Soviet Cinema

Stalker

The Little Mermaid (Русалочка)

Privet, my dear comrades. I hope my fellow Americans are staying safe and warm and as unaffected by the current administration’s hellbent mission to demolish human rights as possible. It’s hard not to feel all gloom and doom when the sun hasn’t been out for a week and the US government keeps floundering between flopping and failing, seemingly-dead-set on destroying all of us as well as themselves. I’ve been lost in the mind-numbing minutia of a new job, watching Oscar-nominated films, trying to adjust to a new schedule and lifestyle and vibe, and yet I cannot escape the never-ending bullshit parade that is the US government and its current shenanigans. A deeply unserious regime has re-entered the chat, puffing up their cyber truck-shaped chests and using their guy-liner to write decrees of dangerous plans that have deeply serious ramifications. One of the most peculiarly putrid partnerships to have grown and festered over the last several years is the bromance between Tr*mp and his favorite fellow dictators like Jair Bolsonaro, Kim Jong Un, and Vladimir Putin. When it comes to this president’s cabinet, it’s a real who’s who of who’s more stupid, and when it comes to his global political buddies, it’s even more terrifying. This, combined with the unnerving alliances made with Zuckerberg and Musk and Bezos, have made many users of the internet and free speech fearful of what’s to come in the next four years. That being said, this felt like the perfect, and maybe my last, chance to finally explore an era of filmmaking that is just as revolutionary as it is depressing, and these are Russian films made under the control of the Soviet Union. Maybe it’s the recency bias of Sean Baker’s Oscar-nominated Russian mafia farce Anora, maybe it’s my eternal love for Lenin in the streets Dostoyevski in the sheets aka the drag queen Katya Zamolodchikova, maybe it’s my continued-obsession with Boney M’s song “Rasputin”, but I’ve been curious about Soviet-era films for quite awhile. I’ve also felt intimidated to cover this dense and divisive topic, because there is a lot of history and complexities to the art made before the fall of the Soviet Union. Don’t go by my truncated version of history, but what I’ve learned in my research is that Vladimir Lenin was the first political leader of the 20th century to recognize the importance of film. He saw this medium as a way to unite the nation over which the Bolsheviks, then a minority party of some 200,000 members, had assumed leadership. For much of the Soviet Union's history (with notable exceptions in the 1920s and the late 1980s) film content was heavily circumscribed and subject to censorship and bureaucratic state control. Despite these restrictions, though, the films made during this time consistently addressed the major social and political events that were impacting their people. Sergei Eisenstein’s groundbreaking film Battleship Potemkin, for example, not only depicted the events that led to the 1905 Russian Revolution, but innovated the art form by implementing new methods like montages and jump-cuts. It’s inspiring to know that throughout history, regardless of geographical location or specific dictatorships, artists have not only continued to create art, but have used their artistic powers for good. And even if this art isn’t/wasn’t revolutionary, or good, or even well-known, they will always be emblematic of the times in which they were made—another form of recording history, culture, sensibilities.

One of the greatest representations of the Soviet Union era of Russian filmmaking, is Andrei Tarkovsky’s legendary sci-fi epic from 1979 called Stalker. Tarkovsky read Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s novel Roadside Picnic, and told his fellow director friend, Mikhail Kalatozov, that he should adapt it into a film, before deciding to just adapt it himself. His vision involved expanding upon the concepts presented in Roadside Picnic, but Tarkovsky struggled to get it made. He actually fully shot one version of this film, but after developing the negatives, they came shrouded in a dark green tint that made it unwatchable. Allegedly, Tarkovsky believed that his film was sabotaged by one of his enemies, a “well-known Soviet film director” who he believed ended up with his clearly-shot Kodak 5247 stock, but Stalker’s sound technician, Vladimir Sharun, blamed this mishap on the “usual Russian sloppiness” of a Soviet laboratory that didn’t yet know how to properly process this fairly new version of film. Tarkovsky also beefed with and fired his cinematographer, which only added to the bad luck of this project, but after convincing the Soviet film boards not to give up, Tarkovsky ended up shooting the entire film again—with a new cinematographer and a new format, edited into two parts. Stalker is a nearly-three-hour gloomy science fiction adventure that follows three men as they make their way into the “Zone”—a mysterious and hazardous place where the normal laws of physics do not apply. The “Zone” was inspired by a nuclear accident that took place near Chelyabinsk in 1957. Several hundred square kilometers were polluted by fallout and abandoned, although there was no official mention of this incident and a "forbidden zone" for many years. In Stalker, this “Zone” just appeared out of nowhere in Russia one day. The military sent in troops, and not a single one returned, so all they could think to do was position soldiers on the border of the Zone, to stop others from entering. Somewhere along the way, a rumor formed that the Zone contains a hidden, magical room, with powers to make the dreams of anyone who enters come true. A “stalker” the term for the clandestine tour guides of the Zone, and our protagonist, simply referred to as “Stalker”, is about to lead two men into this treacherous place. But first, we see how he and his family live—which is in squalor, like many of his neighbors, it seems. Unsure of when or if he’ll return, his wife complains that his job is like a prison sentence, to which Stalker replies, “I’m imprisoned everywhere I go.” Stalker meets up with his fellow travellers, who are referred to as “Writer” and “Professor”, they pile into a car, and they very cunningly sneak into the Zone behind a train, dodging bullets from soldiers as they zoom through. Stalker assures the men that they won’t be followed because “the guards are afraid of it”, to which one of the men shakily asks, “afraid of what?”—one of the numerous questions this film poses then never answers. Everything is in a bleak sepia tone, every task feels exhausting, until they enter the Zone, and suddenly everything is in color, and the scenery is actually quite beautiful. It’s a misleading visage, as Stalker explains: flowers bloom but have no smell, it is eerily quiet, and the path that lies before them is subject to morphing and changing. Throughout their journey, the Writer and the Professor have spirited debates about feelings and logic, creating and analyzing, and how dangerous of a concept the “room” is, if it really exists. Stalker warns that “the Zone demands respect, otherwise it will punish you” but even when the three get separated and face territorial challenges, this punishment never fully materializes. When they approach the entrance of a cold, dark tunnel, the men are so terrified that they fight over who should enter first. The suspense this builds is adequate, even intriguing, but the dangers that were promised wound up being existential, and immaterial. And it’s not that I always need there to be a monster at the end of a cold, dark tunnel, but I would like for something to happen at some point. This is the part of the review where I sound like some kind of lazy, uncultured geek whose attention can only be held by explosions and supernatural creatures and sexy James Spader, but I’d rather sound like a philistine than lie to you, dear reader. It’s not even that Stalker bored me, though I did find myself, at times, zoning out in this Zone, I just felt like the mystery could’ve been even better developed—even if it never fully gets solved. As much as I can be frustrated by the confounding films of David Lynch, I appreciate the big swings he took and the steady stream of zany characters he implements. Tarkovsky, surreal as his films are, seems to do the opposite, and leans into the subtlest, smallest moments to get his messaging and mood across. I see the value in this story, in its existentialist, cynical yet ironically hopeful ways, I just didn’t have a fun time watching it. It’s just one of those films you have to see, I’m told, but it wasn’t my fav! And this is no disrespect to Tarkovsky, who, along with many members of his crew, died after filming this movie due to the toxic environment in which they shot. To quote sound designer Vladimir Sharun:

"We were shooting near Tallinn, in the area around the small river Jägala with a half-functioning hydroelectric station. Up the river was a chemical plant and it poured out poisonous liquids downstream. There is even this shot in Stalker: snow falling in the summer and white foam floating down the river. In fact it was some horrible poison. Many women in our crew got allergic reactions on their faces. Tarkovsky died from cancer of the right bronchial tube. And Tolya Solonitsyn too. That it was all connected to the location shooting for Stalker became clear to me when Larisa Tarkovskaya died from the same illness in Paris."

That’s utterly terrifying and tragic… and perhaps a more entertaining story to tell. Speaking of utterly terrifying and tragic, I only had time to watch a short film after the two hour and forty-three minute (m)e(h)pic that was Stalker, so I went with a film that I’ve been a little more keen to watch, this is Ivan Aksenchuk’s 1968 animated film Rusalochka aka The Little Mermaid. The film opens on a black and white-colored, bustling and busy city of Copenhagen, where a bus full of tourists excitedly buys souvenirs and tour Langelinie—a gorgeous pier/promenade/park that is home to a statue of Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid. As the tour guide lovingly explains, this is a story of love, back in a time when love existed. But then we pan down to the water underneath the feet of this tour group, where we meet a fish dressed as a babushka, who explains to her own little school of fish that foolish humans actually think love exists, so of course they think this story is romantic. “They think love exists and mermaids don’t, hah!”, the fish chuckles cynically, before detailing a much more critical slant on the classic Little Mermaid tale—likely far less idealistic than the version the humans are hearing. Babushka fish details how mermaids grow up at the bottom of the sea in crystal palaces, then when they turn fifteen, they swim to the surface—like some sort of fishy walkabout. We’re then shown this mystical, magical undersea world, where the black and white has faded away and all we can see is gorgeous, vibrant, glittering color. From here, the story is quite similar to the one we all know. Except, this Little Mermaid iteration is truer to the brutal original story, and the sea witch who grants the Little Mermaid the gift of legs is much more brutal in her magic bargaining. “You’ll never be able to return to the sea or your crystal palace,” she warns, “Let it be” the mermaid says. “And if your prince weds someone else by next dawn, then you’ll turn to seafoam,” she says, “Let it be” the mermaid says. “And for this magic potion I will take your best quality, your voice!”, she laughs, “Let it be” the mermaid says. “But the legs will feel like knives are cutting them with every step you take, and no voice to scream with, you want this??” the witch reiterates, to which the Little Mermaid exclaims, “Da! Da! Da! Da!” Her desperation to be loved by the human boy she has just saved is felt so heavily in this film, even through the language barrier and the somewhat dizzying animation, I could feel her pain and her immense hope. The Little Mermaid is a lovely and tragic short film, and in less than thirty minutes it’ll break your heart in a way that the Disney film or any other adaptation never dared to achieve. The music made me emotional, and the creative ways in which this was drawn—with sparkling, vivid colors and trippy sequences both under the sea and above land—was absolutely stunning. The writing made me just as emo, even for its storybook simplicity, the way this was mapped out and written just broke my heart. I also thought it was clever, and perhaps even ahead of its time, to juxtapose the naive human interpretation of this classic tragedy with the wry and realistic, straight-from-the-fish’s-mouth account. This short was eventually adapted into English for the series Fairy Tales from Far Off Lands-–a show by Mikhail Baryshnikov. Other than The Lure, I can’t think of any other adaptation of this story that is true to its cruel and tragic origins. And even though its melancholic splendor brought a tear to my eye, it was still impactful and enjoyable to watch. When the Writer asks the Professor if he really believes in fairytales in Stalker, and he responds, “Not the good ones, but the scary ones, yes”, it makes perfect sense. The existence of mermaids and other mystical phenomena is much more likely to be true than the perfect, idealized version of love that the sanitized versions of fairytales present to us, and both of tonight’s movies made this case. Even Stalker, in its meandering, monologuing ways. I highly doubt any Russian spies are surveilling this blog (and if they are: Hi! Thanks so much for reading!) but just in case this post one day self-destructs, thank you for reading along! Until next time, до свидания!