The Russians are Coming! THE FATHER at Upstate Films
by Jay Blotcher

When the subject is Russian war films, what cinematic memories warm your Siberia-cold heart? Do you flash back on the still-wrenching imagery of Sergei M. Eisenstein’s classic 1925 film Bronenosets Potyomkin (that’s Battleship Potemkin, American comrade). Or do you swoon at the sweeping vistas of David Lean’s 1965 epic Doctor Zhivago, a high-end soaper that still lays claim to cineaste respectability, thanks to a knockout cast? Or do you belong to the generation that found filmic brilliance and Marxist reality in Warren Beatty’s grand anti-epic Reds, a 1978 masterpiece that tears down the romance of the Soviet era while still ennobling the idealistic John Reed and Louise Bryant?

There is only so much room to be made for Russian films, much less the tortured mechanics of Russian political history. One could forgive you for wanting to shut the doors on any late pretenders to the throne. But The Father, a new film by Muscovite Ivan Solovov is at once shrewd and arty enough to wheedle its way into your list of favorite Russian films. On first screening, it behaves like a fully-formed classic, arriving with grandiose cinematography, larger-than-life drama and a piano concerto soundtrack that eats away at your steely resolve not to fall prey to the miserable but loving people that inhabit its world.

The Father will be screened on Tuesday, February 19 at a one-time event at Upstate Films in Rhinebeck. This is part of a national tour for the film, spearheaded by Cinema Arts Centre and Sundial Productions and produced by Alan Hofmanis. Director Solovov and lead actor Alexei Guskov will be in attendance to welcome the waves of newly anointed fanatics bound to emerge after the show. The event is co-sponsored by The Hudson Valley Programmers Group and The Hudson Valley Film Commission. While the connection to these groups is puzzling—the film was not shot locally—any stray objections will be whisked away by the tear-jerking finale.

The Father—known as Otets in Russia—radiates the pedigree of a prestige project. It is adapted from a short story by Andrei Platonov, and takes place in the days after World War II, when all of Russia was torn between celebrating the crushing of Hitler’s Nazis on the Eastern front and mourning the way of life that was subsumed by the fighting. From the start, The Father revisits a world still reeling from the ravages of war, forcing the viewer to reexamine its wounds that have never fully healed. Everywhere, scarred and maimed people walk the streets, looking for someone who will remember their faces, or simply begging from passersby to stay alive.

Officer Alex Ivanov (Guskov) has a chest full of medals but he, too, has been emotionally devastated by a war that has turned reason on its head. Evidence? While a wife and two children await him back home, he has taken up with a female soldier and somehow rationalizes the dalliance as the only response to an uncertain future and possible premature death in battle. The film opens as the two say goodbye, dismissing the tenderness they once shared and reverting back to their status as an officer and a low-ranking soldier. Ivanov now begins the long trip home to his family, realizing the journey is as far geographically as it exists in a mind still entrenched in battle.

On a lonely railroad platform, Ivanov meets Masha. Once also a foot soldier in the war, the gamine is now pregnant and alone, her lover having headed back to his own family. Strangely touched by the helpless woman, Ivanov offers to accompany her home and pretend to be her husband, in an effort to mitigate the public opprobrium that awaits her. But we realize from the slant of his eyes and the faltering grin on his face that Ivanov is taking this detour for his own sake, as well. He explains to Masha that he has lived too long as a soldier, taking solace in the black-and-white life that war offered. Like her, he fears the challenges of everyday life again. War was hell, but it was also liberating in that it whisked away the constraining rules of their former lives. Will they find a place in this civilian world again?

The Father veers between small epic—rife with snow-covered landscapes and grand old steam trains—and chamber drama, exploring the troubled rapport between the officer and the wife he returns to. Ivanov is shocked to find that his old world is also awash in moral ambiguities; faced with the mystery of whether her husband would survive the war, the wife has allowed a male suitor to insinuate himself into her life and play surrogate father to her headstrong son and infant daughter. However, at an economic 82 minutes, The Father manages to be expansive and intimate at the same time. The cinematography highlights the drab earth colors of a Russia struggling to rebound from World War II, and trying to sort between the comfort of hoary traditions and the allure of new customs sparked by the end of an era. Raising more questions than it feels the need to answer, The Father is an examination of a loss of faith and the process we go through to find something that replaces the newfound hole in our heart.

As the center of the film, Alexi Guskov does all the heavy emotional lifting. His sensitive face recalls a cross between Sam Neill and Klaus Maria Brandauer. Both a sinner and a self-righteous man, his Officer Ivanov registers the array of shocks and regrets that drive this soldier back home to a world he now fears. Even as he rails against his wife’s infidelity, the officer must face his own decisions and whether he wants to embrace a future with Masha. A tad soapy perhaps, but still an engaging dilemma. His multilayered performance, which triumphs even during some histrionic passages, is no accident; back home, Guskov is a leading Russian actor, frequently lauded for roles in more than 70 feature films and theater pieces.

Director Ivan Solovov is also a national treasure; he has written and helmed more than forty documentary and feature films as well as prospering in television. He is also the founder of Mentor Cinema, Russia’s leading film studio.

If The Father carries itself like a classic from its opening frames, perhaps too knowingly, that pomposity will be soon forgiven. Moreover, the rickety English subtitle translation, rife with awkward grammatical constructions, possesses its own charm. As this keenly observed character study and history lesson unfurls, you will begin to see an understated brilliance in the naturalistic performances, even by the youths who play the children of the returning officer. The Father may not dislodge Potemkin, Zhivago or Reds from your list of Russian-themed film classics, but it certainly merits your attention.

The Father, directed by Ivan Solovov, will have a screening at Upstate Films on Tuesday, February 19 at 8pm. $12 non-members and $10 Upstate Film members. In attendance at the screening will be director Ivan Solovov and star Alexei Guskov. A post-screening reception will be at The Starr Place, 6417 Montgomery Street, Rhinebeck, adjacent to Upstate Films. For more information, call Upstate Films at (845) 876-2515 or The Starr Place at (845) 876-6816.

Jay Blotcher, a brash champion of obscure and camp film classics, marks the January passing of film and TV actress Lois Nettleton.