (literally translated, that comes out as "without evil without evil-son), who always has the worst luck in the world. Stuck in a dead-end job with an abusive boss and co-workers, nothing ever works out for him. His apartment looks like something out of a Jean-Paul Sartre play.

This certainly is a good adaptation, although you may feel tempted to throw out "MST3K"-style comments at it, due to the movie's overstuffed sense of itself. I jokingly called the character an Arte Johnson lookalike, although it's only actor Rolan Bykov who looks like Arte Johnson. All in all, this is a good movie, with a real classic feeling of Russian fatalism.

Aleksey Batalov's 1959 production of The Overcoat is an earnest adaption of Gogol's famed short story. Batalov closely depicts Gogol's critical portrayal of Russian society. The emphasis of humorous aspects of the narrative gives way to a somewhat genteel spin on Gogol's central character, Akaky Akakieyevich, but the tragedy of the story and the critique which it underscores remain resonant in the film as a whole. Some of Gogol's frankness and the authenticity of third person experience are lost in the humorous flourishes of the movie.

Even in the opening scene, where viewers find Akaky Akakieyevich in the cradle attended by his mother, who rocks him gently, an amusing spectacle cast in a charming light takes the place of Gogol's rather stark and unnerving scene. The mother is surrounded by friends who offer her names for her child. She gingerly dispenses with each suggestion in favor of the name of the father. Here bestowal is a redundancy, which in Gogol's darker treatment sets off a theme of austerity. His account of the room is dissimilar. Godmother and Godfather list names for the prone mother who protests bitterly, only to choose the above in deference to "fate." Akaky then cries and makes a "wry face" as if to foreshadow his gloomy existence.

Departing from Gogol's tone, the film adopts a rather organic understanding of Akaky's debacle. The repetition of familiar scenes depicting modern trifles in humorous light deaden the impact of pathos. Akakieyevich bumbles in his apartment plagued by a meddling and captious landlady. The theme of chill is evident in the commute scene but its prevalence does not match Gogol. The society of the office is a farce the extent of which ruptures Gogol's realistic scale. Akaky is a persecuted hero who speaks directly to his attackers: "why do you persecute me." His words find purchase in the consciences of his coworkers even amid social distraction. The scene takes on a fable- like quality which undermines its relevance.

Gogol directly apologizes early in his story for the indulgences of his narrative which bring peripheral characters into view. He notes, too, his decision to omit the name of the department under discussion, "to avoid all unpleasantness." This places his character in direct correspondence to a social atmosphere. The reader understands the author is subject to a dangerous set of liabilities. The story seems timeless even in this context of social oppression. Akakieyevich is tethered intractably to a condition which itself seems eternal. The film portrays a man, whose tale is floating in the nebula of history, a fiction of import unattached to place and time. The humor is a modern variety reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin. Episodes, such as Akaky's struggle to do laundry in his landlady's quarters, resonate with Gogol's themes but fetch laughs which drown the author's intentions in the absurd.

Alexei Batalov's "The Overcoat" portrays Gogol's classic story about as well as any on-screen adaptation could for the time. It accurately depicts Gogol's harsh portrayal of 19th century Russian society and more or less stays true to his dark sense of humor. Overall, I enjoyed watching it and would recommend it to anyone looking to explore the nuances of early Soviet filmmaking, or to anyone who happens to be a fan of Gogol and is too lazy to read short stories. The bulk of the narrative gets across easily and one is able to interpret the larger themes which Gogol intended to relay without much interference. Through the story, one can easily see the distinctions between life as an underprivileged worker in 19th century Russia and that of a noble, blind to the many nuances of the struggle for social acceptance.

The movie begins with the birth of a boy seemingly doomed from the start. His mother decides to name him Akaky, after his father, making him Akaky Akakievich; an unfortunate name in any language. Akaky is born into a world where social classes still exist and where a man has little opportunity to elevate his status in life to any meaningful degree. This reflects the style of life experienced by many Russians during the 19th century, when serfdom still existed and when status was determined by birth rather than by merit. Akaky's unfortunate name serves only to exacerbate his misfortunes of being born outside of the noble class. The narrative jumps from Akaky's birth to his life as an adult working as a clerk and copyist in St. Petersburg. Akaky seemingly does not have much to live for and thoroughly enjoys his job, as it is the only thing which gives him some form of identity. Akaky is not popular at work and is often the target of ridicule and practical jokes.

Soon after the film's beginning, Akaky is prompted to buy a new overcoat, as the one he has is old and tattered. In Russia, everyone must wear an overcoat due to the bitter cold. Therefore, the quality of the overcoat is seen as a status symbol by those devoid of any real status within society. Initially, Akaky is dismayed at the idea of having to buy a new overcoat, as he can barely afford to stay alive. Interestingly, when visiting his tailor, Akaky opts to buy the more expensive and more fashionable overcoat as opposed to another simple yet still effective one, despite it costing twice his salary. After much sacrifice and at a cost to his own standard of living, Akaky eventually accumulates the money required and buys the overcoat. The mere fact that Akaky is willing to sacrifice his own standard of living (i.e., taking less food, going days without proper heating, etc.) in order to obtain something of mere social significance symbolizes the importance of social acceptance within 19th century Russia.

Immediately after acquiring the coat, Akaky becomes addicted to the attention it receives. At one point he even refuses to even wear it in fear that it may get dirty and not be as attractive as it would be otherwise, thus negating its actual purpose as an overcoat. At the office, his coworkers are so impressed by his new coat that they throw a party in its honor (ain't no party like a Russian coat party). Unused to the attention, Akaky remains his uneasy and socially awkward self, despite his newfound status, and leaves the party early. So we see that despite the change in his outward appearance, Akaky remains the same as he was before. When Akaky is ultimately robbed of his overcoat (as he still lives in the same rough part of town that he always had), he finds himself unable to garner any support or sympathy from those above him. As in the story of Icarus, Akaky finds himself having flown too close to the sun and left falling with melted wings. Eventually, without a coat to shield him from the harsh winter, he catches a cold and dies. Oh yeah and then he comes back as a ghost to steal coats from people. Isn't Gogol hilarious? Dostoevsky famously said "We all come out from Gogol's Overcoat." The Overcoat served as reminder to all Russians of the social disparity of the times. It highlighted Gogol's ability to satirize modern society and his penchant for analyzing and revealing the dark side of Russian politics. Future writers would look to Gogol and his masterpiece "The Overcoat" for inspiration in doing the same. In this film, Batalov does an admirable job or translating that message to the big screen. 7/10.

Nikolay Gogol's short story is one of the major classics in Russian literature and tells the story of a small man constantly humiliated by his fellows and by his fate, which strikes him with overwhelming cruelty, as he reaches some kind of glory at his humble situation as a clerk by raising his status considerably as he acquires a decent overcoat, for which he is even celebrated, until one evening some hoodlums attack him in the street and rob him of his overcoat, turning his life into mortal humiliation. The film sticks to Gogol's original with pious fidelity, and Rolan Bykov's impersonation of Akaki Akakievitch is more than convincing - it is overwhelming in its heart-breaking pathos. This is a film you will never forget. I saw it as a child which brought me headlong into Russian literature, and I always looked forward to seeing it again. After almost 60 years I recognized almost every detail, as the film is made with an expressionistic cijnematography that makes every scene visually impressive in its exquisite art. This is a oarallel masterpiece to "The Lady with the Small Dog" of the same year with Alexei Batalov as the male lead, who directed this picture.