German’s delicate tale of domestic incarceration builds slowly as layer upon layer of oppression and grief is placed on the frame of David, the professor whose denunciation of the local mayor for corruption has lead to his own house arrest. David, an educated man who speaks six languages, has a Farsi mother and a Georgian father, sometimes sports a Chinese mask and practices Japanese calligraphy, begins the film with a certain arrogance as he wages his campaign. But bit by bit that confidence is chipped away. His mother dies, his friends desert him, and save for his kindly female lawyer, he finds himself alone against the machine of the Russian state. David’s hero is Tolstoy and there’s a cast iron sculpture of Lenin on his front lawn. He is the haunted by the tragedy of a Russia that has traded in any sign of integrity. The film is loosely based on the case of Kirill Serebrennikov, who was also placed under house arrest. Only, where Serebrennikov was a Moscow celebrity who has emerged to direct operas in Amsterdam and have his film screened at Cannes, the case of David is an unknown academic in a small Siberian town. His campaign is not going to attract International attention and no-one is coming to his rescue. At times, David recognises the inevitability of prison, and his case also feels like an echo of Navalny’s. However, part of the film’s strength is the way it functions on a small scale, never leaving David’s house, only sometimes straying outside., We are incarcerated with the protagonist, and experience the physical and mental decline that goes with this injustice alongside him. It’s a low key film of surprising power and terrible pertinence.
No comments:
Post a Comment