Siberíada

Konchalovsky's towering poem to Siberia doesn't steamroll ahead, though it's 4,5 hours long. It holds back for space, takes time in roundabout exploration of childhood memories in a turn-of-the-century backwoods village, yet it picks up steam doing this, builds in emotional resonance as though even the sounds and images which compose it become imbued by sheer association with their subject matter with that quality of fierce tireless quiet dignity that characterizes the Soviet working spirit. Konchalovsky celebrates Soviet collectivity but in an almost revisionist way to paeans like Soy Cuba and Invincible the mood turns somber and reflective.

So eventually the Revolution, the one thought to matter. News of it reach the secluded Siberian village only through the grapevine. Worse with the fruits of its labor, these reach the village only when a world war calls for the young men to enlist.

But although the scope appears huge and daunting, Konchalovksy zeroes in on the individual, the face behind the history; with care and affection to examine the bitter longing and regret of the woman who waited 6 years after the war for a fiancé who never came back, waited long enough to go out and become a barmaid in a ship with velvet couches and which she quit years later to come back to her village to care for an aging uncle who killed the fiancé's father with an axe, the irreverent folly of the fiancé who came back from the war a hero 20 years too late, came back not for the sake of the girl he left behind but to drill oil for the motherland, the despair and resignation of the middle-aged Regional Party Leader who comes back to his small Siberian village with the sole purpose of blotting it out of the map to build a power plant.

The movie segues from decade to decade from the 10's to the 80's with amazing newsreel footage trailing Soviet history from the revolution to war famine and the titanic technological achievements of an empire (terrific visuals here! pure futurism of kinetic violence and skewed angles and flickering cramped shots of crowds and faces) but the actual movie focuses on the individual, on triumphs and follies small and big. By the second half a sense of bittersweet fatalism creeps in; of broken lives that never reached fulfillment choking with regret and yearning. "It can't matter", seems like the world is saying, to which Konchalovksy answers "it must matter" because the protagonists keep on trying for redemption.

Yet behind this saga of 'man against landscape' something seems to hover, shadowy, almost substanceless, like the Eternal Old Man hermit who appears in every segment to guide or repudiate the protagonists, sometimes a mere spectactor, sometimes the enigmatic sage; a little behind and above all the other straightforward and logical incomprehensible ultimatums challenges and affirmations of the human characters, something invisible seems to lurk. Ghosts of the fathers appearing in sepia dreams, repeated shots of a star gleaming in the nightsky, a curious bear, indeed the Eternal Old Man himself; Konchalovksy calls for awe and reverence before a mystical land of some other order.

In its treatment of a small backwoods community struggling against nature progress and time and in the ways it learns to deal with them, often funny bizarre and tragic at the same time, and in how the director never allows cynicism to override his humanism, it reminds me of Shohei Imamura's The Profound Desires of the Gods. When, in a dream scene, Alexei tears through the planks of a door on which is plastered a propaganda poster of Stalin to reach out at his (dead) father as he vanishes in the fog, the movie hints at the betrayal of the Soviet Dream, or better yet, at all the things lost in the revolution, this betrayal made more explicit in the film's fiery denouement.

The amazing visuals, elegiac and somber with a raw naturalist edge, help seal the deal. By the end of it, an oil derric erupts in flames and the movie erupts in a wild explosion of pure cinema.

Siberiade is a magnificent epic. The story takes place mostly in the Siberian village Yelan, near which large deposits of oil lie. Two generations of villagers get caught up in turbulent times, when there was expansion in the Orthodox Civilization. The 1979 film is all about the characters. Well-known Soviet actors were cast in the leading roles, including Oscar winner Nikita Mikhalkov, Natalya Andrejchenko and Vitaly Solomin. Their losses are truly emotional yet they also go through periods of exaltation. The revolution brought hope but difficult struggles followed too. The cinematography by Levan Paatashvili captures the beauty of Siberia's wilderness in a simple but well done manner. Black & white footage of heroic periods in Russia's 20th century history bridge the eras in the characters' lives. Director Andrei Konchalovsky wasn't afraid to show a few uneasy scenes, and there's even a bit of female nudity. Yet his direction is effective and he succeeded in telling an absorbing epic of an interesting time in Russia's history. The film is known for Eduard Artemyev's memorable electronic score. The score was even released internationally, and I heard a piece of it in CNN's Cold War (1998) documentary. Siberiade won the Special Grand Jury Prize at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival, and I highly recommend seeing it.

This is just one of these rare cinema experiences. I've seen this film twice in cinema about 15 years ago. The first time in a stonecold auditorium (they ran out of heating oil) we all just sat there with gloves, jackets and other stuff to keep you warm. The film made such an impact with its beautifull images and its rare story. Russian cinema has a couple of these slow and long movies. Siberiade is a long (over 4 and a half hour) and slow movie. Long shots of man wading through cold swamps in search of oil. I like it!!!! It is a shame there was no videorelease in Europe, and now lets wait for the DVD!! Martin

Huge swaths of Russian history represented as a sprawling, moving canvas. The scale of which can't be properly appreciated until you've stepped back to observe the full picture on display. A history of revolution, disillusionment, national pride, and hardship. Men cutting through a dense Siberian forest to build a road with no discernable end in sight. Holding out hope for the unforeseen future of their homeland. With each decade chronicled, a rebellious spirit is continuously fostered, inherited from one generation to the next. Whether it's on the battlefield, in the workforce, or on the political stage, this is no place for the weak-willed.

And as the past dies to allow the future a chance to live, so too does this multi-generational tale continues to evolve itself. We see the idealogical rift that slowly separates fathers from their sons; coexistence made tentative at best. Each must forge their own way forward. And yet the ghosts of their forefathers lingers, a fog hovering over the fields, engulfing the personalities of those that carry the bloodline. All of it is witnessed through the eyes of remote villagers. Individuals with their interconnected relationships simultaneously serving as a microcosm for the Soviet Union's state of being, reflecting the turmoil it takes to build a nation. Changes occurring in the outside world that seeps in, altering the course of all those involved. From small-village superstition to post-war industrialization; it's all here on display.

Siberiade is a moving, monumental piece of work. From minute one to its credit role, it never lets up. A crowning achievement in a year that birthed several classics and a must-watch for fans of Soviet cinema. Don't let this one pass you by.

Inexplicably this is compared to "Doctor Zhivago," I suppose because there are Russian revolutionaries. Egad. The films couldn't be more different.

This is inspired by "2001." Equally inexplicably, "Solaris" is called the Russian 2001 because. Heck, because it has space hardware. Jees.

The structure of "2001" is its reason to be, a fight among three narrative perspectives. We never know who wins: the human, machine or divine. Each is presented in a way that could be interpreted to subsume the others, and we are never grounded. Its sublime, each level above the other in a sort of Escher narrative.

This is the same, very deliberately so. We have the same three: we have the human story of sex, love community and how that embraces everything, Miss Marplewise. We have the "machine" or the revolution and its apparatus, some figurative and some literal. And we have the mystical energy and laws of nature, which are deliberate, clear, pervasive here.

(If there is something particularly skillful in this project cinematically, it is how this mystical mist pervades.)

Its not at all as deft in the balance as Kubric's masterpiece. But you can see the three climbing over each other, and the standoff presented at the end.

Its a long slog, and you'll have to wade through overly optimistic celebrations of revolutionary purpose. But its rewarding in a sort of Polish (meaning dreamy) way.

On a second viewing, I have to remark on how the fundamental nature of this is different from most else that I watch.

I'm particularly sensitive to the fact that most every element that I see in every film project is a matter of market forces. An artist can modulate within that pull, but never really escape the sender-receiver dynamic. This film differs in the way that some monumental architecture does from what surrounds it.

In the soviet system, you pay your dues and prove that you are a worthy artist. That means of course that you have to satisfy the artistic bureaucracy, the nature of which one can only imagine. But once you achieve some level of power, you become a dilettante, with amazing reach. Everything we see here is because it was envisioned to be so, quite apart from what we normally have to deal with in the "free" world.

Its the inversion that is striking. This film really is perfect in many ways. You can see that every frame and nuance is the way the filmmaker wants it regardless of whether he thinks people care. I didn't care much, because the thing is as soulless as most other Soviet art. But its very clean, and big and sentimental.

And its different, and that's a welcome shower.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.