Sibiriada

The story about a very small god-forgotten village in Siberia reflects the history of Russia from the beginning of the century till early 80s. Three generations try to find the land of happiness and to give it to the people. One builds the road through taiga to the star over horizon, the second 'build communism' and the third searches for oil.

There are many great epics out there. For Americans, many might say "Gone With the Wind" is the definitive epic. I have never cared for it personally, but I understand the appeal. This film may be the best epic to come out of Russia, as it covers so much time and really gets to the heart of humanity.

The film is not only strong as a whole, but in its sections. Even if it were treated as vignettes or short films, there are plenty of powerful images. Early on, viewers will be struck by the boy fighting with a dog for his pants. We might be horrified by this, but what is it saying?

I have seen the film a few days back on a video tape and even though it was hard to swallow it at one take (because of its length and story), I liked it very much. I was impressed first, by the script and then, by the realization of this script. The film takes you on a ride, but that is not an easy, joyful ride; it goes through time and different political regimes and shows the influence of them to ordinary people's lives. What I loved was the inner logic the film followed; logic, which just like logic in life, was rather illogical and confusing at times but in the end, when I thought about it, all the events and twists made sense. It makes no sense though to try to re-tell the story as it spreads in more than 50 years of time. I also liked very much Nikita Mikhalkov's character Aleksei and the way he played it, as some critics would saw, with restless abandon. What I didn't like about it, was that I think he later played characters that remind me of Aleksei in films like "Cruel Romance" (Zhestokij romans, which I actually love) and to some extent in "The Insulted and the Injured" ("Unizhennye i oskorblyonnye"). "Sibiriada" shows, I think, what a great film-maker Andrei Konchalovski was before he went to Hollywood and made forgettable films like "Tango and Cash" and less forgettable like "Runaway train". I would prefer "Kurochka Ryaba" to them...

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.

Siberiade, is considered by many to be Konchalovsky's masterpiece. A truly epic, grandiose, and colorful film, which follows 3 generations of two rival families in the remote Siberian logging village of Elan. The Solomins are the wealthy masters of this place, while the Ustyuzhanins are the poor unappreciated workers with no future, nothing to look forward to except hard work and an early death...That is, until the Bolshevik revolution comes and alters the power structure. While the young Nikolai Ustyuzhanin looks towards the future with dreams of a socialist paradise brought about by the glorious revolution going underway, the Solomins feel their own world dying and look towards the past, trying to hold on to what they have. Oil-rich Siberia will take on a new importance for the fledgling Soviet Union. Unchecked hope and progress collides with despair and reactive conservatism. In life, what we hope for is not what we get. Life comes with compromise. Trees fall to the ground stirring sadness in the soul for the woods that will be sacrificed for progress. Bombs explode and kill people stirring despair for we know the West will not allow a workers' socialist paradise to be created, because profits are what's important in a capitalist system. Revolution, war, famine, love and romance all combine here and are interwoven like the fibers of a fine tapestry. It's a spectacular, sweeping epic film not to be missed.

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.