Edifício Gagarine

Yuri lives in the housing complex Gagarine. It's a run down place where people know each other and look out for one another. Yuri cares about the houses and does everything he can to make them liveable, for everyone. His mission is to save them from demolition.

This is a movie about a young boy fighting to keep his world. It's about being outside the society, love and friendship. It's also about dreams and finding purpose with your own solutions. I really enjoyed it.

Posed as a kind of magical realism, the adaptation of the short film "Gagarine" (2015) manages to broaden the vital horizon of the protagonist, although it does not reach a greater depth. The representation of poverty through the protagonist's dreams causes the visual aspect to opt in the last part for the fantasy embedded in a painful reality. In this sense, the directing work is remarkable, but it does not manage to solve the narrative dispersion.

I like this movie, made with a great sensitivity and accuracy, a good knowledge of the suburbs and pulled by directing skills from this young couple of film makers; a man and a woman. It is not exactly a drama, but more an analysis of the suburb and ghettos population's way of life. I felt close to those youngsters, though I have never lived what they feel. It's not LA HAINE nor LES MISERABLES, but it belongs to the same kind of social movies, not as gloomy as a Ken Loach. And for once, ghetto is evoked without drug traffic, only some weed use during a party between young folks. I definitely love this feature though this kind of picture is not necessarily my cup of tea. But the sad tone, not gloomy, sad, enchants me.

Gagarine is beautiful, and one of the most underrated films I've seen in a long time (I mean why is no one talking about this). Not to mention the hassle it was to get my hands on it (I'll save you the story). But anyways, beautiful. The cinematography was absolutely superb, though in a way it stylistically reminded me more of still photography, but a good way. The color grading was also amazing, making even the rundown apartments of Gagarine look rich and vibrant, this in tandem with its rather long and narrow aspect ratio leads to a unique visual style. Gagarine's storytelling prowess is also not to be underestimated, its tale of a young man fighting a desperate battle to save everything he loves is moving. The way it leaves off often overused themes of doom and gloom when it comes to poverty, for the oft overlooked ones of resilience and community is refreshing. And the acting and relational chemistry between the two leads is great as well.

A lively tale, a kind of "parabol", about how an old, half broken complex of buildings, Gagarine, named from the famous cosmonaut, can turn out to be a place full of life and emotions. In an uneasy environment, constructive social interactions seem to have been able to create a positive atmosphere in which people tend to respect and help each other .

Yuri, this teenager boy dedicated to maintaining Gagarine, dives deeply into space in his mind, and his living place is a symbolic doorway to travel far away from existential issues, the main one being the absence of his mother.

Saving Gagarine is his graal, and his quest could refer to the hability of any human being to escape his human condition, to look for wisdom and spirituality.

"Les choses de la vie", meaning crucial emotional experience like love, friendship, respect, tolerance, forgiveness are present all along the movie in a delicate, subtle way sometimes.

This movie is a bright and optimistic vision of us, creatures gifted with intelligence, but so eager to use it in the wrong way.

The end is an illusion, Yuri's one; his vision as he gets free, driven into space as his life faints and Gagarine buildings are collapsing.