The Beginning

If there is something in Russia that spread fast throughout the Empire besides vodka, is the amusing hysteria of women. After a small wave of feminism in the 60s, the 70s started up with a more attentive eye on regressive womanhood. Explaining it through historical female figures might come out as Russian expressionism. But, for a more amusing way of avoiding censorship and stirring up the interest of the Comrades in delicate subjects of woman role in modern society, you could just build it as a comedy, concerned socially about the lifestyle of young communists, living the dream with a steady job in factories or institutes in the blooming system. The Slavic female drama of inception and proper direction of the live trauma becomes a natural induced syndrome, either wearing a headscarf, medium length dresses or male clothes with high boots. Artistic, yet very consumable.

"Nachalo" or "The Beginning" is Gleb Panfilov's masterwork, IMO, and his most popular film with the critics and audiences alike. Its heroine is a young woman, Pasha Stroganova (Inna Churikova in her most powerful double performance as Pasha and Joan), a factory worker in a small provincial town, who dreams of love, and spends her spare time acting in a local drama group. Her best role is "Baba Yaga", an old wicked witch in the stage adaptation of a folk fairy tale. She is discovered by a film director looking for an unknown actress to play Joan of Arc in his next movie and who is very impressed by Pasha's natural talent, temperament, love for acting and her face which is far from pretty but is unusual and fascinating, with its inner fire. I read that Panfilov was dreaming of making "Joan of Arc" with Churikova as the legendary Maid of Orleans after the success of "The Beginning", and I can only guess why it never happened in the former Soviet Union. The scenes of "Joan of Arc" inside "The Beginning" are stunning in every regard, and Churikova's face is reminiscent of the greatest screen Joan ever, Renee Maria Falconetti.

Perhaps Panfilov's most accessible film, and one of his masterpieces, the others, for me, being his next two films "Proshu Slova" and "Tema", which are in color while this one is in B/W. The story is about a young woman who is a little strange, she's not very confident, and she's not very practiced in the ways of love. She also dreams of being an actress, and she plays Baba Yaga in a local kids theatre play. Two things happen that change her life. First she meets a very nice man who is married with a child but the two are perfect for each other and start going out. The second is she is asked by a director to play Joan of Arc in his film. Panfilov's films are never drivel, the characters are so realistic and well acted in every one of his films. This film is fascinating and unique because it uses the Joan of Arc movie within the film as a device to separate the events of the girl's life. It kind of parallels her life, she must prove herself, she must suffer through something, she must believe in herself, stand her ground. The story is so realistic that a lot of things happen to this young woman, with the man she loves and the film-making. There are troubles in both. I like this film a lot, I'd love to see a good release of it. The script and shooting is absolutely brilliant, so is the editing, and the acting of course by Panfilov's wife is perfect as always, she's funny in this film. The story is genuinely wonderful, realistic, like life, many sad parts, many funny parts. Great all the way through, and I loved the ending, especially the "joke" with the title. A great film about a film being made as well. This is really one of Russia's/USSR's best films, by one of its best directors. Quite a pleasure to watch.