The movement along and nbsp;Russia. From 1931 to 1934, Alexander Ivanovich Medvedkin led the propaganda film train “Soyuzkinochronics”, went to the construction of the first five-year plan, where propaganda and satirical films were filmed, mounted and shown to the audience.
I think most of the viewers of the film “Cinema Train: Russian Winter” have not heard anything about Alexander Medvedkov and do not know anything about him. They don’t even know about his movie project. The filmmakers know. Moreover, they decided to support this idea and create their own cinema on the principle of a mobile film train.
Medvedkin’s idea of a movie train evoked a lively response among the French left of the 1960s. The figures of the group “Medvedkino” led by Chris Marker perceived Medvedkin as “Che Guevara from cinematography” – “an enthusiast of combat propaganda created almost in a guerrilla manner, in the shortest possible time and on the scene.”
Nearly eighty years after the Soyuzkinochronika film train, several filmmakers from around the world boarded the train and drove some 10,000 kilometers through the space of Russian Winter. As a result, this documentary, in which the Russians talk about themselves.
Winter. The introductory chapter is about the very space in which the life of a part of Russians flows. Slow storytelling without voiceover music, countless winter landscapes and the spirit of a person who not only survives, but lives.
Russian women. With the lines of the poem by Anna Andreevna Akhmatova begins a very short, perhaps one of the most attentive respectful and quietly admiring collective portraits of a Russian woman.
Vodka. The most elusive (and long in time) novel in the film, where two alcoholic-conceptual thinkers (publicly known actor, director from St. Petersburg Alexander Bashirov and poet from Murmansk Mstislav Biserov) on an existential-metaphysical level either explain the nature of Russian alco-philosophy and Russian alcohol-communication, or in the end everything is confused, piling up with meanings that actually do not exist. Many concepts (green serpent, “do you respect me?”, 100 grams) are culturally unlikely to be translated into other languages. A little easier trying to speak about vodka doctor of physical and mathematical Sciences Nikolai Mikhailovich Budnev, but still it is not easy.
Okay. Another central and long novel of the film is devoted to domestic cars and Russian roads. Here the authors use the technique of polyphony, when drivers of different (mostly average and lower) material wealth, different genders, different settlements tell about cars, roads and their lives. There is also a very entertaining episode with the participation of traffic police officers and an obstinate driver. Is a Russian car a means of transportation or something else? It's up to the viewer.
Bears. How could one do without one of the most common stereotypes about Russian street bears? Bears, whether we consciously, or subconsciously, the authors will not present, but a lot will be remembered about them by a variety of storytellers.
The Russian soul. The most profound novel in the film. The main role is the conductor of the railway Lyudmila Troitskaya and some key moments of her life. Here, without comment, the viewer will draw conclusions for himself about whether there is actually a Russian soul, or it is the same as in other parts of the world. And if there is, what are its features?
Lyudmila Troitskaya, The Russian Soul? I think openness... All... I don’t even know how to say it.
My opinion is good.
7 out of 10