"I make films about human relations, about the lack of dialogue between the generations.", - says a famous Russian director Valeria Gai Germanika about one of her works, the TV show School (2010). Themes of interpersonal relations can be seen in many of her other works like Sisters (2005), Girls (2005), Boys (2007), and, eventually, Everyone Dies but Me (2008). The coming-of-age stories about the teens going through the hardships of balancing their lives between the home, school, and friends dive viewers into the reality of early 00's teens, who were stuck at the era of the affordances. This problem, caused by the historical period of Putinism and consequent growth of availabilities of food, films, and ideas on the market results into a new era of teenhood, where being cool is having sex, drinking, and trying drugs as early as possible. The film was shot not for the teens who know themselves all the truths of the 00's but for the parents and adults to let them understand the youngsters' issues.
Gai Germanika was only 24 years old when she directed the film Everyone Dies but Me and received the award "Golden Camera" at the Cannes Film Festival. Not her experienced skills in film making but her proximity both to the teenages of the films and the adults behind the screen made her film unique. Gai Germanika understood what new ideals of the teenagers were because she was slightly older than the characters, as well as she knew what parents should know because she was an adult already. By using visual, plot, and mise-en-scene solutions, she shows a week from the lives of three 9th grade girls, Katya, Zhanna, and Vika, who survive the domestic violence, school bullying, and personal problems just to be able to go to the event of their teenage dreams - the school disco party.
Visually, the film is different from traditional Soviet films. There is no usage of stabilizator. As a result, the narration becomes less strict and more realistic. Camera moves as if an imaginary classmate of the girls follows them everywhere, sometimes focusing their home camera on the faces of the girls, sometimes on an interesting action nearby, and other times on the masses of people like if the viewers are inside these crowds. This solution creates a feeling of presence in the film from the perspective of the student of that school. Moreover, there are longshots with the duration from 5 and more minutes long that let the viewers embrace the atmosphere of the environment. In addition, phrases of the characters are of no less significance to the atmosphere. There are not only important for the narration phrases but also some less informal and casual situations, such as the purchases of snacks, driving from the home to the school, or burying the kitten. All of these shots and their features form a relation with the character that is new for post-Soviet spectator - more intimate, trusting, and natural.
The plot and how it engages the audience is another important aspect of the film which changes the understanding of the teenhood. Viewers do not feel the estrangement, or a feeling of distance and incomprehension, to the problems of the girls. In contrast, the director involves us into girls' everyday lives. For instance, one would accompany one of the girls, Katya, from school where she is shouted at by her parents to home where she is beaten up, then back school and back home. Her life is not taken out of context but shown to the public in all its reality and diversity. The same with other girls, Zhanna and Vika, whose deepest wishes and aspirations are shared more carefully with the viewers than even with each other. For instance, we see Zhanna's pleas for having a boyfriend at the disco, while her friends did not know this. Moreover, the film is set during one of the highest emotional experiences of their lives - the disco-party. This event uncovered the girls' emotions to a larger extent. Disco is a social event that is one of the first parts of adult life that the teenagers may experience. They try to show their best at this event because they want to become like adults. Therefore, their emotions become more sincere and vivid.
Purpose of the film is also unique. As Julia Vassilyeva said in her critique on the film: films of the pre-21st century era " were lacking in one important respect: they were all made from a socially normative point of view located outside the youth world and were often judgmental and didactic.". For some, in fact, the film may seem disgusting and repulsive because the school teenagers were shown together with the drugs, violence, and alcohol. However, as Gai Germanika depicted in her film, that is the new reality of some youngsters. They live surrounded by violence, dirt, and anger. But they do not become so on their own. These teens absorb what they see in the adults around them. This is why Gai Germanika captured this film for the adults. This film is her message to the older generation, implying: "Look! Look what we've done to our children!". She made a film about the relations of the people. But the relations were not on the screen. She made the people think about their real life relations.
