Two Short Works from Aleksey Balabanov: Trofilm (1995) and The River (2002)

 

Trofilm (1995)

Director: Aleksey Balabanov

Screenplay: Alexey Balabanov

Cast: Sergey Makovetskiy, Zoya Buryak, Semyon Strugachyov, Aleksey Balabanov, Aleksey German

Canon Fodder

 

Trofilm was made for Pribytie poezda (1995), a Russian anthology film which had entries from Vladimir Khotinenko, Aleksandr Khvan, Dmitriy Meskhiev, and Balabanov himself. The anthology is one I have never heard of, and it is an obscure production despite the fact all four directors, not just Balabanov, were prolific in their filmmaker, and Meskhiev is as prolific as a film producer in Russia. At this point, Balabanov had not made Brother (1997), the film which made his name, Trofilm instead connecting closer to the film made before, his Kafka adaptation The Castle (1994), and also nods to Of Freaks and Men (1998), his transgressive bleak comedy set at the turn of the century and about the beginning of cinema. The year 1995 would have also been the 100th anniversary of when cinema was technically "created", when the first moving pictures presented to a paying audience were the Lumière brothers in December 1895 in Paris, France. In 1995 there was a lot of celebratory works commissioned, Lumière and Company, a insanely huge anthology, in terms of the famous directors involved and using an original Lumière Cinématographe camera, which most only know of now for David Lynch's Premonition Following an Evil Deed short. There were documentaries commissioned too, with two by Nagisa Ôshima (100 Years of Japanese Cinema) to Jean-Luc Godard (2 x 50 Years of French Cinema). Trofilm is a sibling, as Pribytie poezda, also known as The Arrival of a Train, was a hundred year celebration for cinema in itself. Co-produced by Roskomkino, a state body representing Russian industry of audiovisual content, Balabanov could be argued to have thumbed them and the other producers in the eye with how this short ends, a film reflecting on the hundred years of cinema if more pessimistic or critical of how cinema was preserved in Balabanov's time then.

Shot in sepia, a man played by Sergey Makovetskiy, a regular cast member for Balabanov, murders his brother because he was romantically connected with his wife. One botched attempt at a hanging later, where the noose just breaks whilst trying to do so in the barn house, and our protagonist wanders forth out onto a train. The short is set between the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5, when Russia fought Japan, and alongside being a faithful depiction of this world, Trofilm has a deadpan bleakness to it. Our protagonist will openly admit he hacked his brother to death to almost anyone he passes, be it the train conductor, even a female sex worker later on when she temps him into her bedroom in the pub she is within.

The film is slight in what happens, as inevitably despite this casualness of him admitting his crime of passion, he will be turned in to the authorities. Where the film touches on Of Freaks and Men is that, unlike that film showing how pornography soon into the creation of the medium came about, this plays as both a bleak humoured take on the early actuality films, but almost becomes a nod to how cinema preserves time. Our lead interferes with early cinema history when a French filmmaker is trying to shot a train coming into the station, evoking both L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat (1896), the legendary Lumière film, and their own remakes and the likely replications of this film from the era.

It is, for a film which is ultimately pessimistic, funny to see the logic conclusion that likely happened to the earlier cinema pioneers, of a bystander look aimlessly into the camera, even block the shot, out of curiosity.

Trofilm ends in the then-modern day, nodding to how film shot in the past even preserves the figure on a roll of 1904 Pathé cinematograph footage, showing a train arriving at St Petersburg. A random person, who committed a crime which will be forgotten, unless recorded in the law books, manages to survive in this moment he bumbled into a shot and ruined it. That would be if the most pessimistic joke was not the punch line, completely undermining the point of film archivalism, the people working on the filmmaker's creation calling our lead an idiot, and then proceeding to cut his shots out of the film they would rather have. Trofilm, which looks distinct with its sepia brown look and recreating this time period, fits Balabanov's worldview even in that joke. It neither feels cruel for the sake of it, but a cruel irony on point.

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The River (2002)

Director: Aleksey Balabanov

Screenplay: Aleksey Balabanov, Evert Paiazatian and Vatsslav Serashevskii

Cast: Tuyaara Svinoboyeva as Mergen; Vasilii Borisov as Kirgilei; Spartak Fedotov as Salban; Anna Flegontova as Anchik; Mariya Kanaeva as Kutuyahsyt; Mariya Kychkina as Bitterhai; Mikhail Semakov as Knyaz; Mikhail Skryabin as Janga

Canon Fodder

 

The River in contrast sadly has a tragic back-story to its creation, real history altering and affecting what was meant to be a feature length production, but became both a micro-feature and an unfinished production. The tragedy is that, for a narrative set in the end of the 19th century within a leper colony in the desolate Arctic region of Yakutia, Tuyara Svinoboeva, the leading actress of his film The River, was killed in a car crash during the shoot. The film was released in 2002 with what footage exists, exposition to clarify the context of scenes not filmed, and made into a chamber piece for what was shot.

The River is fascinating in that, alongside The Stoker (2010), Aleksey Balabanov has devoted himself to two films about the Yakut, a Turkic ethnic group who mainly live in the Republic of Sakha in the Russian Federation.

Considering Balabanov has skirted dangerously thin ice with characters who are racists in his films and nationalism, it fascinates that, whilst very bleak films, his work with Yakut actors and stories around them in these two films are absolutely admiring and respectful for them. Again, these are bleak films, The Stoker melancholic and violent, and The River ultimately his most straightforward drama, of jealously and human petty attitudes causing tragedy within one family. The sense of respect is entirely in how, in the initial narrative, we follow the central family, within a leper group, living their lives in a yurt tent, a large family of people who have to make do with what they have in isolated snow covered environments. Even for those whose leprosy has altered their faces and bodies completely, they live and exist, with the period dress and normal activities depicted. The film, as well as having exposition narrative for plot missing, is acted in the Yakut language too, with a Russian narrator who translates into that language at the same time, showing an admirable attitude in Balabanov in trying to depict these characters.

The tragedy is that, in what he could film, how a younger female character lashes out in this yurt environment. Most of the film does not feel like it is missing significant parts, which helps it a lot, only missing a section where attempts to steal food from others has led to injury and antagonism a huge plot point to consider. The central female lead, the one healthy woman in this leper colony, reacts more and more antagonistic to the other members of this yurt, more so as with the man she has fallen in love with, another woman, his wife, has returned into his life, spiralling into a violent jealously.

The breaking point is ultimately when they acquire a cow, a thing of happiness, especially for the youngest daughter there, but becomes the straw which breaks the camel's back. Hating members of this yurt, the lead will willingly wish to maim the cow, likely others too, by setting a fire, an act ending the film with a tragedy even she regrets and what makes The River incredibly nihilistic. It is so least in terms that for Balabanov, as throughout many of his films, people will even kill others out of petty reasons, which comes back for The Stoker considerably.

The River, in mind to how it sadly was not finished as intended, is an admirable piece, where he showed the diversity of Balabanov's career. Alongside Trofilm, his cinema was wider than that which was released outside of Russia, and sadly, The River is the kind of production which would be ignored, something which would be a crime as by itself. Even in its historical context, it has a lot to admire.