Pridel angela

soviet regime. a killer. legendary Valaam monastery. a Finnish guest. a child. and new beginning. drawings, prays, beautiful images and new kind of way. a lesson as ladder. step by step. to the redemption. it is not perfect film and the story is in many parts odd puzzle. but its roots are strong. so, like many other Russian films, it is a poem, meditation and map of world. field with memory trees and testimony about the relief of a time. a good cast, an interesting script and a precise director. images as isles of a hided universe and Orthodoxy as spine. it is a religious film in very profound sense. religious for feelings of viewer. necessary for need of self - definition. page of a large series in which legacy of Tarkovsky or Abuladze is foundation for an impressive house. a film about presence of angel in each place of existence. proof - the martyrdom.

it is an experience more than a film. reflects the experience of Russian cinema and gives a precise portrait of a dark page from the East Europe contemporary history. and this fact does it a poem and a testimony. because it is a simple story about the search of God in cruel period. because it gives, in inspired manner, the map to be the other, to transform a mission in one more subtle, complicated and with more responsibilities. because it is the story of a child and the drawings who becomes windows. a legendary monastery between two countries. a visit. and a young man looking the Truth. like many films about same theme, it is a confession. a form of survive of memories and recognition to a long , too long chain of names of victims. maybe, a form of exorcism. using the influence of Tarkovsky as new level of the same project. a film about angels. and their word about sense of sacrifice.

The Konevsky Monastery, founded in 1393, is a Russian Orthodox monastery in Konevets Island, five kilometers off the western shore of Lake Ladoga. The island, in Russian hands for centuries was claimed and occupied by the newly independent Finland in 1917. The monks were not molested but the Finns fortified the island with gun emplacements and some buildings were expropriated for military use.

The action begins in 1924, after Lenin's death. Finnish-Soviet relations are tense; in particular the Bolsheviks are aware that well placed guns in the Karelian Isthmus could close the sea access to Leningrad. Konovets island is particularly provocative: beside its militarization, it grants shelter to fugitives and deserters from the USSR. Maxim Proshin, a young officer of the Cheka (Soviet secret services) has shown his zeal in ways that make even his subordinates pause. He is given an assignment (a high profile assassination) in the island under a false identity, but as a preliminary he must kill a guide of deserters, which happens to be a child. He then undergoes a deep transformation that religious people would call redemption.

The movie ends a few months before the conclusion of the Second Soviet-Finnish War on September 1944, when the monks are evacuated to Finland proper and the island reverts to the USSR. The Russian title is translated to Angel's Aisle (?). However, it also means Angel's Chapel, which is probably the meaning here. There are connections (the island setting and the theme of repentance) with Pavel Lungin's The Island (2006) although the closest reference point is perhaps Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. As to the movie itself: first rate acting, script that sustains the viewer's attention, fluid direction and cinematography capturing the melancholic landscapes of the north and the somber interiors. A quality film.