Shining the truth of life The film tells the story of how the main character, Nina Voronina, builds a relationship with her younger brother Zhenya. She is a nice pensioner of small stature, a cute smile and a wrinkled face. As they say, an ordinary single grandmother, hundreds of thousands of them. You would see it on the street and forget it. But about facial expressions and gestures that can not be said. A ringing, loud, punchy voice, constantly changing facial expressions, expressive gestures, changes in behavior, as it is now fashionable to say, emotional swings, then laughter, then tears. He always covers his face with his hands. This is radically different from the total mass of people, and from other characters of the picture. All the action takes place in the apartment of Nina, then her brother when she comes to visit. The most common rooms with standard content. Everything happens in the cold summer in the provincial city of N. The picture consists of ordinary, familiar to everyone, things. Thanks to this, we can safely imagine ourselves in the place of the operator, because such conversations occur at home.
The film shows that there are real people playing, their emotions are blurred and a little grotesque, they often look at the camera, communicate casually, this applies to Zhenya and his wife, when it is not necessary to do, but thanks to this, sometimes the effect of real people and the presence in these rooms, as well as the effect of comic, which smooths out the sharp moments in the relationship on the screen. As a result, the picture comes easily and at ease, although most likely the author did not want to achieve this. In turn, I cannot but note the good play of the main character, she is just on top, against the background of all the others. Interestingly, the roles in this documentary were played by the director’s relatives, most likely his father, mother, and aunt, around whom the entire script was built.
Nina and Yevgeny are a kind of collective images of almost all people of the older generation who found the Soviet era, on the territory of the CIS. She is, so to speak, an ardent fanatic, a supporter of communism to the bone, particularly Lenin. She grew up on it, raised, rested and worked. Serving the Fatherland became the meaning of her life. The demonstrations and celebrations featured the happiest moments of her youth, the most vivid impressions that she carried through time and now remembers with warmth and tears in her eyes. At every opportunity, she mentions the pseudonym of the leader of the world proletariat and sings the song "Lenin is always with you." These moments very well show how tightly in her consciousness and worldview remained that country, which is long gone. Her younger brother Eugene lives in a separate apartment with his wife. He, a supporter of the new government, considers communism a passed stage, although he does not deny its importance for all. Unlike Nina, Zhenya was able to come to terms with the fact that the union no longer exists, as well as ideology, and is now an ardent supporter of the new government. On the basis of this, he and his sister constantly have conflicts, because in one family two completely different ideologies, past and present, collide. But despite all this, they remain one family and after each quarrel reconcile at the common dining table. Together they are connected by love for their homeland, a sense of patriotism, a desire to support, worry and most importantly to help their homeland, albeit with different ideologies. The director showed this well in a scene with Nina watching a Football match, and then discussing US policy aimed at Russia. How fiercely she is rooting for our players and belittling others, with what dedication and energy. And Yevgeny agrees with her only time in the entire film when it comes to foreign policy. Thus, the author tells us that no matter what ideological and political channel Russia is in, even with different views, people will agree on love and patriotic feelings for it.
The film ends with a video of the demolition of monuments to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin by Banderovites in Ukraine, under all of us the already familiar song “Lenin is always with me”, but already in professional performance. That's really scary footage. After understanding, which does not come immediately, the main idea of the author becomes clear in the head. In our country, as in the Voronin family, there are different ideologies, they conflict, try to belittle each other, but we must never forget that we are one people, one family and must reconcile, respect the opinions and positions of each, listen. Otherwise, we can be mired in chaos and darkness, as happened in the once fraternal Ukraine. The phrase from the introduction can be interpreted as follows: erasing and forgetting our past, we deprive ourselves and the future.
8 out of 10