Today I’d like to speak about the movie that last week became famous for the whole country. The reason for this is that it was chosen to represent Russia at February’s Oscar Ceremony. Actually not at the Ceremony but in the list of movies pretending to get the Best Foreign Language Film of the Year award. Form the great list of dozens of movies from all over the world American Academy critics are to choose five best pictures, and then to present only one of them that will become the winner.
First of all I’d like to mention that “Ward №6” was shown at Moscow International Film Festival. And I guess you’ve already understood that it is based on the short story by Chekhov of the same name. But in the movie action takes place in modern times. It’s made in so called pseudodocumental manner. The film tells the story of the chief psychiatrist Ragin who after useful conversations with his patient Gromov drives insane himself. The movie is adjusted to the modern Russian realities, but Chekhov’s ideas are actually preserved. Again we see that the border between insane and healthy is insignificant. In general “Ward №6” is a story of how society can put one’s soul in the prison. It’s about society’s alienation, and about the lack of intelligentsia in modern Russia. Actually Ward №6 is an allusion to Russia as a whole. This theme may seem quite trite, but the performance offered by Shakhnazarov is unique. This is an example of average newest Russian arthouse movie with all its features – from odious patients provoking sympathy to the shaking camera as a director’s device (the last is actually a sign of European arthouse). Secondary themes explored by the director are numerous. I’m not going to strongly recommend you to watch the movie. In my opinion every director interprets his own vision of the short story, and this version is maybe the closest one. As I said it’s an example of an average Russian intellectual movie. But we have some other more brilliant pictures which should help you understand the situation in Russian cinematography. By the way, non-commercial movies are more frequent event in Russia than commercial ones.
The list of Russian movies to go for the Oscar consisted of 9 pictures. If I were to choose the one I would vote for “Petya on his way to the Kingdom of Heaven”. But this choice is caused by the whole impression about the movie. It has fewer rights to go for the Oscar than the discussed one. Oscar’ tendencies demand the films pretending to the Best Foreign Language Film of the Year award to be non-commercial (in contrast to the Best Motion Picture of the Year award). And they should present some modern social problems concerning the country of their production or they should speak about some eternal negative themes (like death, war, etc). And “Warden №6” is exactly the movie to be sent to America. But nonetheless it won’t enter the list of the 5 best movies. The last Russian movie to do so was Mikhalkov’s “Burnt by the Sun”. And that’s much a deeper movie and its quality is much higher.
Not now, i think. Commercial films has no chances, and non-commercial are too russia-oriented and narrow-minded to win something. More than that, the performance leaves much to be desired. Let's wait for another Tarkovsky)))
A very interesting observation, I think. But if we make a conclusion, it goes like this: if we choose among all Russian movies the one that is certainly not going to get the award, does that mean that Russian cinematograph can't compete with the foreign ones? Or does it prove that Russian movies are only for Russians and they can't be understood by foreigners?
