GONE WITH THE HORSES
A film review by Felix Kreisel
Copyright 1996 Iskra Research
Montreal 1996 The recently concluded Montreal World Film Festival is one of the better known venues of the cinema world. It attempts to promote a wide range of filmmakers from many countries by requiring as little as possible in promotion expenditures. This year the Festival organizers paid special attention to current Russian films and even gave a special prize in the category of the Russian Cinema of Today. This writer was able to view a number of the more significant films presented at the Festival. Preceding my impressions I have included the official descriptions provided by the Festival organizers.
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Gone With the Horses Nesut menia koni.
* * * * * * * Official information * * * * * * *
Director: Vladimir Motyl. Script: Vladimir Motyl. Photography: Nikolai Nemoliaiev, Alexander Negriuk. Editor: N. Alferova. Music: Isaak Shwartz. Sound: J. Fetisov. Cast: Andrei Sokolov, Agnieszka Wagner, Sergei Vinogradov, Gennady Pechnikov, Vladimir Kachan, Valentina Kosobutskaia. Producer: Boris Greenberg, Arion-Studio.
A modern romantic melodrama filled with mad passions and the vagaries of fate. Although the film is inspired by the stories of Anton Chekhov it is by no means any sort of "adaptation". The film's action takes place today and offers an ironic comment on the selfishness and intolerance of contemporary society.
* * * * * ) Iskra Research; by F. Kreisel * * * * *
The name of this movie is taken from a well known song by Vladimir Vysotsky in which the balladeer sings of the inexorable fate and the nearness of doom. This is a story of a young post-Soviet rascal. A Russian patriot of the fascist type, Ivan did not quite succeed in catching the gravy train, a seat on which his father's high post in Soviet society should have assured him. Now, he is studying to be a lawyer, using his healthy good looks to win beautiful women, earning his diploma not through diligent study of the quickly changing laws but by performing stud services for an ugly female professor in return for course notes and examination help. He sees the beautiful Nina (Agnieszka Wagner) driving in her husband's foreign car from the airport, is smitten by LOVE (lust, we and his closest friend, biologist Eisler, think), and follows her, cynically noting to his friend that he can seduce any wife right in front of her husband. The story now gets interesting. We are given an insight into the mentality of a new type of "interdevochka", one who is kept not by a foreign but by the new Russian businessman, and who consoles herself with artistic and literary pursuits. These literary ideals take over her imagination. Although attracted to Ivan by his animal magnetism, Nina (Wagner) must justify to herself her betrayal of her husband by sacrificing herself on the altar of love. She admits the affair to her businessman husband (after he discovers her liaison), and leaves him to give herself to Ivan. Ivan does not want her at first: he is busy with exams, he has his stud duties with the woman lawyer, etc. But Nina's dowry of a brand new Opel limousine, generously given to her by her former husband, win the day for true "love" Moscow style. She divorces the businessman and the young couple marry. The story develops some months later in the Crimea where the young couple have moved after Ivan received his law diploma. Nina has made more sacrifices: she underwent a post-term abortion at Ivan's demand, and the abortion left her physically ill and morally anguished; her career in literature is going nowhere, Ivan has no interest in or knowledge of poetry, and has even lost his sexual interest in her. Yet she clings to Ivan all the more, despite his lies, drunkenness and recent sexual frigidity. The glimpses of social and economic conflicts in the Crimea were of particular interest to me. The director showed us the antagonism between the emerging capitalist farmers and the feudal regime of the old collective farm. We are also given a hint of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict on the peninsula in that the police prefer to be bribed with Russian rubles rather than the worthless Ukrainian karbovantsy. Of course, the US dollar is much preferred by everyone. The story reaches its dramatic peak with a duel between the honest and high-minded Eisler and Ivan, with Eisler defending Nina's honor against Ivan's boorish drunkenness, selfishness and lies. A minor wound received by Ivan and Nina's continuing selfless devotion to him shock this scoundrel away from the precipice into which the fate was driving him. The director introduced this film before the screening and explained to the audience that he wanted to reaffirm the timeless human values and to show "the path of a repenting sinner back to God". In the movie we are indeed offered numerous views of an Orthodox church atop a hill. It is unclear, however, in what way this God affected the agnostic cynic Ivan, or the self abusive Nina, or the atheist Eisler. -- Iskra Research -- Historical research and publication of Marxist classics in the Russian language. Address: PO Box 397142, Cambridge, MA 02139-7142; e-mail: fjk@mit.edu http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/fjk/iskra.html
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