Papa, umer Ded Moroz

Although I saw it more than ten years ago, I just noted that no one commented on this remarkable little film, a situation that demands rectification. It is, though, a strange movie. It's stylistic background is the type of Eastern European visual poetry usually associated with Tarkovski, Sokurov and Paradzhanov: Long shots, unusual narrative that stresses poetic intensity over plot and psychology, a general alignment to the metaphysical condition of human existence. Yet, Yufit's outlook is much darker than that of those above. The central character of this dissociated story travels to see relatives on the countryside, mostly sordid, listless characters that hardly ever talk. A group of men in black suits haunt the area, involving people in weird rituals. In a separate storyline, a blind old man and a sick-looking boy built mortal traps in a labyrinthine bunker. There is very little dialog, little sense of continuity and a deliberate lack of explanation. Yet, the atmosphere of the film is intense - otherwise it would not have stayed with me that long: It is as if all the hopes for redemption or ascension to a higher spiritual level that imbue the films of Tarkovski have ceased to exist and left a black hole, an icy emptiness: The sense of spiritual deprivation is overwhelming. Difficult, but recommended for the tiny audience it was made for.