Jazz and Mark

It's Muratova's first full-length feature film (actually co-directed with her husband Alexander Muratov) and i'm very surprised with her familiarity with nuances of village life and its customs. Muratova is very modern person (I'd even say post-modern), and it was unexpected, for me personally, that her first movie would be so rural. But for real artist the movie subject doesn't really matter, it's kind of context which needed for another masterpiece..

The main character Makar is very plain person, abnormally preoccupied with his work. In spite of being sociable and communicative, deep inside he's very lonely..at work and at home. His colleagues participate in his worries, but don't really understand him. It's not typical description of the leader in communist era, but anyhow this movie was accepted by local authorities.

Actually it was the first and the last work which was approved by soviet regime. Since the next movie "Brief Encounters" she'll be constantly criticized and even called "bourgeois film maker".

Unbelievable , but Muratova hasn't kept us waiting too long for another masterpiece . It's particularly notable , considering highly creative approach by which Muratova got us plunging into the weird atmosphere of Chechov . As usual it makes us feel a lot of contradictory moods...some kind of " emotional vacuum cups " .

I won't reveal anything new saying that Muratova's movies are extremely irritating . I suppose in " Chechov's Motives " she's done her best in this aspect.

There are always certain scenes or motives in her films which are particularly hard to perceive , let alone liking them at first sight . Sometimes it's necessary to come back to them several times to appreciate their condition or even relevance . Eventually each particle of story finds its irreplaceable location,but it takes time before we realize that.

While there are just several episodes in her other works which might be classified as " hard-to-swallow " , in " Chechov's Motives " we are exposed to 50-minute-patience-test in the sequence which can be called " An Educational Orthodox Wedding Guide For Enterings Church Establishments " . Undoubtedly this piece can be related in the same proportion as to Chechov as to Muratova . I guess if Chechov himself had been alive he would've appreciated such a syndicate.

Only here you will find a clergyman having served God for 40 years without believing in his existence ( if church let itself doubt , what can we say about its parishioners? ). Add to it self-made Nouveau Riches and Bohemians who arrived at " Sacred Procedure " which will turn into neverending ordeal as for participants as for viewers .

Twenty years later Muratova comes back to cinematic poetry . Almost amateur black and white image , genius editing of the final scene . It's just impossible not to point out the opera version of musical grotesque composed by V.Selivestrov , transfering us back in 1979 in another piece of art " Getting To Know A Big Wide World " . Definitely , Muratova and Sakurov are the only genuine directors left on the Post-Soviet stage.

It's just Muratova's fourth film that i saw,but that's quite enough to realize that we deal with one of the most talented and unconventional directors in modern avant-garde.I can't help being surprised with Muratova's capability of turning a banal and ordinary situation into inadequate story.Chilling optimism of Muratova,sometimes brutal,might bring over-sensitive viewer to the condition of psychological anabios, in rare cases to soul suicide.To watch her movies voluntarily is a pure masochism.Director's gloomy look at everything that breathes and moves is emphasized with successfully fitted depressive-monotonic soundtrack executed by classic piano,which in turn knocks out of you last drops of hope and petty-bourgeois happiness. To drink,to sleep,to defecate,to propagate and to grow children-all of them are mechanical activities,instinctive functions of human being. Nevertheless there's something spiritual separating Homo-Sapiens from animals which doesn't exist in Muratova's protagonists.Such phenomenons as healthy feelings are deleted.I'd definite "Dolls-Brats playing human beings". She rips everyone,leaving only body and mechanisms which he's filled in with.Trust me,to experience that is not the most pleasant feeling.But Muratova forces you to feel it,and probably it's objective proof of her uniqueness.