“Chekhov motifs” – a free adaptation of Chekhov’s little-known “Heavy People” and “Tatyana Repina” – became an example of a movie performed in the best traditions of Russian absurdity. The author’s style of director Kira Muratova is surprisingly close to the dramatic handwriting of A. P. Chekhov. Speaking about the work of these authors, we are dealing with a world living according to its internal laws, artistically perfect, built against public consensus, populated by people who are in an acute relationship with everyday reality.
Muratova’s films are often accompanied by opposite audience reactions (from “are you in your mind?” to “this is brilliant!”), and “Chekhov motifs” in this sense can be considered a benchmark. The story of a provincial actor who preferred a poor, betrothed rich bride, it would seem, has absolutely negligible potential to find a cinematic incarnation, but... Grotesque, maneuvering on the verge of absurdity “talking in circles”, pretentious, pathetic emotions, difficult to perceive motive “scraps”, neglecting the clarity of the life realities of the era – all this allows Muratova to recreate the atmosphere of a terrible, irrational, painfully vulgar space where a person can walk and suffocate.
The film begins with the exposition of the barn, in which the “adults” are going to arrange a store: in children’s replicas “this is our yard!” the tragedy of the “Cherry Orchard” is recognized. Then on the nerves of the viewer are offered weekdays of a family consisting of a bunch of children, a poor student, a girl of thirteen, a tortured mother and an active, believing father. At the interior level, Muratova hints at some strangeness of what is happening in the film: Soviet life is harmoniously combined with pre-revolutionary, and Chekhov is completely elevated to the image of saints, which, unfortunately, resonates with the idea of immutability, vulgarity of Russian life. Images of heroes are created through speech. Children are always squealing and arguing, the student disgustingly asks for money, the young girl, like many of Chekhov’s heroines, talks about life in gentle and at the same time insulting tones, the mother complains that no one hears and understands her, and the father, fixated on the rain and the costs of the shed, does not withstand the arranged shed and “rolls up” the scandal. It is impossible to be among this incessant, deafening, limited absurdity – the characters’ paths diverge (the student leaves, the father continues to build an unnecessary barn, and the mother is calmed by the unconscious formula “ballet, look, beautiful ...”).
Then the director shifts the angle from the unhappy family to the citizens who arrived at the wedding in the village church. Motives of poverty and spiritual stagnation are replaced by a sense of pomp and decay. The “holy sacrament” of the actor-boy with a rich bride is shown as a boring, formal event, thanks to which Muratova manages to convincingly reveal the types of church visitors. The viewer becomes an all-seeing observer - no person will slip past, every gossip will take a worthy place.
Muratova’s speech techniques in the second part of the film evolve: now the characters voice their thoughts aloud, without controlling the “issued out to people.” For example, a priest combines the language of scripture with a newspaper and conversation register, and the groom, obsessed with the ghost of his former deceased wife, acquaints others with memorized diagnoses and multiplication tables. The state of this hero becomes the personification of the long neglected chaos: what is happening is revenge for the poisoning of poor Tatiana or the ordinary course of life with all the supposed whispers, smiles, grunts, disappointments and the ringing of a bell in the ears? In the Muratov church shown - the apogee of human vulgarity and baseness - existence seems much closer and more intolerable than in a house with ten children and tortured parents.
The Muratov-Chekhov cycle of life, which has no great meaning, cannot be understood with the mind. The action in Chekhov Motives moves the absurd, funny and sad, annoying and lulling, and yet so familiar, national. To bring the viewer out of the constructed world-nightmare Muratov is solved with the help of music ("detention" ballet in the first part of the film and the groom's romances in the second) and symbolic soothing frames (chickens in the beginning, pigs in the end exist as a kind of metaphors of the degradation of heroes). In these director’s findings there is some elusive harmony, similar to the irony in Chekhov’s works.
“We get married every day, but nothing makes sense. God doesn't hear. Wedding, funeral, baptism ... — these words end my notes on Chekhov motifs by Kira Muratova. The film, of course, is not easy in psychological and conceptual terms, however, thanks to the form of presentation and atmosphere, the image of the immortal Chekhovian absurdity is clearly created in the mind of the viewer, coupled with Muratov’s incarnations of the idea that “this is not life, but we”.
Chekhov motifs have attracted and still attract the attention of both critics and ordinary synephiles for a variety of reasons. First, because in this film Muratova is one of the first in our cinema, who raises an anticlerical theme (Leviathan was filmed more than a decade later). Secondly, because of the complex emotional fusion that Chekhov Motives evokes in the viewer, combining melancholy, misanthropy and romance. The question of whether Chekhov was a misanthrope is still open, because the polemical use of romance by the director, sounding for the first time in Knowing the White Light, and here - against the background of filming animals, primarily pigs, could well please Anton Pavlovich.
The theme of the animal world in Muratova arises constantly, starting with the Asthenic syndrome, and it can be interpreted in two ways - it is a manifestation of both humanism (sympathy for animals - sympathy for people) and misanthropy, because Muratova criticizes the immersion of human society in the world of biological laws, which we have already discussed in detail. It is appropriate to treat the topic of fauna in Muratova and so, and so, good, humanism, as the example of her film shows, does not necessarily deny misanthropy. “Chekhov motifs” is indeed a kind of return of Muratova to the roots of her cinema, to her ability to see harmony in everyday life, while her special vision is enriched by a critical perception of people.
The uniqueness of this picture is that it does not scold people in Chekhov’s way, but simply sadly spreads its hands before the very corruption of their nature. Many who wrote about the “Chekhov motifs”, noted the expression in them of the conflict of generations, sacred and profane, eternal and final, but almost no one said that the clear anachronism in the plot (in the tape move, both on jeeps and on horses) indicates that our country does not change anything: also praying in discord, then swearing at the family table, and getting married, are burdened with the duration of the sacrament, argue, laugh and turn the temple into a balagan.
“Chekhov motifs” are permeated with total sadness largely due to the wonderfully performed romance and carefully read by the actors of the ceremony of the wedding, which contrast the heights of the spirit with the base and vile reality, in which even pigs look more romantic than human characters. Subsequently, in the “Tunesher”, “Melodies for the Charming”, “Eternal Return”, Muratov will further strengthen the incredible fusion of misanthropy and humanism for her late cinema. However, it is in Chekhov’s Motives that the tragic discrepancy between who a person should be and who he is appears in its most acute and therefore unbearably dreary form.
The clown faces of the “Mask Show” were needed by Muratova to emphasize the existential grotesque of human fate in the era of postmodern moral relativism and triumph in the culture of the base and biological. Although Deliev in the “Tunesmith” and will create an image more tragicomic than clown-carrying, but this is more of an exception than the rule, because usually Muratova does not spare the role and types of actors of the “Mask show”, caricature them to the limit. In “Chekhov motifs” along with Ukrainian comedians also starred permanent, favorite performers of Muratova: Jean Daniel and Sergey Popov – semantic centers of both novels, attracting the attention of the viewer honed technique and an excellent understanding of their tasks.
By the way, a few words about the two-part form: "Chekhov motifs" - not an almanac, as say, "Three stories" or "Two in one", it is very well rhymed parts of a single dramatic composition. The director was important, filming almost unknown Chekhov, to make a movie without artificial docking, in a single key, and she managed brilliantly. Without scolding and criticizing man and humanity, Muratova is very acutely experiencing his shortcomings, which almost completely replaced the dignity. In this world everything is turned upside down: here the priest’s daughter looks almost demonic, and the God-fearing father who solo in prayer reproaches the members of his family with a piece of bread.
We can say that in Chekhov Motifs all the characters are equally disgusting, but they also cause the director and the viewer unbearable sadness. People are not what they should be, everything indicates this – from church singing and reading to ancient romance. It is tragic, according to Muratova, not that people are imperfect (and what is perfect?), but that they (that is, we) have forgotten how to hear and perceive what exalts us and makes us better, having become completely insensitive in this. When we do not listen to each other, we cannot hear each other.
When I talk about Chekhov Motives, I cannot be objective, because this is the first film adaptation of Chekhov I saw. The emotion that dominates throughout the action very accurately reproduces the effect of Chekhov's texts - pity, which turns into anger. Cinema is an alternation of forte and piano. In Muratova, you feel oversaturation, a constant forte, which, although annoying, but holds. Scenes are usually made where the viewer can rest. Muratova does not spare the viewer. The tension is always maximum. The expected discharge is given twice - the first with a ballet (here Chekhov took off his hat) and the second with pigs, by the way, not causing a sharp disgust in the obvious metaphor people like pigs.
Characters are ordinary. A student who rebels against social status, breaks down on his father, an actor who acts for the sake of interest in himself an immoral performance before the altar, a mass of rabble ... In Muratova believe in everyone, you know that in life it will be.
Rain in the countryside, a dirty unraveled road with a tractor and a fool on a jeep - how many Russian filmmakers have put the essence of Russia in the frame? I also know Tarkovsky with Bruegel nature scenes in Andrei Rublev, shot by Yusov.
Every good movie has to be heavy. It is terrible to look at the crowd of hypocrites in the church, even more terrible to sink into their gossip, becoming part of the action. But when you see a snowy strip, it becomes easier. It's about Chekhov's brilliantly captured promised happiness. There is a lot of mud, but you can always doze off, imagining a vin that turns its tail. In Muratova’s case, ballet plays this role. Complex movements to exciting music distract from the hustle and bustle of the moment, covering your eyes with a slightly transparent veil. Art can overcome pain. It's time to leave, but it's time to look at Dad. It’s hard to say sorry, it’s enough to stand next to you, because words can get in the way.
Rescue from the horrific, dirty sees Muratova in the musical law. There is a certain harmony that is difficult to capture and describe. It sounds like religion, but God is different. Rescue comes from a strange place, like a cat, and eases difficulties.
For Chekhov, the exit was similar. Next to the heroes of his texts there is always a warmth guided by a higher force in which the author believes. And this source of light when reading helps us overcome life's troubles.
Muratova accurately filmed the master, bringing a bit of her own.
Muratova’s “Chekhov Motives” is one of the most offended films. Now, in preparation for the upcoming – the most difficult – viewing of her new film “Eternal Return”, I revised them. So gray, so boring. It's so hard to live! Chekhov felt sorry for his “hard people”. Not all, but he pityed, sometimes pitying cruelly, with the cynicism of a doctor who makes an irreparable diagnosis out loud. Muratova is even angrier. Following her father, Alexander Schmemann, she could repeat: “Difficulties, difficulties, and problems are the vulgar alibi of a complacent selfish man.” Everyone in this movie is like that. False sea. And opera, and ballet, and operetta (how often it exploits the images of the most “non-life” types of theater!). Everything is so exaggerated, so convex, so sharp, so brightly dolled; to nausea is played... It's not easy. “The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (John 2:16). And also money, money, money... And the faces are as if sniffed radishes (according to Chekhov, so he looked from his portraits). Where are you, dream? A return to simplicity—joyful, whole, and liberating? Where are you? .
The film “Chekhov motifs” is based on the little-known works of Chekhov – the story “Heavy people” and the play “Tatiana Repina”.
According to Kira Muratova, Chekhov Motives is a simple story about family, money and love. It is based on her early play of the Russian classic Tatiana Repina, the story “Heavy People” and some scraps from his own diary entries. The film offers two different stories.
The first shows a scandal in a well-to-do village family: the eldest son Peter is going to the city to study, but due to lack of money, he arranges a tantrum for his father. Outraged by his father’s stinginess, he leaves the house, but the impenetrable mud of the country road forces him to turn to the magnificent church wedding of a visiting opera singer. This protracted and monotonous ritual suddenly appears and the ghost of the former lover of the groom, once committed suicide.
Chekhov had the latter, though. What happened to Muratova is impossible to say with certainty. She again shot her traditional cinema, densely populated with characters removed from her personal kunstkamera of type priorities. Most likely, natural modesty did not allow the director to call his film “Muratov Motives”, which would be much more appropriate and fair, and at least would not disorient the audience.
Muratova is interesting to look at the characters of her unique panopticum again and again. The provincial family simply scandalizes with some fervent pleasure: everyone behaves like a puppet, memorized dubbing the same phrase, as if on a jaded record, bringing himself to a groaning screech, even not uncomfortable, but unbearable.
Muratov’s signature repetitions of the same words, intentionally superimposed phrases of different heroes, polytheism and slurred speech are rhythmically organized reception of peculiar recitatives performed simultaneously. For neophytes, at best, this can create the impression that the director does not own classical narrative models, and, at worst, will be perceived as insanity or even idiocy.
The director intentionally recreates a certain reality without the characteristic share of modern cinema techniques - those very "goal sticks", thanks to which it would be possible to painlessly extract a digestible morality. Having moved the plot to the church in the second part, Muratova remains in the temple until the very end. Completely mocked audience, tired of showing boredom, arranges buffoonery hooliganism. For comedians from Odessa “Masks”, playing here almost every second role, it is not difficult to do.
However, through the permanent tantrums and grotesque clowning still sees the background by which you navigate and suspect that life in Russia – from Chekhov to the present day – has changed little. You can move from the cart to the Jeep, but the conflicts, the rituals, the utensils, the talk, the dirt of the road... as they were a hundred years ago, they remain. However, Muratova is not a chronicler, she is exactly an interpreter.
And the more stereotypical mainstream cinema becomes, the more marginal its way of speaking looks, stubbornly unwilling to obey the laws of mass blue. The lot of such incorrigible “renegades” as Muratova is, at best, a misunderstanding, at worst – a complete disregard and accusations of cretinism. But more than once in the history of cinema it happened that after some time, even the most incredible style delights can suddenly acquire clarity of thought and form.
The film “Chekhov motifs” (2002) occupies a special place in the filmography of Kira Muratova. The director managed to create a film that has no analogue even in her work.
Kira Georgievna combined two works by Anton Chekhov: the story “Heavy People” and the play “Tatiana Repina”. But in order not to deceive the audience’s expectations, it is worth saying right away that the film is not an adaptation of the works of the Russian writer. The director used only, as it is not difficult to guess, the motives of the writer’s work. Moreover, they quite harmoniously agreed with the most obvious features of Muratova’s work. For example, the motif of deafness to others is combined with traditional repetitions of replicas.
Potential viewers of the film “Chekhov motifs” need to know that the picture undermines the automatism of perception. This is not a movie in the full sense of the word. A real show of two acts is being played. The first is the story of a student going to study in another city. On the one hand, he wants to become independent from his father, and on the other hand, he cannot help but ask for money from him. For this reason, there is a scandal in the family. The second story is the marriage of an opera singer to a wealthy bride. Moreover, all the guests still remember the mysterious story of the death of Tatiana Repina – the former bride of the now married groom.
The director turned two sacred rites - a family meal and a wedding - into a performance, clowning. The title of the film is “Two Stories.” It would seem that what do the drama of a rural family and the wedding of new Russians have in common? And they are united by the words of the heroine Nina Ruslanova “I love it so much when someone loves someone.” But no one loves anyone" - lack of sincere feelings between the closest people.
It is possible that many viewers will not have the desire to watch the film to the end. There are several objective reasons for this: the drama of the narrative, the “bad” play of the actors, the nonlinearity of the plot, the lack of dynamic development of the action – in other words, what the viewer does not want to see when watching the film. But these are necessary directorial decisions to create a full-fledged theatrical effect. For fans of Kira Muratova’s work, familiar with her filmography from the beginning, the picture may be interesting from the point of view of a one-time experiment on cinema. As a tribute to silent, nascent, experimental cinema, the tape is black and white.
Chekhov Motives can be called a synthetic film. Cinema as an art has partially lost its originality in the film Muratova. "Chekhov motifs" - a synthesis of theater, literature, music and painting.
In this regard, the picture can arouse interest not only among film critics, but also among film critics, specialists in the field of literature, dealing with the interaction of literature and cinema, the problem of filmization, theater critics.
The original move Muratova – the selection of the cast of “Chekhov motifs”. No one would have played in this film better than professional lyceums who can freely crook in front of the camera, are not afraid to overplay, behave loosely. Images and behaviors built on the grotesque attract all the attention around. What is it that the phrase of the groom repeated several times during the wedding “Raise your hand higher, my crown crushes my head!” or the image of the bride, rather resembling a young dead girl, is worth? The main roles in the film Muratova was performed not only by her favorite actors (Sergey Popov, Jacques Daniel), but also the most famous lyceums at that time - the actors of the comedian-corpse "Masks".
Chekhov Motives continued (after the films Knowing the White Light and Sensitive Policeman) a line of lyrical paintings in the works of Kira Muratova, dedicated to the theme of marriage and family. And, according to critics, it is not annoying, as previous works – “Secondary People” or “Three Stories”. To argue about tastes is an ungrateful affair.
8 out of 10
Amazing movie. Perfect. Difficult, even impossible to perceive, if not ' hit'. Surprisingly harmonious, despite the scandals and wild behavior of the heroes in the church. It leaves an enlightening feeling. People, pigs, wonderful romance and grunting and groaning after it do not dissonate with each other, but live together. When I saw the film for the first time, it was constantly ' falling out' out of it, and during these periods it was impossible to watch, the film seemed nonsense. When ' entered ' back, the excitement began. This happened several times, and for the first time I was so strongly, clearly, obviously, personally convinced of the important role of my own attunement, perception itself, in relation to the perceived.
I write this review after the third review, and from the first it was probably about 10 years. It was interesting every time, but for the first time the film was held ' free', without any boredom and falling asleep. Muratova looks at his heroes with a kind look, accurately showing all ' unsightly' their behavior, on the one hand, but without thinking of judging them for it. I mean, that's how I see it. A simple finale gives something close to catharsis, and maybe a catharsis, here who will happen. I definitely had something close. And it is not entirely clear how all this is created - like, a household, then a buffoon in the church, but in combination with music, animals, the ritual, something is obtained - the film has its own rhythm created by this alternation of frames. And everyone in his place, although it is difficult, it is impossible to assume in advance that now, say, we will be shown the Dying Swan & #39; or carpenters with rubbanks to the sounding romance, or a swine moving a speck. It seems that Maratova’s film was first born as music, and then she already embodied it in separate notes. Perhaps, of course, not so, and the music of the film was born along the way, but one way or another - all the shots became notes of a single music. I’m not talking about music in the film, but about film as music.
In general, the main thing in the film is inexpressible in words, as it should be for a large work - otherwise why would it be to create it, since you can say about it in words? A sense of harmony is born out of small things. Here you should not wait for what will happen next, that is, to put it at the forefront, every frame is extremely important - the goose close-up carries no less load than any actions and conversations involving people. It's a single cinematic fabric. It's a capital Cinema. This is Art.