Hello, all. This post comes in the midst of yet another period in which I've been pondering the life and work of the great Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. A while ago, I found a short film devoted to him on Youtube that I really should have shared earlier. In any case, here it is now. Shot on and one day after December 29th, 2008 (the 22-year anniversary of Tarkovsky's death) in the Russian Orthodox Cemetery in Sainte-Geneiève-des-Bois, France (near Paris) where he is buried, Mark Beneria's Elegeia offers up a fittingly poetic tribute to the artist using patient camera movements and a solemn flute score (by Okuda Asuya) that evoke his legendary, powerful films. In a mournful tone, Beneria reflects on the greatness of Tarkovsky's work and the sad circumstances surrounding his troubled life in exile. If devoted admirers of Tarkovsky's work weren't compelled to actually visit his grave in France, they will be after seeing this film. I know I want to.
Showing posts with label Soviet cinema. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Soviet cinema. Show all posts
Monday, October 24, 2011
Monday, November 8, 2010
Stalker (1979)
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Country: Soviet Union
Stalker is the fifth of only seven feature films master filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky made during his life. It represents one of many instances in which he used science fiction elements - other notable examples include 1972's Solaris, which is mostly set on a space station near a strange planet, and 1986's The Sacrifice, which is driven by the concepts of World War III and the end of all life on Earth. If one compares Solaris and Stalker, his two most sci-fi-oriented works, the latter seems more ambitious and transcendent, moving beyond the older film's confining sets and head-on (though still often cryptic) examinations of memory and identity. Instead, Stalker is a film structured around a spiritual quest, and consequently allows more room for open interpretations, metaphors and meditations on various subjects, with the characters' journey, as with most narrative journeys, having just as much to do with self-discovery as actual distances covered.
Stalker opens in a drab, depressing, sepia-toned world - unmistakably a post-apocalyptic dystopia. In this world, we learn that something - maybe a meteor, maybe an alien presence, though what it actually is remains ambiguous - reached Earth and affected an area of land. Now fenced off and guarded by the authorities and referred to as the Zone, it is thought to contain at its center a mystical place simply called the Room that grants wishes - specifically, the one thing that a visitor wants more than anything else. Yet passage through the Zone is no easy matter, as it seems to possess a sentient awareness and protects itself from unwelcome visitors with terrible traps. Only certain specially-attuned people known as stalkers can bring people to the Room. The film follows one particular stalker (Aleksandr Kaidanovsky) as he leaves his protesting wife (Alisa Frejndlikh) and their daughter (Natasha Abramova) behind to bring a scientist (Nikolai Grinko) and a writer (Anatoli Solonitsyn) into the Zone so they may enter the Room and have their innermost desires.
Throughout Stalker, the titular character and his two companions choose to refer to themselves only by their titles. As a result, they often act as archetypes for their respective fields. Of the three of them, this is especially true of the writer, who frequently speaks of the nature of being a writer, the importance (or lack thereof) of writing and the often overwhelming role the audience plays in the life of a writer. As a still-budding writer myself, I found these monologues to be extremely insightful and wise, and the great Solonitsyn's passionate delivery made them all the more resonant. Anybody who has taken seriously the idea of creating a meaningful output through writing or making a living off of the craft and the whims of the public will see part of themselves in the writer.
The three men's journey into the Zone is completely enthralling for several reasons. As they head further into the strange, ominous landscape, the stalker tosses nuts with strips of cloth tied around them to ensure safety from traps and instructs the others to walk in certain directions. Along the way, tension and distrust forms between them as a result of ego, pride, greed and frayed patience. Only the stalker has a solid understanding of the true nature of the Zone, which often seems more like another character than a place - one who quietly schemes and plans to tear the men's unit apart with their own dark, savage impulses. Also of clear interest are the exact motives driving the scientist and the writer to the Room, creating fascinating new dilemmas once they are fully revealed.
The Zone itself significantly appears in color within the film - being one of many elements that have inspired astute comparisons between Stalker and The Wizard of Oz. Yet there are no neat yellow brick roads or quaint Munchkin dwellings in the Zone - it is an eerily quiet, desolate place filled with green overgrowth, wind, rain and flowing rivers. Here, Tarkovsky, who made use of scenes of nature like no other filmmaker, captures some of his strongest imagery based on the natural elements - particularly water, a regular motif of his. Through things like a sudden gust of wind or the arrival of a rain storm (not to mention the incredible music by Eduard Artemiev), the Zone seems to express itself in subtle, mysterious ways. Throughout it, there lie abandoned trucks and tanks, crooked power lines and discarded guns, syringes and bottles - the remnants of human civilization rendered in profoundly lyrical passages of pure cinema. Thus, the Zone is not just a strange, fantastical realm, but a looking glass through which Tarkovsky and his audience beholds and considers such subjects as war, religion, art, sin and the folly of man.
Such intimidating subjects are presented in a manner that is extremely hypnotic and stunning in its sheer beauty. Stalker is at once a philosophical adventure, a revealing examination of human desire and an exquisite work of film poetry. Sadly, the film is also highly significant for the tragedy it brought about to some of its makers: it is believed that Tarkovsky, Solonitsyn and Tarkovsky's wife Larisa all died from cancer that was initially acquired during the Stalker shoot from chemically contaminated locations in Estonia. When you watch the film knowing that it literally cost the lives of some of its key artists, there is undeniably a strange potency added to it and its concepts - especially the Zone, which one could almost imagine extending its wavering, toxic borders beyond the realm of fiction to affect the filmmakers themselves. Also greatly warranted is an appropriate sense of appreciation for Tarkovsky's sacrifice for his art - which, with a film as brilliant and haunting as Stalker, is not such a hard thing to summon.
Country: Soviet Union
Stalker is the fifth of only seven feature films master filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky made during his life. It represents one of many instances in which he used science fiction elements - other notable examples include 1972's Solaris, which is mostly set on a space station near a strange planet, and 1986's The Sacrifice, which is driven by the concepts of World War III and the end of all life on Earth. If one compares Solaris and Stalker, his two most sci-fi-oriented works, the latter seems more ambitious and transcendent, moving beyond the older film's confining sets and head-on (though still often cryptic) examinations of memory and identity. Instead, Stalker is a film structured around a spiritual quest, and consequently allows more room for open interpretations, metaphors and meditations on various subjects, with the characters' journey, as with most narrative journeys, having just as much to do with self-discovery as actual distances covered.
Stalker opens in a drab, depressing, sepia-toned world - unmistakably a post-apocalyptic dystopia. In this world, we learn that something - maybe a meteor, maybe an alien presence, though what it actually is remains ambiguous - reached Earth and affected an area of land. Now fenced off and guarded by the authorities and referred to as the Zone, it is thought to contain at its center a mystical place simply called the Room that grants wishes - specifically, the one thing that a visitor wants more than anything else. Yet passage through the Zone is no easy matter, as it seems to possess a sentient awareness and protects itself from unwelcome visitors with terrible traps. Only certain specially-attuned people known as stalkers can bring people to the Room. The film follows one particular stalker (Aleksandr Kaidanovsky) as he leaves his protesting wife (Alisa Frejndlikh) and their daughter (Natasha Abramova) behind to bring a scientist (Nikolai Grinko) and a writer (Anatoli Solonitsyn) into the Zone so they may enter the Room and have their innermost desires.
Throughout Stalker, the titular character and his two companions choose to refer to themselves only by their titles. As a result, they often act as archetypes for their respective fields. Of the three of them, this is especially true of the writer, who frequently speaks of the nature of being a writer, the importance (or lack thereof) of writing and the often overwhelming role the audience plays in the life of a writer. As a still-budding writer myself, I found these monologues to be extremely insightful and wise, and the great Solonitsyn's passionate delivery made them all the more resonant. Anybody who has taken seriously the idea of creating a meaningful output through writing or making a living off of the craft and the whims of the public will see part of themselves in the writer.
The three men's journey into the Zone is completely enthralling for several reasons. As they head further into the strange, ominous landscape, the stalker tosses nuts with strips of cloth tied around them to ensure safety from traps and instructs the others to walk in certain directions. Along the way, tension and distrust forms between them as a result of ego, pride, greed and frayed patience. Only the stalker has a solid understanding of the true nature of the Zone, which often seems more like another character than a place - one who quietly schemes and plans to tear the men's unit apart with their own dark, savage impulses. Also of clear interest are the exact motives driving the scientist and the writer to the Room, creating fascinating new dilemmas once they are fully revealed.
The Zone itself significantly appears in color within the film - being one of many elements that have inspired astute comparisons between Stalker and The Wizard of Oz. Yet there are no neat yellow brick roads or quaint Munchkin dwellings in the Zone - it is an eerily quiet, desolate place filled with green overgrowth, wind, rain and flowing rivers. Here, Tarkovsky, who made use of scenes of nature like no other filmmaker, captures some of his strongest imagery based on the natural elements - particularly water, a regular motif of his. Through things like a sudden gust of wind or the arrival of a rain storm (not to mention the incredible music by Eduard Artemiev), the Zone seems to express itself in subtle, mysterious ways. Throughout it, there lie abandoned trucks and tanks, crooked power lines and discarded guns, syringes and bottles - the remnants of human civilization rendered in profoundly lyrical passages of pure cinema. Thus, the Zone is not just a strange, fantastical realm, but a looking glass through which Tarkovsky and his audience beholds and considers such subjects as war, religion, art, sin and the folly of man.
Such intimidating subjects are presented in a manner that is extremely hypnotic and stunning in its sheer beauty. Stalker is at once a philosophical adventure, a revealing examination of human desire and an exquisite work of film poetry. Sadly, the film is also highly significant for the tragedy it brought about to some of its makers: it is believed that Tarkovsky, Solonitsyn and Tarkovsky's wife Larisa all died from cancer that was initially acquired during the Stalker shoot from chemically contaminated locations in Estonia. When you watch the film knowing that it literally cost the lives of some of its key artists, there is undeniably a strange potency added to it and its concepts - especially the Zone, which one could almost imagine extending its wavering, toxic borders beyond the realm of fiction to affect the filmmakers themselves. Also greatly warranted is an appropriate sense of appreciation for Tarkovsky's sacrifice for his art - which, with a film as brilliant and haunting as Stalker, is not such a hard thing to summon.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
The Ascent (1977)
Director: Larisa Shepitko
Country: Soviet Union
With just four feature films between her graduation from the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography and her tragic death in a car accident in 1979, Larisa Shepitko established herself as one of the Soviet Union’s finest filmmakers. Her 1966 work Wings is a remarkable display of her then-emerging talent, channeling the creative spirit of the European arthouse cinema of the time in its portrait of a school principal who yearns for her previous life as a World War II ace pilot. The Ascent, however, is something else entirely: a masterpiece in every sense of the word. Though it is ingrained with the sort of sublime transcendence that can be found in the works of Bergman, Dreyer and Tarkovsky, the experience it offers is so singular, pure and powerful that it belongs entirely in a class of its own.
The Ascent, set during World War II, begins with a troop of Byelorussian soldiers who, following a chaotic attack, send two men into the wintery wilderness to a nearby farm to find food. They find the building’s burnt remains, then continue onwards before eventually crossing paths with a German patrol. One of the men, Sotnikov, is shot in the leg. Rybak, his companion, pulls him to safety, and the two soldiers find refuge in a nearby house inhabited by a peasant woman and her three children. But soon enough, another group of Germans arrives and discovers them hiding in the attic, taking them and the woman prisoner. The captives are held in a Nazi camp where they slowly realize just how dire their situation is.
Much of The Ascent possesses an intense quality that vividly depicts the sheer brutality of the soldiers’ experiences. The camera is with them for nearly every step of their journey from the moment they leave their troop, capturing their exhausted breaths and strenuous efforts to stay alive. You can feel all too clearly Sotnikov’s terror and desperation as he clumsily aims and reloads his rifle, then hopelessness when he tells Rybak to leave him to die against the base of a tree. Surely never before has snow been portrayed as such an immobilizing, claustrophobically enveloping substance, particularly when Rybak drags both himself and the wounded Sotnikov away from the Germans, their clothes and faces caked with the freezing substance.
Viewers are propelled forward alongside the men in a linear, constantly shifting stream of events, with moments of fragile shelter and peace all too quickly giving way to exposure in the blinding wasteland, frantic confrontations and harrowing captivity. One of The Ascent’s most incredible features is its striking use of Christian symbolism, which becomes more apparent as the film progresses. When questioned and tortured for information, the Christ-like Sotnikov fiercely refuses to tarnish his honor, selflessly accepting his fate with a clean conscience and, as a result, achieving a sort of enlightenment. In contrast, Rybak pitifully stoops to the lowest depths of morality to ensure his own survival. Perhaps the film’s only weak point is when an old woman calls him Judas (twice!), as it brings into the open what was already so poignantly implied by Vladimir Gostyukhin’s portrayal of the sniveling coward, the no-win dilemma set before the two men and their different, heartbreaking responses to it.
The engineer of their painful situation and the evil beating heart at the center of Shepitko’s film is Portnov, the Russian police investigator in league with the Germans who interrogates Sotnikov and Rybak. He is played by Anatoli Solonitsyn, the distinctive actor who appeared in many of Tarkovsky’s films, including Andrei Rublev as the title character, Solaris and Stalker. In The Ascent, he gives a performance that is nothing short of hypnotic, seizing the viewer’s attention from the moment he appears standing before Sotnikov’s crumpled form. The following conversation held in his small, sparsely furnished office gradually becomes a battle of wills between the two men. “You’ll have to trouble your conscience,” says Portnov, describing Sotnikov’s only hope for saving himself shortly before resorting to a red-hot iron. With his slightly stooped posture; piercing eyes; round, balding head and small, fierce-looking teeth, he is suitably demonic in both appearance and nature, calm and cool in one moment, menacingly furious the next. A shocking revelation about his previous life before the war and a scene in which he is subtly shut out of a circle of conversation between some German officers rank as some of the more interesting ways in which the film addresses the issue of collaboration. His mesmerizing presence and diabolical control over his subjects bringing to mind Christoph Waltz’s Colonel Hans Landa from Inglourious Basterds, Portnov is one of cinema’s greatest unsung villains.
The Ascent is packed with striking, expertly-composed images – a full clothesline swaying amid the barren remains of the farm; a line of crooked telephone poles standing in the alien landscape; the haunting, tired faces of the young and old in both the troop and, later, the group of prisoners shut away in a dark cellar. Further demonstrating her firm control over the medium, Shepitko underlines certain passages with abstract crescendos of sound and music that are often halted by abrupt cuts, bringing the viewer back to reality in an instant. The final passage and tragic epilogue are particularly unforgettable, leaving one stunned by the film’s emotional impact and beauty. It is a fitting sensation to be left with at the very end of not only Shepitko’s greatest accomplishment, but her entire career as well. While it is a great pity that she wasn’t able to continue expanding her body of work, The Ascent serves an unusually proper role as a Final Film, preserving forever the impression of an artist at the height of her creativity.
Country: Soviet Union
With just four feature films between her graduation from the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography and her tragic death in a car accident in 1979, Larisa Shepitko established herself as one of the Soviet Union’s finest filmmakers. Her 1966 work Wings is a remarkable display of her then-emerging talent, channeling the creative spirit of the European arthouse cinema of the time in its portrait of a school principal who yearns for her previous life as a World War II ace pilot. The Ascent, however, is something else entirely: a masterpiece in every sense of the word. Though it is ingrained with the sort of sublime transcendence that can be found in the works of Bergman, Dreyer and Tarkovsky, the experience it offers is so singular, pure and powerful that it belongs entirely in a class of its own.
The Ascent, set during World War II, begins with a troop of Byelorussian soldiers who, following a chaotic attack, send two men into the wintery wilderness to a nearby farm to find food. They find the building’s burnt remains, then continue onwards before eventually crossing paths with a German patrol. One of the men, Sotnikov, is shot in the leg. Rybak, his companion, pulls him to safety, and the two soldiers find refuge in a nearby house inhabited by a peasant woman and her three children. But soon enough, another group of Germans arrives and discovers them hiding in the attic, taking them and the woman prisoner. The captives are held in a Nazi camp where they slowly realize just how dire their situation is.
Much of The Ascent possesses an intense quality that vividly depicts the sheer brutality of the soldiers’ experiences. The camera is with them for nearly every step of their journey from the moment they leave their troop, capturing their exhausted breaths and strenuous efforts to stay alive. You can feel all too clearly Sotnikov’s terror and desperation as he clumsily aims and reloads his rifle, then hopelessness when he tells Rybak to leave him to die against the base of a tree. Surely never before has snow been portrayed as such an immobilizing, claustrophobically enveloping substance, particularly when Rybak drags both himself and the wounded Sotnikov away from the Germans, their clothes and faces caked with the freezing substance.
Viewers are propelled forward alongside the men in a linear, constantly shifting stream of events, with moments of fragile shelter and peace all too quickly giving way to exposure in the blinding wasteland, frantic confrontations and harrowing captivity. One of The Ascent’s most incredible features is its striking use of Christian symbolism, which becomes more apparent as the film progresses. When questioned and tortured for information, the Christ-like Sotnikov fiercely refuses to tarnish his honor, selflessly accepting his fate with a clean conscience and, as a result, achieving a sort of enlightenment. In contrast, Rybak pitifully stoops to the lowest depths of morality to ensure his own survival. Perhaps the film’s only weak point is when an old woman calls him Judas (twice!), as it brings into the open what was already so poignantly implied by Vladimir Gostyukhin’s portrayal of the sniveling coward, the no-win dilemma set before the two men and their different, heartbreaking responses to it.
The engineer of their painful situation and the evil beating heart at the center of Shepitko’s film is Portnov, the Russian police investigator in league with the Germans who interrogates Sotnikov and Rybak. He is played by Anatoli Solonitsyn, the distinctive actor who appeared in many of Tarkovsky’s films, including Andrei Rublev as the title character, Solaris and Stalker. In The Ascent, he gives a performance that is nothing short of hypnotic, seizing the viewer’s attention from the moment he appears standing before Sotnikov’s crumpled form. The following conversation held in his small, sparsely furnished office gradually becomes a battle of wills between the two men. “You’ll have to trouble your conscience,” says Portnov, describing Sotnikov’s only hope for saving himself shortly before resorting to a red-hot iron. With his slightly stooped posture; piercing eyes; round, balding head and small, fierce-looking teeth, he is suitably demonic in both appearance and nature, calm and cool in one moment, menacingly furious the next. A shocking revelation about his previous life before the war and a scene in which he is subtly shut out of a circle of conversation between some German officers rank as some of the more interesting ways in which the film addresses the issue of collaboration. His mesmerizing presence and diabolical control over his subjects bringing to mind Christoph Waltz’s Colonel Hans Landa from Inglourious Basterds, Portnov is one of cinema’s greatest unsung villains.
The Ascent is packed with striking, expertly-composed images – a full clothesline swaying amid the barren remains of the farm; a line of crooked telephone poles standing in the alien landscape; the haunting, tired faces of the young and old in both the troop and, later, the group of prisoners shut away in a dark cellar. Further demonstrating her firm control over the medium, Shepitko underlines certain passages with abstract crescendos of sound and music that are often halted by abrupt cuts, bringing the viewer back to reality in an instant. The final passage and tragic epilogue are particularly unforgettable, leaving one stunned by the film’s emotional impact and beauty. It is a fitting sensation to be left with at the very end of not only Shepitko’s greatest accomplishment, but her entire career as well. While it is a great pity that she wasn’t able to continue expanding her body of work, The Ascent serves an unusually proper role as a Final Film, preserving forever the impression of an artist at the height of her creativity.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Wings (1966)
Director: Larisa Shepitko
Country: Soviet Union
I discovered this great hidden gem after finally picking up the Eclipse set which features two works from the great, overlooked Soviet director Larisa Shepitko, whose life was tragically cut short by a car accident in 1979. Even though she left behind a legacy of only four feature films, the talent that she demonstrates in both Wings and the stunning The Ascent is enough to qualify her as one of the greatest female directors in world cinema.
Wings is a fascinating character study which features the renowned actress Maya Bulgakova as school headmistress Nadezhda Petrukhina. Living an at-times painfully mundane life in the confines of classrooms and hallways, she often recalls her former position as a courageous fighter pilot during World War II. As she daydreams of soaring amongst the clouds, you begin to share her desire for more exciting pursuits. As a buttoned-down official, she faces her share of challenges, most notably a delinquent student who constantly defies authority and faces expulsion from the school, but they are mere trifles compared to the all-too-sweet promise of exhilarating freedom that repeatedly haunts her throughout the film. There is even the strong possibility that she sees something of herself, or who she used to be, in the rebellious youth, which keeps her from dismissing his case entirely. Ultimately, her inner conflict invites a serious consideration of age, destiny and belonging, her case that of a passion having grown painfully out of reach.
Wings had a somewhat unexpected, delightful effect on me. Even though it is unquestionably a film bearing the unique vision of its maker, it also reminded me of several other European films that helped make up the worldwide boom in arthouse cinema during the 1960s, namely Federico Fellini's 8 1/2, Ingmar Bergman's Persona, Chris Marker's La Jetée and Agnès Varda's Cléo From 5 to 7. There was just something about the poetic, semi-documentarian way in which Shepitko shot her scenes and actors, capturing the natural hubub of everyday life, combined with the bold, innovative confidence in her style that reminded me of the great advances narrative film was making during that legendary time (this video, featuring Martin Scorsese, someone who I could listen to talk about film all day, discussing Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Eclisse, has also been bouncing around in my brain recently; maybe it had something to do with the association). As a result, I've been revisiting a number of such films since (including 8 1/2, one of my all-time favorites), reminding me of how fruitful this period truly was for the cinematic medium. As a recent second viewing rewardingly confirmed for me, Wings is definitely a film made in the same spirit of creativity, certifying Shepitko's place alongside other Soviet New Wavers such as Andrei Tarkovsky (Andrei Rublev) and Mikhail Kalatozov (The Cranes Are Flying).
This is one film I'll definitely revisit often and cherish in my collection. Inspiring on multiple levels, Wings follows a woman's journey of self-discovery with great style, throwing in sights and sounds of everyday life and tasteful artistic flourishes. Both it and Shepitko easily warrant attention.
Country: Soviet Union
I discovered this great hidden gem after finally picking up the Eclipse set which features two works from the great, overlooked Soviet director Larisa Shepitko, whose life was tragically cut short by a car accident in 1979. Even though she left behind a legacy of only four feature films, the talent that she demonstrates in both Wings and the stunning The Ascent is enough to qualify her as one of the greatest female directors in world cinema.
Wings is a fascinating character study which features the renowned actress Maya Bulgakova as school headmistress Nadezhda Petrukhina. Living an at-times painfully mundane life in the confines of classrooms and hallways, she often recalls her former position as a courageous fighter pilot during World War II. As she daydreams of soaring amongst the clouds, you begin to share her desire for more exciting pursuits. As a buttoned-down official, she faces her share of challenges, most notably a delinquent student who constantly defies authority and faces expulsion from the school, but they are mere trifles compared to the all-too-sweet promise of exhilarating freedom that repeatedly haunts her throughout the film. There is even the strong possibility that she sees something of herself, or who she used to be, in the rebellious youth, which keeps her from dismissing his case entirely. Ultimately, her inner conflict invites a serious consideration of age, destiny and belonging, her case that of a passion having grown painfully out of reach.
Wings had a somewhat unexpected, delightful effect on me. Even though it is unquestionably a film bearing the unique vision of its maker, it also reminded me of several other European films that helped make up the worldwide boom in arthouse cinema during the 1960s, namely Federico Fellini's 8 1/2, Ingmar Bergman's Persona, Chris Marker's La Jetée and Agnès Varda's Cléo From 5 to 7. There was just something about the poetic, semi-documentarian way in which Shepitko shot her scenes and actors, capturing the natural hubub of everyday life, combined with the bold, innovative confidence in her style that reminded me of the great advances narrative film was making during that legendary time (this video, featuring Martin Scorsese, someone who I could listen to talk about film all day, discussing Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Eclisse, has also been bouncing around in my brain recently; maybe it had something to do with the association). As a result, I've been revisiting a number of such films since (including 8 1/2, one of my all-time favorites), reminding me of how fruitful this period truly was for the cinematic medium. As a recent second viewing rewardingly confirmed for me, Wings is definitely a film made in the same spirit of creativity, certifying Shepitko's place alongside other Soviet New Wavers such as Andrei Tarkovsky (Andrei Rublev) and Mikhail Kalatozov (The Cranes Are Flying).
This is one film I'll definitely revisit often and cherish in my collection. Inspiring on multiple levels, Wings follows a woman's journey of self-discovery with great style, throwing in sights and sounds of everyday life and tasteful artistic flourishes. Both it and Shepitko easily warrant attention.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
