The world of Kolyma Stories by the Soviet writer Varlam Shalamov is somewhat linear - the primary needs are food and warmth, without which only anger remains of all human feelings. The growth of meat on bones is directly proportional to the increase in the palette of other human feelings, and at some point in the increment of this
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The world of Kolyma Stories by the Soviet writer Varlam Shalamov is somewhat linear - the primary needs are food and warmth, without which only anger remains of all human feelings. The growth of meat on bones is directly proportional to the increase in the palette of other human feelings, and at some point in the increment of this meat, as we read in the story "Sentence", there is a kind of qualitative leap, which finds its completion in feelings for words. Sentence is a very high, beautiful word compared to the camp lexicon. If you first read the story, then this love of the word as a manifestation of some higher human principle, expressed in verse on his deathbed, can be very clearly captured in this strange, viscous film. Otherwise, without even a cursory acquaintance with the life and work of Shalamov, the film, I am afraid, will remain closed to the viewer, like a kind of unfamiliar language in which you sometimes recognize two or three familiar letters. So I can only recommend to those who have read Shalamov’s books, perhaps more will be revealed to them than I have been able to see. P.S. Curiously, the outdated meaning of the word "sentence" is a court verdict.
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