The Editors and Board of Trustees of the Russian Review

The Cinema of Kira Muratova Author(s): Jane A. Taubman Source: Russian Review, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Jul., 1993), pp. 367-381 Published by: Wiley on behalf of The Editors and Board of Trustees of the Russian Review Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/130736 . Accessed: 12/04/2014 07:06
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The Kira

Cinema of Muratova

JANE A. TAUBMAN

ira Muratova is one of a small but immensely talented group of Soviet women directors who began their careers in the 1960s and early 1970s.1 Like most Russian women filmmakers and writers of her generation, Muratova is uncomfortable with the terms "feminism" and "women's film." Nevertheless, part of Muratova's uniqueness as an artist lies in qualities attributable to her woman's eye and ear, and to her knowledge of women's lives. Muratova's films are distinguished by their particularly penetrating, often merciless gaze at her female characters, and by her keen ear for the "heteroglossia" of Russian, including various forms of female language often heard on the street, the workplace, or in the home, but, until recently, seldom in Soviet film or literature. Muratova's first three films investigated characters who represented a large proportion of the Soviet female population: the "responsible official," the middle-aged divorced mother and the unmarried working-class woman. They and their lives were slighted or ignored by mainstream Soviet culture, for they resisted both glamorization and politicization. The best-known Soviet "women's film," Moscow Doesn't Believe in Tears(Moskva slezam ne verit) tried to combine all three stories in the life of a single heroine, Katia, with results kitschy enough to earn the film box-office success in the Soviet Union and an Oscar in Hollywood. Muratova dignifies her characters by treating them seriously, and that includes clear-eyed criticism for actions unworthy of themselves. Her criticism comes from a position of sympathy rather than antipathy. Muratova's career has not been easy. Her films were released for a general Soviet audience only in 1987, and her work is still little known in North America. The present essay is the first comprehensive survey and discussion of her work in English.2
Research forthis articlewasmadepossiblewitha grantfromthe AmherstCollegeFacultyResearch Grantprogram,to whichthe authorexpressesher gratitude. 1 The othersarethe late Larissa andDinaraAsanova,bothof whomdieduntimelydeaths, Shepitko and LanaGogoberidze, who is fortunately still with us. 2 She is betterknownin distributed. France,whereher filmsare commercially TheRussianReview, vol. 52, July 1993,pp. 367-381 1993The Ohio State University Press Copyright

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in 1965from the All-unionState Instituteof Cinematography Since her graduation made only seven feature-length films.3Her firstthree, Brief Muratova has (VGIK), Encounters(Korotkievstrechi,1967), The Long Goodbye(Dolgie provody, 1971to Knowthe World (Poznavaiabelyisvet, 1978),were eithershelved 87), and Getting or given extremelylimited release. Her fourthfilm, Among the Grey Stones (Sredi serykhkamnei, 1983), was so mercilesslydistortedbefore release that she asked to have her name removedfrom the titles. Her difficult1987 film, A Changeof Fate (Peremena uchasti),receivedmixed reviewsand no box-officesuccess;even as late AsthenicSyndrome acclaimed as 1989the censorsheld up hercritically (Astenicheskii words" sindrom)because of scenes of frontalnudityand a streamof "unprintable miin a scene near the end. Her latest film, The Sentimental Cop (Chuvstvitel'nyi and the "Primodessa-film" French of a venture production (Ukraine) litsioner), joint in was releasedin the fall of 1992, but its wide distribution company"Paris-Media," the chaoticconditionsof the post-Sovietfilm industryis not likely. to whomshe has studiedunderdirectorSergeiGerasimov, At VGIK, Muratova her indebtedness.This at firstseems surprising,if we think of often acknowledged Guard in termsof his best-knownfilms,Komsomolsk Gerasimov (1938), The Young films the Don Flows And and the Quiet which, though distin(1958), epic (1948), most Soviet cinema's relative and honesty during guishedby professionalmastery difficultperiod, seem to have little or nothingin commonwith Muratova'swork. Moretellingis the fact that Gerasimov began his filmcareerin the 1920sas an actor with the experimentalgroup FEKS (the "Factoryof the EccentricActor"), which cultivateda stylized, grotesqueand pointedlyantirealistic approachto acting. Gerasimovappearedin all the early filmsof GrigoriKozintsevand Leonid Trauberg, includingthe lead as the villainousMedoksin S. VD. and the menacingbureaucrat more strikingdevices-her stylizationand abSome of Muratova's in TheOvercoat. stractionof speech and gesture throughrepetition, for example-are clearly deshareswith She also, somewhatparadoxically, scendedfromthe FEKSexperiments. Gerasimovthe directoran interestin Leo Tolstoy (in his eighties, Gerasimovportrayedthe great writerin his own last film), in a Tolstoyanmoral absolutismand of youngpeople. realisticpsychologyof character, particularly to beginhercareerjust as the Brezhnevstagnation hadthe misfortune Muratova wassettingin. Colleaguesrecognizedherunusualtalentanddid all they couldduring to the worstyearsof the 1970sand early 1980sto give her at least some opportunity work. Early in the Gorbachevera, her three shelved films were released and she clear-eyed suddenlyreceived long-deniedrecognition.Muratova,characteristically and sardonic,recalledher "changeof fate": Yesterdaythey had said to me, "Idiot, cross-eyedfool, get out of here!" that you've done is wonSuddenlythey said, "You'rea genius!Everything derful!"Black became white, and it was "Come on, film, as quickly as you want.". .. They startedto makeuse of me for their possible,whatever
I do not include,and havenot seen, her 1965diplomafilm, "OurHonestBread"(Nashchestnyi AlexanderMuratov. khleb),whichshe madewith her then husband
3

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JaneA. Taubman own profit:"Lookhow bad it was for Muratova,andhow good it's become for her. So anyonewho thinksthingsare still bad can just shut up."4

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AsthenicSyndrome, Her new films,particularly expresseddeep despairat the social of Sovietpersonaland publiclife. Those who could not, or and moraldisintegration would not, see the prophetic,Tolstoyanmoral vision in the film tarredit with the epithet "chernukha,"a new slang word for "an excessively black depiction of reality."5 filmsseem quitedisparateat firstglance,there are common ThoughMuratova's the first six can be threadswhich trace the developmentof her art. Thematically, to the dichotomy according proposedby that greattheoristof Russiancularranged ture, WoodyAllen: the firstthree are aboutlove, the secondthree aboutdeath. The studiesof humanrelationships,each structured earlierfilms are close psychological in the universe arounda love triangle(in one case the triangleis mother/son/father); of the secondthree films,deathhas eclipsedwhatlittle love is left. In her latest film, Muratova returns,in a differentkey,to the themesof conjugalandparentallove with which she began. Here the love triangleis an odd one indeed: a young policemen and his wife contestin courtwith a middle-aged womandoctorfor the rightto adopt the baby girl he found in a cabbagepatch. (Yes, a cabbagepatch!) In termsof aesthetic,however, it makessense to dividethe filmschronologically, as Muratova does herself,into two doubletpairsand the three post-1987films. Muratovaonce called the minimalist,black-andwhite BriefEncounters and The Long melodramas." Her first two color films, Gettingto Know the Goodbye "provincial andAmongthe GreyStones,marka periodof fascination World with whatshe terms
"ornamentalism" (dekorativnost'), the visual world in which her characters live.

There are hintsin these secondtwo filmsof the surreal,absurdand grotesquewhich the last three films,A Change characterize and TheSenof Fate,AsthenicSyndrome timentalCop. has a magicalcastof three:poet-bard-actor VladimirVysotsky, BriefEncounters the futurestar Nina Ruslanovain her film debut (she was then a second-yearacting studentat the Vakhtangov herself, who took over the lead Institute)and Muratova role when the originalactressdid not work out. The plot is simple: Nadia (Ruslain a roadsidecafe, fallsin love with a guitarnova), a villagegirlworkingas a waitress Maksim and tracksdown his addressin the city. It playinggeologist, (Vysotsky), turnsout to be the apartment of ValentinaIvanovna(Muratova),who worksat the in Soviet of the areasof water essential, charge city thoughthoroughly unglamorous, and Valentina assumes the at her door has been sent to supply sewage. village girl work as a live-in housekeeper;Nadia, without revealing her acquaintancewith Maksim,acceptsthe job. In Maksim'sabsence, Nadia studies Valentina,tryingto understandher relationshipwith Maksim.We see ValentinathroughNadia'seyes, and throughflashAuthor'sinterviewwith Muratova, April 1991, Moscow.Unless otherwiseattributed,all direct fromMuratova are fromthis interview. quotations as well to the playsandstoriesof Liudmila 5 The termhas been applied withwhose Petrushevskaia, workMuratova's visionandaesthetic havemuchin common.Thispaperis partof a largerprojectstudying those commonalities.
4

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backsof her "briefencounters" with Maksimbetween expeditions.Their relationwasintrigued shipis not withoutstrain:Muratova by the conflictbetweenValentina's "settled, domestic"personalityand Maksim,the eternalwandererand free spirit. Valentinanearlydrivesawayher vagabondgeologistwith her possessive, bossy behaviorand impatiencewith his wanderlust. They are indeed an "odd couple."Yet Valentinais no ogre; Muratova playsher withoutidealization,but sympathetically, as a believable, though repressedand conventional,human being. On the eve of Valentina's Maksim'sreturn,Nadiasilentlyacknowledges priorityin his life by setdinner and table for their reunion the slippingquietlyout the door to returnto ting her village. Film criticVladimirGul'chenkoobservedthat this is less a love trianglethan two parallelstory lines that meet somewherebeyond the frame of the film.6This the germof the reflects,in fact, the genesisof the scenario.Accordingto Muratova, idea came fromOdessa'swater-supply problems,andshe wanteda centralcharacter who dealt with the issue: "Thewomanbureaucrat appeared,and then the romantic was a free, gypsy-likecharacter;she and he was so official and she pedantic, plot: wantedto take him and form him, and he wouldn'tgive in." The Nadia/geologist whichcaughtMuratova's plot line came from a shortstoryby LeonidZhukhovitskii In the finishedfilm, the to with her. collaborate Zhukhovitskii she asked attention; is most interestingand fully developedrelationship that between the two women, ratherthan between either of them and Maksim. Muratovatold her tale in a complicatedseries of flashbacks,which simultafilm bureaucrats. The her talent and displeasedconservative neouslydemonstrated (in Russianit means "insidious,perfidious"), felicitouslynamedcriticN. Kovarskii reviewof the film, commented:"When the only contemporary in whatwas probably thatthe director, the look at the sittingat the editing impression picture,you get you individual table, simplyrearranged pieces of film,without,essentially,justifyingthis didn't like Kovarskii Vysotsky'sacting, either, or the "rootless" rearrangement."7 he plays.He wasmost troubled,however, character by the absenceof "a generalline to the only acceptabletheme for a failure treat Muratova's and by of the character" The bureaucrats Soviet film:"manand the historicalprocess,man and his epoch."8 knew rightfromthe openingscene that somethingwas seriouslyamiss. Valentinais decidingwhetherto washthe dishesor to keeptryingto writea speechon agriculture, Valentina'sown playful about which she knows nothing. Muratovacounterpoints naturallanguagewith the stilted Soviet rhetoricin whichshe is trying,withoutsuccess, to write her speech.9She gets no furtherthan the oft-repeated,"Dear Comrades."Accordingto Muratova,Goskinovoiced "moral"objectionsto Valentina's romancewith Maksim:
Iskusstvo "Mezhdu'ottepeliami,"' kino, 1991,no. 6:61. i vremia," "Chelovek ibid., 1968,no. 10:56.Film critic,scenaristand directorLeonidGurevich Amherst,MA, February 1991)claimsthat he wrote a positivereviewwhichthe (privateconversation, negativeone, but his did not appear. journalwas goingto printalongwith Kovarskii's 8 Ibid., 50. 9 "To washor not to wash?"(Myt'iii ne myt'?)she asksherself,paraphrasing the Russianversion of Hamlet's"To be or not to be?" (Byt' ili ne byt'?)
6

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JaneA. Taubman Why a love trianglewith an importantperson and her responsiblejob at in a government the center?Whythisimmorality official,whydoes she have a lover,where is her husband,why doesn't she get married,who's this geologist, some sort of suspiciouscharacter, why does he have some kind of in tried to out the the scenariowherehe reachesout figure place girl?They his handto take back his jacketfromNadia:[herethe film cuts to another scene-JT] Was he just takinghis jacket, or did they embraceand go off into the bushes?"If that's the case," they said, "we won't pass it."

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Madein Odessa,as weremostof Muratova's madeimagfilms,BriefEncounters inativeuse of limitedresources.Muratova's most valuableresourcehas alwaysbeen her actors,andshe learnedfromGerasimov how to use themwith consummateskill. is her use of nonprofessionals. One of her trademarks She likes to mix them with "because this livens like a kind of cocktail, it shakesup the professionals thingsup, situation. When are there two actors,they play up to each other, stagnantdogmatic they easily fall back into their own rut, they know how to make it comfortablefor each other." Whenshe findspeople whose storyshe likes, she interpolatesthem into her films, like found objects in a collage, sometimeswith a bit of strain, but often with considerable success. "Oftenthe basicdramatic core is enriched,developsmulbecauseof people I incorporateinto the tiple layers,complexitiesand ramifications, eccentricities,and with their own shootingandwho come with theirown characters, texts."In BriefEncounters herdiscovery wasL. Bazal'skaia-Strizheniuk, who played the role of Nadia'sgabbyvillage girlfriend in a heavy Ukrainianaccent. was shownlargelyin film clubs, with Muratovapresentto inBrief Encounters troduce it and answerquestions.Such appearances were then her major means of Her next a was scenario "Watch for Your Dreams!" ("VniOut project support. matel'no smotrite sny"), which she wrote together with Vladimir Zuev, about a womanartistwho, freedin a fairy-tale mannerfromthe restraints of home andfamily that have forced her to earn her livingwith hack work, discoversshe can no longer create. She returnshome to find her child has vanished. It is a nightmarethat has hauntedall who try to combinecreativityand motherhood,and we can only regret Muratovanevermade the film.10 She turnedinsteadto a scenarioby her long-timefriendNatalia Riazantseva, entitled "To Be a Man" ("Byt' muzhchinoi"),whichbecame her second film, The Muratova recalls:"I liked [the scenario],but it was totally differLong Goodbye.11 ent, almost classicalin its structure.Essentially,I took a completed scenario and The change of title is emblematic.Riazantseva's began to ruin it as I needed."12 scenariotold the traditional storyof a youngman'scoming-of-age.By cuttingout a few scenes dealingwith Sasha'sschool, Muratovamanagedto shift the focus to his mother,usuallythe forgottenfigure, if not simplythe villain, in the coming-of-age drama.The familysituationcould be a sequel, twentyyearslater,to the romanceof Valentinaand Maksimin BriefEncounters. At sixteen, Sasha(Oleg Vladimirskii,a
10 Viktor Bozhovich, Kira Muratova: tvorcheskiiportret (Moscow, 1988), 8. 11The scenario was published as "Dolgie provody," with an introduction by Riazantseva, in Kinostsenarii: literaturno-khudozhestvennyial'manakh (1988): 136-54. 12 Bozhovich, Kira Muratova, 8.

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wantsto leave his motherand go to live with his father,an archaenonprofessional) ologist from whom she was divorcedlong ago. The father'sunfetteredlife in Novosibirskand on expeditionsin the Crimeabeckonsthe boy, who has grownup in one room with his firmlyrooted mother.EvgeniaVasil'ievna(brilliantlyacted by ZinaidaSharko)has spentthe sixteenyearssincehis birthat the same desk, working as a technicaltranslator fromEnglish.Sheis equallystuckin the rutof hermothering role; she refuses to acknowledgethat he has grown up, just as in many ways she refusesto grow up herself. She cannotlet go of Sasha,even to begin a relationship man who is interestedin her.Her "rootedness," with a sympathetic one mighteven is underscored by the openingscene;one of the film'searliestimages sayimmobility, is of roots, which Sashadreamilycontemplatesas EvgeniaVasil'evnabuys a plant to place on the graveof her beloved father. Evenmorethanin her firstfilm,Muratova subjectsherheroineto a steely-eyed, like ValentinaIvanovna,Evgenia her worst that reveals faults. But, gaze penetrating is no caricature. Muratova allowsthe viewerto see enoughof herstrengths Vasil'evna when she publiclynags Sashato clean his nails, or that we cringein embarrassment bribes a postal workerto let her read his letters from his father,or creates a scene over seats at the office celebration.In that finalscene, their roles are reversed.Evgenia Vasil'evnais reducedto childishhysteriaby the prospectof Sasha's"desertion." Sasha, with a new-foundmaturity,takes charge, drags her away from the scene, and leads her out to the garden,where he asks her to take off embarrassing the stylish, ill-fittingwig she is wearing.The wig, borrowedfor the evening, makes her look too young for her years-Sasha urges her to come to termswith who she he repeats,over andover, reallyis, andto take pridein herself."I love you, Mama," "I won'tleave."The camerain this scene is mercilessin its harshclose-upsof Sharko's aging, yet still attractiveface. Earlierin the film, it had been equally ruthless in watchingher make up, puttingon the false face she shows to the world, behind whichshe has lost sight of her own identity. of her art. is anothertrademark close attentionto the sound-track Muratova's action on than the rather often counterpoints, The sound-track simplyunderlines, materialsare classicalmusic, total silence, or the screen. Her favoritesound-track "choralspeaking,"whichshe has comparedto operaticquartetsor quintetswhere about somethingdifferent,"a kind of harmony each character sings simultaneously is a solo classicalpiano, of chaos."In The Long Goodbyemuchof the sound-track to The background that of the characters. whose agitationmirrorsor counterpoints of Lermontov's rendition the finalsceneis the voice of a younggirlsingingan amateur poem "TheSail":"Andhe, restlessone, seeks the storm, as endlesslyanthologized if in the stormhe will findpeace."The poem becomes an ironicparodyof Evgenia how mistaken actiondemonstrates view of her son, whilethe on-camera Vasil'evna's she is. TheLong Goodbye,even had it been releasedin its own time, wouldprobably As Bozhovichwrites, "for the viewer acnever have achievedbox-officesuccess.13
13 I firstsaw the filmin the spring Moscowmovietheater.The of 1988in a nearlyemptysecond-run coupleseatedbehindme clearlyhadno ideaof whattheyhadcometo see. Afterthe husband middle-aged his incomprehension throughhalfthe film, they got up andleft. grumbled

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it is difficultto comprehend Muratova's customedto a traditional plot construction, films, and fifteenor twentyyearsago it was even harder.Accustomedto receivinga finishedproductfrom the screen, we internallyresist when we have to become coIf it was hard for life."14 creators,to be includedin the process of comprehending audiencesto understandMuratova's films, it was even harderfor the film bureaucrats,who demandeda clearideologicalline. The opennessof Muratova's plots, like with For thatof life itself, seems, to the authoritarian mind,fraught danger. instance, we are not sureat the end of the filmhowlong Sasha'sdecisionto staywithhis mother will last; life continuesbeyondthe finalframe. The filmwas grudgingly acceptedby with the of some but ten Goskino, help lobbyingby Gerasimov, days later,without A was withdrawn. scandal the with followed, explanation, acceptance Partymeetings at the Odessa studio to find out how such a film could have been made. S. D. Bezklubenko,then the ministerof cultureof the Ukraine, wrote an internalmemorandum: "K. Muratova... has filmedthis storyin such a way that the film turnedout very dark. The selectionof actors,theirtyping,the depictionof their surroundings, the special soundand lightingeffects, and also the musicare used by the directorto create an atmosphereof disorderin the life of the 'little man,'of his 'loneliness,'his 'drama.'This is unsocialist,bourgeoisrealism.""' Muratovawas never able to find out exactly why the film was forbidden.She recalls: "There were lots of rumors:it was the obkom, it was the wives of some importantpeople, it had been screenedat someone'sdacha."Her own guess is that "the aestheticof the filmwas so unsuitablefor them, so unusualand alien, that they saw somethingelse behindit, they beganto smell a rat. Those who have seen it since are amazedto find nothingpoliticalthere at all, and can't imaginewhat all the fuss was about."Muratovawas "disqualified," strippedof her degree from VGIK and deprivedof the right to direct films. She workedfor a time in the museum of the Odessafilmstudioandtriedto writescenarios.16The few existingcopies of TheLong Goodbyewere markedwith white chalkon the canisters:"Not to be given out." But it managedto circulateamonga very limited circle of filmmakers, where it made a profoundimpressionand influencedotherswithoutever being released. When Andrei Plakhov'sconflictscommissionon shelvedfilmsbegan its work in 1986, recalls were amongthe first to Muratova,The Long Goodbyeand Askoldov'sCommissar be reconsidered.Commissarhad to wait a while because of the sensitivityof the and TheLong Goodbyewere releasedwith great Jewishtheme, but BriefEncounters fanfare as rediscoveredmasterpieces.Brief Encounters was especially popularbecause of Vysotsky.In 1987 The Long Goodbyewon the prize of the international federationof film criticsat the international festivalin Locarno. To get back into directingafter the scandalsurroundingThe Long Goodbye,
14

15

Bozhovich, Kira Muratova, 11. Ibid., 12.

16 Muratova canlook backandappreciate the humor in the situation.Sherecalled:"The Nowadays, of the temporary partyorganizer partycell in our filminggroupturnedout to be the make-upwoman. She was calledin andasked:'Howcouldyou havetakenpartin sucha decadentfilm?Howdid you allow this to happen?' Shedefendedherself:'I didn'tknowwhattheywerefilming,I wasjustdoingthe makeup, I didn'thave any idea whatsort of ideologicaldiversionthey had cookedup.'"

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Muratova was advisedto try filmingsomethingfrom the classics,fartherawayfrom the dangerousterritoryof contemporary life. She decided to try "PrincessMary" from Lermontov's Hero of Our Timebecause "I hadn'tstudiedit in school, and so it wasn't shopwornin my consciousness.17She began doing screen trials, and the lead actress, Natalia Leble, did a considerableamountof rehearsing,but the bureaucrats allusions" eventhereandforbadefurther beganto sniffout "contemporary workon the project. Gukasian to workat Lenfilm,offering invitedMuratova Then,in 1978,Frizhetta chose an innocuousscenarioby Grigori herthe choiceof severalscenarios.Muratova Baklanovabout a romantictriangleat the constructionsite of a huge new tractor Komsomolsk: factory.The situationrecalledGerasimov's youngvolunteersbuilding from scratcha new factorytown, wherethey will then settle and raise families. Muto Knowthe World her favoritefilm;she is fond both ratovaoften has called Getting and the "aestheticof the building-site": of its romanticism A buildingsite is chaos-a spherewhereculturehas not yet been created, wherethere'sno aeswherethere'sno conceptof "beautiful/not beautiful," thetic (it remainsto be created). Chaos may seem terrible,but to me it is wonderful,becausethere are as yet no postulatesat all.18 findsintriguing:"the aesalso used an aestheticthat Muratova AsthenicSyndrome of rubbish,but the constructionsite thetic of garbage,trash, eclectic combinations what I in mind."19 Critic Andrei Plakhovhas described have expresseslaconically the look of this film as sots-art[growing out of] the atmosphere kitsch,picturesque contemporary sites: building, of our towns and hamlets,and theircontinualconstruction of of masses the inrehumanity, unfinished-building, building,migration terface between village and city, the traditionalneglect of public culture
and the poetic cult of the romance of the road. ... Desert."20 A kind of socialist "Red

Yet the film opens with the image of a potter,formingthat very clay of the muddy roadsinto somethingbeautifuland useful. A comparisonof the finishedfilm with Baklanov'soriginal scenario, incongruouslytitled "The BirchTrees Whisperin the Breeze" ("Shelestiatna vetru beThe rezy"), provides furtherinsights into the nature of Muratova'soriginality.21 scenario largely conformsto the canons of late Socialist realism-little regret is of the villagewhichis "livingout its last days"at the edge voiced at the destruction site. The mud and disorderof the site are treatedin a matter-ofof the construction hero proves The romantic wereunquestioned. factway,as if the marchof "progress" not to the heroine herself but to society, in a displayof selfless his "worthiness" of workers,a new motherand her baby.Mucouragein whichhe saves a truckload
17 18 19
20 21

Bozhovich, Kira Muratova, 13.

Ibid., 15.
Author's interview, April 1991, Moscow. Andrei Plakhov, "Peremena dekoratsii," Iskusstvo kino, 1988, no. 7:40. Iskusstvo kino, 1977, no. 5:167-91.

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ratovacut that scene entirely.As in muchmain-lineSoviet fiction, the characterof the romantic workerLiubaNesmachnova, remainsless deheroine,the construction fined than that of the two truckdriverswho contendfor her affection:the arrogant, insensitiveNikolai and the shy, milk-drinking newcomer,Mikhail. Liuba and the audiencegraduallyrealize that Mikhailhas been injuredin an accident,and wears a prosthesis below his knee. Nevertheless, Liuba eventually chooses the gentle Mikhail. In Muratova's film, Liubaoccupiescenterstage. If she is still a bit undefinedit is becauseshe, like the life of the new factory-city, is also in the processof formation. Early in both the film and scenario,Liubagives the officialtoast on behalf of "the social collective"at a Komsomolmasswedding.In Baklanov'sscenario, "someone with experience"gives her instructions: "Look, Liuba, it's like this. First you wish them happiness,as they say, and successin their work, and, so to speak, happiness in their personallife. Let them know that they are being congratulated not by just but an whose ."22 .. Liubais constantly worker, anyone, by outstanding photograph. interrupted by the loudmouthNikolai, and managesonly to utter a few banalities: "In general,we wish you all that you could wish for yourselves.... Here there are no grandmothers or grandfathers. You will have whateverlife you build for yourselves."23 Muratovaentirelytransformed this crucialepisode, filminga kind of romantic grotesque, with multiple pairs of newlyweds kissing each other shyly, and at length,the girlsdressedin tackySovietfinery.As an anonymous passionately, announcerbroadcastsorders in the worst of Soviet rhetoricalkitsch ("Comrade brides,comradegrooms!Wrapit up! The Komsomol weddingis finished!"),the lateLiubastandsradianton the backof a truck,microphone in hand, and tries arriving to be heard over the din with her much-practiced a kind of working-class speech, folk poetry: "Thisis a great happiness!We are buildingsuch a big city, such a big factory!Houses can be big or they can be little, but that's not the most important else on earthit's important that the happinessbe real! thing, but morethananything don't it manufacture in even on the best The factories, They productionlines."24 newlywedsmaynot be listening,but Mikhailis. Laterin the film, he repeatsLiuba's wordsback to her, using them shylyto declarehis love in the cab of his truck. Baklanov'sscenariocontainsa ratherordinary sequencein whichthe headlights of Mikhail'spassingtruckfall on Nikolai and Liubaat a momentwhen he is trying to force his attentionson her outsideher trailerdormitory. Muratova took the basic idea-the headlightsof Mikhail'struckas the extensionof his gaze and that of the viewer-and made of it somethinguniquelyher own. Liuba alone is caught in the glare of the lights, whichbegin to flirtwith her, turningon and off. She intuitsthat it mustbe Mikhail,and recordsherpleasurewith a little giggle. As the lightremains glaringly uponher,she firsttriesshylyto defendherself,then, in a sequencerepeated in five differentversions, she walks towardthe source of the light, taking on this intimateinterrogation, engagingwith it, growingever more serious.
22 23

Ibid., 169. Ibid., 170.

Ibid., 170.

24

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featuredthree of Muratova's favoriteactors. Nina Gettingto Know the World Ruslanova returnedfromBriefEncounters. NataliaLeble, starof the aborted"Princess Mary," and roommates;she playsa smallrole as one of Liuba'sfellow-workers would later star in A Changeof Fate.Sergei Popov,who plays Mikhail,would play the importantrole of Valentinin Among the Grey Stones, and is both the central hero and coscenaristof AsthenicSyndrome. There is even a cameo appearanceby in a scene with no prototypein the scenario. Soviet superstarLiudmilaGurchenko With her love for improvisation, MuratovareplacedBaklanov'syoung, naive cotwins. In one hiworker,aptly namedVera (Faith), with a pair of nonprofessional memorable one of the twins reads the ritual scene, lariously speech at the dedication of a factorybuilding,while the other,at her side, promptsher when she forgetsher lines. Even this film, whichMuratova thought"so rosy,"evoked criticismfrom the she recalled: bureaucrats,
wear such garish red lipstick?" . . . "They're not the right faces, the gaze

of Soviet people." "Whydid the heroine The characters were "distortions is not right,you'reseeing the wrongthing."Again they approvedit, made a tiny numberof copies and in fact, didn'tshow it at all.

In her next two films,Among the GreyStonesand A Changeof Fate, as in the aborted "PrincessMary,"Muratovatemporarilyturned away from contemporary Soviet reality to the seeminglysafer project of producingfilm versions of literary classics. She wrote the scenariofor Among the Grey Stones in the years when she was not allowedto direct. Its sourcewas Korolenko's1883sentimentaltale "In Bad Company"("V durnomobshchestve"):a well-to-doboy, whose father,a judge, is consumedwith grief at the death of his young wife, seeks the companionship of a and outcasts who have taken in of of homeless drifters shelter the ruins a castle group filmemphasizedthe grotesqueand andthe cryptsof a nearbycemetery.Muratova's insteadof turningit into a Gorkystudiofantasticelementsof this strangecompany, The friendsare female children-his sister for the best boy's style tearjerker young. and the little girl whose death he can do nothingto prevent.Since no one else had to work. been able to filmthe scenario,the Odessastudioboughtit andset Muratova But the film was so badly disfiguredby others after Muratova'sfinal cuts that, in protest, she took her name off it altogether.Even the originaltitle, Childrenof the (Deti podzemel'ia), was changed to the nebulousAmong the Grey Underground Stones. When, in the late 1980s, there were proposalsto restore the film, it was markedshift towardthe impossible-the negativeshad been destroyed.Muratova's in the Butwithoutknowing antirealistic is evident Stones. and Among Grey grotesque a of Muratova's detailed what remains originalvision, analysisof the film as exactly is problematic. a stage in her development first Gorbachev-era As Viktor Gul'chenkopoints out, the title of Muratova's herself as to her herfilm, A Changeof Fate,probablyrefersas muchto Muratova shortstory "The Letter." oine.25 Her scenariois adaptedfromSomersetMaugham's in murders her of a British the wife lover;her cover story Maria, planter Singapore,
25

Ibid., 1991, no. 6:61.

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of self-defenseagainstattempted by a frenziednote of invitation rapeis compromised she hadsent him. The note is in the possessionof his nativeconcubine.Maria'slovebesotted husbandand his lawyerpurchasethe letter, at the price of the husband's entire fortune, and succeedin gettingher acquitted.The paradoxical character of a and British wife who turns be meek out to a femme fatale has seemingly upstanding of the story,includingMaugham's own stage version producedseveraladaptations and a popular1940 Americanfilm starringBette Davis. Muratovaclaims that she knew neither of these, and was simplybasing herself on the story, which she had proposedseveraltimes before: I was fond of the situationwith the note.... I wanted a kind of eclecticism-some undefinedEasterncountry,a colony, a colonial, without any nationalidentity-just nativesand colonials, as a sign.26 particular She changed the setting from British colonial Sumatrato an otherwise undefined centralAsian countrywherethe heroineandher husbandspeak Russianbut are not Soviet. recognizably Muratova's versiondiffersin manyotherwaysfromMaugham's original,which often seems merely a "pre-text"for the film. Passagesof dialogue borrowedfrom the originalstoryare recitedrapidly,almostin a monotone.Her earlierfilmsall had a tendencyto isolate and foreground passagesof dialogue, so that they become not partof the dialogueat all, but in fact quotedtexts. The text is not the speaker'sown, but an artificial mask, like the wigs wornby EvgeniaVasil'evnaand Liuba.To mark it off from the "real"dialogue, the text is repeated, or "rehearsed," severaltimes, as were Valentina'sagricultureaddressin Brief Encountersand Liuba's wedding speech in Gettingto Know the World.When asked about this, Muratovareplied: "Repetition-that's my mania-haven't you noticed?Those endless repetitionsare froma desireto rhyme,a desirefor a kindof refrain." In A Change of Fatethis device occupiescenterstage, for the storyis about lying, about the heroine'sfalse version of the murderwhichwill eventuallybe "played"in court. In the film'sopening seor imagining, the versionof the murdershe will declare quences,Mariais rehearsing, to the world. It is not immediately clearwhetherthese are accurately recalledflashbacksor productsof Maria'simagination: the vieweris in the same quandaryas are Maria'slawyerand, eventually, the jury.The film'snarrative threadis as tangled as the yarnin the lace Mariais alwaysworkingon. A Change in Muratova's work. of Fatecontinuedthe tendencyto ornamentalism it is a the details of which are often left for the viewer to film, Visually, very busy as a the is absent from the decode, just prosecutor(who, by way, totally film) looks everywherefor clues. The primitivistpaintings,for instance, which hang both in Maria'shouse and the home of Alexander'smistress:Are they his work?How are we to read the two dumb-scenesof sexual innuendo and exploitationby the jail Whatof the grotesqueGogolian guards,whichMariaseems to tolerateby ignoring? who recite identical racist texts about how a "whitewoman"like jail commandants, Mariadiffersfrom the "natives"?How, except as a theatricalgrotesque, are we to
26

Author'sinterview, April 1991, Moscow.

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understand the circus-style Maria'sjailers arrangedfor her entertainperformance ment?Threeprisoners,one who makesfaces, one who eats glass, andone who wears a burninghat, are broughtinto her ratherspaciouscell. Stylistically, they seem to back in the world of the in conMuratova Stones, and, fact, belong Grey Among that is where are from. She was so fond of the which fessed, exactly they sequence, was cut out of the earlierfilm, thatshe salvagedit andused it here. She also invented the role of Maria'sdeaf-mutedwarfwardfor OksanaShlapak,whomshe had filmed in Among the Grey Stones. Shlapak'scharacteradds nothing to the story, it only enhancesthe film'ssurrealism. Manydetailsmakeno sense even aftermultipleviewings of the film. While there is much of interestin A Changeof Fate, it does have flaws.Perhaps the suddenfreedomofferedMuratova was too heady,and she lost the focus that earlierrestrictions had imposedon her. She regainedthat controlin her most important made film,AsthenicSyndrome, in 1989andreleasedin early1990.Two-and-one-half hourslong andextremelycomit merits a far more detailed analysisthan this plex stylisticallyand thematically, generaloverviewallows. The medicalsyndromefromwhichthe film takes its title is a conditionof absolutephysicalandpsychological exhaustion,a metaphorfor Soviet in its final The a Nikolai, hero, years. secondaryschool teacher(Sergei Posociety at meetmoments,such as a parent-teacher pov), keeps fallingasleep inappropriate ing. But his narcolepsyis a psychologicaldefense against a world whose moral has become unbearable.Thoughthe horrorswith which Muratovaasdegradation Soviet society,her messageof despair saultsher viewerwere those of contemporary than that of her fellow-OdessiteStanislav and alarmis broaderand more universal WeCan'tLive Like This (Takzhit' nel'zia). Yes, this is the modern Govoriukhin's Soviet grotesquein which she rubs our noses, but there is little of which contemporaryWesterncivilizationas a whole is not guilty as well. AsthenicSyndrome may one day be seen alongwith TengizAbuladze'sRepenallowedits tanceas a majorcinematicmilestoneof the 1980s.But while Repentance the if over audienceto blame "Stalinists" and, they chose, pass questionof how the places the blame dipeople allowed them to gain such power,AsthenicSyndrome on the audienceitself. In its images,its language,its mesrectly,anduncomfortably, sage, and even its length the film aggressivelyassaultsthe audiencein a desperate attemptto rouse them frommoraltorpor.Earlyon, it showsa cat being tormented; nearthe end, thereis a long, painfulshotof abandoned dogs aboutto be put to sleep. two these manis tormented In between, a mentallyretarded by younggirls.Watching scenes is not a pleasantexperience,as Muratovaemphasizesin a black-and-white intertitleafterthe shot of the dogs: People don't like to look at this. People don't like to hear about this. This shouldn'thave any relation about good and evil. To conversations The tone is Tolstoyan,andthe viewersuddenlyunderstands why the filmhad begun with three old women reciting,not quite in unison, "In my childhood,in my early youth, I thoughtthat people had only to read Leo Tolstoy carefullyand everyone

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would understandeverythingand everybodywould become kind and intelligent." Muratovais a moderndisciple of that archetypalRussianmoralist,but to reach a audienceshe chooses surrealism ratherthan realism. late-twentieth-century The firstthirdof AsthenicSyndrome was filmedin black and white from a scenarioSergeiPopovhadwrittenyearsbefore. The camerafollowsNatasha(Olga Antonova), a womandoctorwho has just lost her husbandand is hystericalwith grief. The coarsenessof the Sovietcrowdsets herto fighting,andin a mood of total nihilism she invitesto her bed a drunkenyoungmanwho propositionsher on the street. His frontalnudityis intendedto shockthe viewer.As in AleksandrSokurov's1989Save and Protect(Spasii sokhrani), the nudityis vehementlyanti-eroticratherthan exAsthenicSyndrome shiftsto color,andthe black-and-white ploitative.Suddenly, segment is revealedto have been a film, whichwe were watchingsimultaneously with anduncomprehending an unresponsive Sovietaudiencecollectedfor a "meetingwith the star."The actresswho playedNatashaappearson stage incongruously dressed in tight pants and a flirtatiousstrawboater;as the masterof ceremonies27 tries valiantlyto evoke a responsefromthe audience,they file stonilyout of the theater.The film suddenlybecomes self-referential as Muratovachallengesher viewer: "Serious
cinema merits discussion . . . (German, Sokurov, Muratova) .. ." the M.C. cries

as the audienceheads relentlesslyfor the subway. frantically, Subwayscenes bracketthe second, longerpartof the film, in whichPopovplays the role of Nikolai, the teacher.We firstsee him as an immobilebody on the floor of a subwaystation, ignoredby the thousandswho rushpast or step over him. "Is he drunk?"asks the policemancalled to the scene. "No, he's just asleep," replies the ambulance doctor,andtheyleavehimlyingthere. In the film'sfinalscene, Nikolai will again fall asleep in a subwaycar, fallingto the floor in the pose of an inverted crucifixas the emptytrainlumbersoff into a blacktunnel. Between these two symmetricalscenes, Muratovasubjectsthe viewer to a series of loosely connected vignettes of a world so unbearablethat Sergei'sonly escape from it is his narcoleptic itself into, death. slumber,mimicking,and in the finalscene perhapstransforming In Muratova's last three films, the animalworldprovidesa moralcounterpoint to the depravedhuman universe. Bozhovich noted the importantsymbolic role playedby animalsin A Changeof Fate:the murderof Maria'slover and the suicide of her husbandare both followedby long, Tarkovsky-esque shots in whichriderless horsesrunfree, off into the starkbeautyof the CentralAsian desert.Mariaimagines a tiger in her jail cell, whichblendswith the tiger from one of the paintingson the wall of the native mistress'shut. In the film'sfinalscene, the cameralingerson two kittensplayfullybattingstringsin a barn,slowlypanningupwardto identifythem as the shoelacesof Maria's whoselifelessbodyhangsfroma rafter.Muratova's husband, use of animalsis far more polemicalin AsthenicSyndrome.We have alreadynoted the tormentedcats and doomeddogs. There are also the fish dissectedby Nikolai's high schoolstudents,the cagedbirdtormentedby a pamperedcat, and the ravenous
27 The character is playedby Boris Vladimirsky, a well-known Odessaintellectual who emigrated shortlythereafter.

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cats kept by the fat school director. Pets and zoo animals are symbolically important in The Sentimental Cop as well. In Asthenic Syndrome, with its crowd scenes, Muratova made more use than ever of nonprofessionals. The most memorable is the heavy-set blonde (A. Svenskaia), who plays the director of the school where Nikolai teaches. In real life, she worked as the elevator operator in a building across from the Odessa film studio. Muratova found her so interesting that she combined two roles (the mother of an adolescent and the school director) into one. Svenskaia's unique "text" was her talent as an amateur trumpet player, which Muratova incorporated into the film. In just the opposite fashion, not being able to decide between two candidates for the role of Sergei's seductive female pupil, she simply doubled the character. It is tempting to apply the fashionable term "post-modernism" to Muratova's love for eclecticism and improvisation. "I'm interested in incompleteness, which I can make complete. Then I enter into active contact with my subject. It gives me the opportunity to argue with it, to exist along with it." In the fall of 1991, as the Soviet Union was dissolving, Muratova shot her seventh film, The Sentimental Cop, in Belgorod-Dnestrovskii, south of Odessa. The plot could not be more different from that of Asthenic Syndrome: a young policeman finds an abandoned baby, and by the time he has carried her to the police station and then to the children's home, he has become attached to her. He returns with his wife to adopt the baby, but she has already been promised to a widowed middle-aged pediatrician. The scenario had been around for a long time but was held up by bureaucrats who feared that the element of the foundling child would reveal social ills better left unmentioned. Muratova admitted that the film was "the polar opposite of Asthenic Syndrome in all respects. I'm always drawn from the sweet to the sour. This is a small, closed, chamber tale and very sentimental. Perhaps there are echoes of Getting to Know the World." The film does try, tentatively, to reassert some hope against the background of The young policea grotesque society little better than that of Asthenic Syndrome.28 Dr. and the adorable, unman Kiriliuk and his wife Klara, the kindly Zakharova, believably calm baby Natasha belong, stylistically as well as morally, to an entirely different universe from the hostility and indifference that surround them. The FEKS heritage is particularly clear in the film's long opening scene as the hero performs a strange, dance-like movement around the cabbage patch searching for the unseen child. His exaggerated, geometric movements recall those of Andrei Kostrichkin as Akakii Akakievich in Kozintsev and Trauberg's The Overcoat (1926). Like Akakii, Officer Kiriliuk is an ordinary "little man" in a grotesque world where people constantly scream at each other, dogs and cats are tormented, and human interaction in public spaces and institutions (the street, the police station, the orphanage, the courtroom) consists of "framed" phrases repeated until they become meaningless. In con28 E. M. in the film, who acted as a nonprofessional Vasil'eva,a long-timefriendof Muratova's on the set all too typicalin the post-Soviet and irresponsibility describedconditionsof demoralization were more interestedin flirting assistants film industryand post-Sovietsociety as a whole. Muratova's thanwith doingtheirjobs, andshe was left to do the bulkof the work anddrinking with the Frenchmen with Vasil'eva,Amherst,MA, September1991). by herself(privateconversation

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movedby his encounterwith Natasha."I coveredher trast, Kiriliukis unexpectedly with my shirt, and she stopped crying,"he repeats, vainly expecting everyone to of thissimplehumanevent.Waxing the cosmicsignificance understand philosophical, he muses on the miracleof love: "Why?Where does it come from?" he asks his in the wife, herselfan orphan.His quixoticattemptsto visit Natasha,"imprisoned" he fortress the are is never absurd. of Indeed, orphanage, comic, yet impenetrable amidsta rubbish-strewn Kiriliukand Klara,in theirbare new apartment landscape, are perhapsthe progenitorsof a new and better humanrace. They rise from bed and, totally unashamedin their nudity,like Adam and Eve, go about the routine business of makingbreakfast.Klara'sfull-breasted,large-hippedfigure seems to promisefecundity.They eventuallylose custodyof Natashato the pediatrician,but the film ends with a beginningas Klarawhispersin Kiriliuk'sear, "I'm pregnant." Muratova to the apocclearlyintendsTheSentimental Copas a companion-piece alypticAsthenicSyndrome,an assertionthat life and love will and must go on even at the beginning,the film is full of quotations afterthe death of Russia.Particularly from AsthenicSyndrome.Kiriliukis firstseen tryingto repaira brokendoll; a forgotten, brokendoll was the first shot of AsthenicSyndrome.A small boy blowing bubbleswas the second; TheSentimental Cop moves from the doll to a shot of Naits tasha.AsthenicSyndrome withmagnificent classical counterpointed visualhorrors the soundtrack of The Sentimental is a waltz for music; opening Cop Tchaikovsky pianobrokenat last by silenceandthe baby'scry.Animalsonce againserve as moral touchstonesfor humansociety: as KiriliukcarriesNatashato the police station, he passesa loud neighborhood quarrelcenteringaroundleashed, contentiousand barking dogs. "Theykeep dogs when childrendon'thave anythingto eat," the onlookers repeatin one of Muratova's "operatic" set-pieces. After gentlyexaminingthe baby Natasha, Dr. Zakharovareturns home to her lonely apartmentin which an unwatchedtelevisionset framesa film of dogs and cats being roundedup and carted off to the pound. Kiriliuk's wife is also a nurturer; she worksas an attendantin the zoo, and seems exhaustedby the restlesspacingof a caged bear. In TheSentimental continuesto move forwardwhile remaining Cop, Muratova true to herself. The film continuesher investigationinto the dynamicsof intimate humanrelationships andthe relationof speechto reality.In herpre-Gorbachev films, Muratova wasunwilling to compromise her artisticvisionto suit the canonsof Soviet In this, her firstpost-Sovietfilm, she showsequallylittle willingnessto film-making. to the box-officedemandsof either Russiaor the West. Thoughthe centralpander ized Soviet film industrywas far from supportiveof talented art film directorslike there were cracksin the systemwhich Muratova,Sokurov,Germanand Tarkovsky, allowed them, occasionally,to make innovative,if non-box-office,films. Will the post-Sovietfilm industryprovideeven this marginalsupportfor Muratovaand others? The jury,not at Cannes, but in Moscow,St. Petersburg, Kiev, Odessa, Tbilisi, and elsewhere,is still out.

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