The Return

I didn't know what to expect from the movie "The Return" directed by Andrei Zvyagintev, but I ended up enjoying it. It's not a normal movie you expect to see, in the that tone was sort of ominous and always had new hurdles for the Characters. First thing I really picked up on was the cool camera techniques the movie had. It always had great angles and gave depth, in scenes like when the brothers are chasing each other, or when they first start driving.

The characters in this movie were portrayed very well in my opinion. Ivan, or "squirt", was obviously very stubborn as his brother points out, and is very dramatic. I work with kids at a day camp in the summer, and I can relate Ivan to a number of kids. Granted the father was very rough on him- but if things didn't go his way, he was the first to make the situation difficult for bother his brother Andrey and his father- that bring me to Andrey.
Whereas Ivan was more of a "Mommas Boy" Andrey was much more of a Daddy Boy. He always was very respectful to his father. Additionally he played the role of an older brother very well. He would pick on his younger brother, but would always cheer him up right after. Andrey also helped Ivan get through his brothers emotional break-downs with his father.
The Father's name and background are absent from this movie but it seems as though he is involved with some type of crime. When the family is at the dock, there is a shot of him carrying what seems to be a wrapped up body. It seems like he is trying to catch up on lost time of toughing up the two boys, and teaching them new things. He is very tough on the boys- especially Ivan- but it seems as though he wishes to teach them. He really seems emotionless throughout the movie whenever Ivan gets upset, that is until the very end. You get this view of this mean father, but really at the end you see worry on his face once Ivan makes a run for it. You start to see the lengths this father will go to help his sons when he starts climbing the side, and once you know it he is dead. Ivan really has no connection with his father, until he dies. Ivan would complain the entire movie, but once his father died he dragged his body all night without complaining until he was literally exhausted.
At the end the movie goes into a photo montage and the first thing I realized is that none of them (but the last one) has a picture of the father. They make a point of journalizing everyday to make sure they remember the time with their father, and they had forgot to even take a picture of/or with him.

Great film, but my stomach really dropped when the father died. I really realized the good he was trying to do when he died. Though his techniques were demanding I could understand them.

Mirror

Well, where to start with the 1975 film Mirror directed by Andrei Tarkov. This movie is certainly different, and if you wish to ask me what it is about I'm afraid I have absolutely no idea. It was a very new type of movie experience for me. There was no storyline I could follow and it seemed to have flash forwards, and flash backs, however I was not able to distinguish between the two. Furthermore the film made the viewer pay attention to every word spoken. If you missed a word I was afraid I would be more lost than I already was. Although I was confused for the greater part of the movie, I really enjoyed all the poetry it contained. It was very tasteful and left an impact although I could not fit it in with the movie itself.

Because I felt the movie was very confusing, I chose to take notes on anything that really spoke to me. The first thing I noticed was the fact that the movie started in black and white and switched to color- this happened throughout the film. I may have been wrong but whenever the color switched I was under the impression that we had done a flash back or flash forward. I also noticed that this film had an infatuation with wind and water. One particular scene actually scared me- well while we're on the topic of scared, two scenes actually left an impression. The first was a scene in which the woman dunks her head in a tub of water. When she lifts her head with her hair in front of her face, it reminded me of a horror movie like the little girl in the movie The Ring. The other was a scene in which the woman chops off the chickens head and looks into the camera as if she is looking into your soul. It seemed very creepy and certainly was one of the scenes I'll remember from this film. I also noticed that we never see Ignats father in his adult form. Again I am very unsure about this movie but as far as I understood, some of the flashbacks were of Ignats father as a child. One of my notes was that I was actually kind of confused at who the main character was- and what their names even were. The woman in the water was the main character at times, but then I felt it was the child, who I thought was Ignat the whole film until he said his name was Alyosha.

Overall, a completely new cinematic experience for me. This was by far the hardest movie I have ever tried to make sense of. I found my self constantly trying to make connections to some of the images shown and the storyline that was presented. It wasn't my favorite movie, but in hines-sight it was fun to have this struggle to make sense of the movie.

Burnt by the Sun

The film Burnt by the Sun was made in 1994, directed by Nikita Mikhalkov and takes place in the 1930’s. At this time there were random arrests by the KGB to capture those they believed to be an enemy of the USSR. It is a story of an undercover NKVD agent named Mitya who goes back to his friends in order to capture a new member of the family Colonel Kotov. This movie does a great job of showing the viewer the Colonels relationship to his family including his wife Marusia and daughter Nadya. Its a very close loving family who all rely on one another. The end of the film was extremely tragic to me. It seemed so cruel when Mitya starts to whistle the song Burnt by the Sun (the song the Colonel daughter sings all the time) to Kotov right after they beat him for fussing around. It seems like the 1930's were a scary time for everyone, weather they were actually enemies of the USSR or not.

Ivan the Terrible

In Ivan the Terrible the actors seemed to be over-exaggerated their body language and facial expression. In that sense it was similar to the Battleship Potemkim, however there was sound and more scene time. The camera didn't shift around so much as it did in Battleship Potemkim but rather stayed focus on one person or group at a time. Its obvious that Anastasia had some kind of relationship through a constant show of affection from Prince Kurbsky. This film had a lot of music constantly filling in the spaces of awkward, non-talking, staring scenes.  I didn't particularly enjoy the music throughout the music, it was very loud and the quality was poor and just really got annoying to me. Overall it was not a movie that I really enjoyed. The story was hard to follow because the intense emotions without talking shown by the actors made it so you had to assume things, which made me unsure of the actual storyline. Not my favorite movie but there was certainly something to learn

Silent Films

Well, where to start with silent films. Silent films are more universal for any one so long as they are translated, for all I could have know that was a French silent film - in that aspect it was good. Furthermore they require a new way to watch the movie. You have to constantly be on your toes to pick up on the not so frequent texts. It was fun hearing about how, unlike many medias like writing, we can see the date of creation of the first ever film. Having an opportunity to see the things that amazed people more than 100 years ago is fascinating. However, the silent films we watched all seemed rather morbid. They were all packed with some type of adulterous actions and or death.  Even the one that looked promising about the ballet dancer, ended up having a morbid death ending. All in all it was a great new perspective into film and I hope for more.

Irony of Fate Part Two

The Irony of Fate Part Two was very similar to part one, but the focus changed from the comedy to the love story. There is also an increase in music sung by all the characters. The love story was also rather awkward for Galaya who's feeling were almost immediately forgotten about after he tried only once to explain himself. Furthermore the process of getting engaged is very different from the USA. It is a momentous moment where a man gets on his knees and asks a woman to marry him, but in Russia it seems to be more of a discussion. Still a nice ending with odd humor- unexpected delight.

Irony of Fate Part One

In the first part of Irony of Fate I had pretty low expectations, seeing as how the humor is outdated by about 35 years and a few thousand miles. The film was much more humorous than i could have expected and could see how it was so popular in its time. The story is not universally understood- if we were not briefed before the film about society, i doubt it would make any sense. However with the understanding of the jokes it wasn't hard to laugh. I found a lot of the humor was a lot like today's humor. They used a lot of witty insults, sarcasm, and stupidity to create the humor. In the end it was very entertaining, and  look forward to the second half.