What should you do if you have experienced in your life an incredible power and chemical bliss? It's right to suffer.
The main character experienced such a traumatic experience in his life. And now for him all being reduced to one thing - an attempt to repeat it. Food has completely lost its taste, the world has lost its colors, and from all the surroundings it snatches only an endless creaking swing. Monotonous creak. Similar in its constancy to desire again in ' the last' once to experience bliss. Just as infinite.
The dose is always the last. And how else to convince yourself that you are left with pieces of humanity, that in your desires you are at least in some way different from the animal. But the contrast between the world of dreaming and the real world is so great that to abandon this rotten business seems almost impossible. 'Here take any family man exemplary, hit him once in the master’s way, so that he jumped out of his slippers, here his exemplary life will end. The house will give the pledge, the tree will cut off the matches, and the son will be sent to steal', the characters of the film say among themselves. Because ' the cure' does not create an endless creaking swing, but only strengthens it.
But still the hope to taste the food and paint of the world again remains. They're small. After all, swallows will still fly, you just need to see them in the sky.
The name of Aslan Galazov is unknown to a wide audience, and I came across his film “Swallows Have Arrived” by chance. But starting to watch this picture, it is almost impossible to break away from it.
The film is incredibly realistic, especially for those whose youth, like mine, passed in the 90s. Those whose families, loved ones or, God forbid, they themselves have faced the problem of drug addiction, will understand me. Life for the dose, when getting a “medicine” becomes the raison d’être of your existence. When parents, friends, work – everything is out there, on the other side of reality, and in an inflamed brain, everything is subordinated to only one goal.
The main character is not bad, in fact, a person is completely at the mercy of a terrible addiction that devastates, slowly kills him. The world around you can be beautiful, but a person with a heavy drug addiction can only feel it during the rare hours of enlightenment, usually after taking another dose. Habitual human joys, interests no longer matter, and the only religion is a drug that completely changes not only the socio-cultural, but also the psycho-physiological image of a person - emotional reactions, gait, thinking and even speech.
In modern Western cinema, zombie movies are very popular, but when you watch a picture of Aslan Galazov - what are not real zombies you see on the screen? They do not kill other people, but primarily themselves. Although, of course, drug addiction is largely a family tragedy.
The picture of Aslan Galazov looks especially dramatic because its main character is a literature teacher. A person who, by virtue of his education, level of culture, certainly understands the depth of the fall that has happened to him. But he can't do anything about it. The film is built in the form of a conversational diary, or even a confession, listening to and watching which is both exciting and painful.
Even if there are not so many events in the picture, its rhythm is slow, and it was played mainly by non-professional actors, this does not make it boring or monotonous. On the contrary, everything here is like in life - views, thoughts, communication between heroes who are in a drug fog. And even death is shown as it most often happens in such cases. Meaningless, but quick and mundane.
Drug addiction remains one of the main problems in Russia. Yes, now it has changed, some of the modern youth have come to believe in “light” drugs, in the fact that if you do not inject, but take pills, capsules, sniff weed, all this can then be easily abandoned without serious harm to the body. But this is almost always a deceptive illusion that many realize too late. And the more such films will appear and show in our schools, universities, the more chances that someone will rethink his life path and have time to help save not only himself, but also others like him.
9 out of 10
debut feature-length film by Ossetian director Aslan Galazov, a film created in the best traditions of European author's cinema.
The film is outstanding in many respects, not only as an event in the world of cinema, but also as a unique cultural phenomenon, since the film is set in the original urban environment of Vladikavkaz, the scenery was not used, only non-professional actors are involved in the shooting. The film could be considered amateur, if not for the work of the operator.
A great role in the picture is given to landscape sketches of the city. The state of the main character is transmitted through long artistic plans. The state of nature provides a calm rhythmic basis on which this drama unfolds.
The story is built on an episode of the fight against drug addiction of the main character, from among the local intelligentsia, a reclusive, a literature teacher, a fan of Baudelaire's poetry.
His life is manifested in a state of duality, it is filled with painful reflections, searches for himself and appeals to God. Social ties are severed, indifference and cruelty of others responds with acute pain. The need for another dose comes with physical suffering and torment of conscience. Without money, in search of drugs, he moves around the city, in his briefcase - a syringe and a volume of Baudelaire.
The space around is hostilely compressed, as if he is drowning in the alleys and courtyards of his city. It is surrounded by people whose lives pass in anticipation of the next injection, the world for them is divided into sources of money and sources of high. Ahead is a ridiculous and meaningless death.
A different kind of schism lives inside the hero, idealism and craving for beauty, give birth to the poetry of the damned in his soul, words that emerge from half-delusions. Withdrawal syndrome turns the life of a drug addict into a nightmare.
The more the spiritual struggle within man is felt. Hearing his suffering, he observes how the human in him retreats under the pressure of pain.
The depth of experience gives the film the character of confession.
The main role is played by the author of the script, his sincerity and simplicity in this role creates a special sense of reality - almost documentary films.
It's not a hero of sympathy. She doesn't. You teach literature without putting your soul into it, and then you send your audience to hell because they're not interested. The problem with the hero is that he is not primarily interested in himself. This is where everything comes from.
Oh, I disagree with previous reviewers about Vladikavkaz - the city is shown as a dull, dusty Khrushchev paradise, even if sunny. It's boring to look at because I've seen so much of it in my life that it's just sickening. And these boring shootings of everyday life make up almost half of the film.
Heroes smoke a lot. Then they smoke. They smoke again. Boredom.
Rescue circle of the picture ' Swallows Arrived' is a presentation of the life of a drug addict. Everything is natural, without excessive drama (and there are plenty of drug dramas in world cinema). Believe me, this is what happens in life. 'Take any exemplary family man, hit him once in the master's way ... so that he jumped out of his slippers ... here his exemplary life will end' - I think the whole point of the film is in these words Chukchi.
And the moral of this fable is that a person can sell everything - and ' hut to give as a pledge, and the house to cut off for matches' but not all is lost, as long as the person remains ashamed. This is what helps ' the intellectual unhappy' to quit. The ending of the film is open, although you intuitively guess that Peak is back on track.
“Lord, the black sun has risen again over the earth. We have to live. You have to walk, smile and lie, pretending that everything human is not alien to you.
Never before has the problem of addiction been presented so creatively beautifully, so to speak. Everything is beautiful in this film: the music of John Surman, the play of actors (especially Irlan Khugaev and Arthur Khatagov) and the city (the magnificent Vladikavkaz). The film was made very qualitatively and professionally. This is especially important for the operator.
In my opinion, this film is made on a mix of antonyms: dirty dens and dazzling streets of the city, a literature teacher at the university and hopeless drug addicts, sin and the church. Every little thing has its own meaning (from a briefcase with a Baudelaire book to a swing).
Philosophical deep semi-harm caused by withdrawal syndrome reveals to us the whole essence of the protagonist: an unhappy and tortured man trying to soar to the light, but the "one, the other" holds him and does not allow him to rise from the bottom. But the enlightenment, willpower and death of characters from a previous life put Peak on the right path. Victory over hellish fetters comes with the arrival of swallows that brought spring and new life.
I advise everyone to watch this movie, you will not regret it. But for complete pleasure, I recommend reading the story of the same name (the author is the same Irlan Khugaev), on which the film was shot.
10 out of 10
The main character is an intellectual, a professor of literature, who is tormented by an existential thirst. He rushes around the city in search of something, while his throwing is accompanied by quasi-philosophical monologues. Gradually, a somewhat high-flown syllable of the hero descends to the drug-addicted fawn of his friends, and the thirst for meaning turns out to be an elementary break.
This transition from spirit to matter is not shown casually; here we see a critique of intellectual culture, which is only an escape from reality within itself, as well as a high from another dose. Not by chance, after all, stoners on the inset watch the channel “Culture”. But if breakage can be overcome, is it possible to abandon information and search for meaning?
P.S. The film is called “Only Lovers Will Survive.”
Swallows Have Arrived is a socio-psychological film.
The 2006/07 winter film season in Vladikavkaz seems to have peaked with the screening of the film Swallows Have Arrived. This is the second Ossetian film in the last year, the author of which is a little-known director and screenwriter Aslan Galazov. The grim predictions of skeptics about the extinction of local cinematography did not become a reality, if only because Galazov created his debut film not with state, but with sponsorship funds. This is more than cute and indicates the responsibility of the authors for the quality of the film.
The current Ossetian films have not yet been convinced. They have not yet won their place in the world and within Russia, participate only in Russian regional festivals, and even then from time to time, although Galazov’s film was selected for the main competition of the international film festival “Spirit of Fire” in Khanty-Mansiysk. For Ossetia, the current relatively large number of new films is an occasion to stop and think, to look at their cinematography from the outside. Where is the modern Ossetian feature film going?
The first full-length film, shown in early December, “11 Letters to God”, misfired everything: building action, dialogue, solving scenes with the help of a camera and editing, working with actors. Thanks to the enthusiasm of the director, People’s Artist of RSO-Alania and South Ossetia, Honored Artist of Russia Akim Salbiyev, the film here and there sparks a bright and indomitable imagination, not a single whole is unbalanced due to excessive emphasis on their own ego. His supposedly socio-ethnic film was made in the complete absence of self-discipline, without which no great filmmaker can do. It turned out that the author lives, first of all, at the expense of a modest film past and unsuccessfully tries to at least jump into the departing train. He relied primarily on the emotional energy of the stubbornness of the middle generation of filmmakers, with whom he rushed into his project; but it is logical that gradually this energy was exhausted.
A keen interest in what is happening in modern cinema and the ability to systematically think about new possibilities of cinematography is what Ossetian filmmakers lack. The will to shoot is no longer enough. Naturally, as in all fields of human activity, many are called, but few are chosen. To be able to create a good art film, there are not enough technical skills of owning the film profession. We need talent, intelligence and fortitude, the ability to cope with the complex and original structure of the work: a multi-layered, stylized sign that becomes a convincing model of reality from which we learn about reality that was previously hidden from us. Perhaps the only merit of Akim Salbiyev is that he made a breakthrough, proving after several decades of silence, although, unfortunately, it is artistically inconclusive that Ossetian cinema exists. At the same time, it is a pity that no one controls whether such state-funded “art experiments” are worth it.
The project of the film “Swallows Have Arrived” originated in the author’s studio of the film company “Nartie Mouvise”, founded in 2005. The film was shot in September-October 2005 in Vladikavkaz. In the picture “Swallows arrived” very carefully and subtly selected types. Not only actors from Vladikavkaz theaters and theater schools play here, but also non-professionals. It is with them, it should be noted, with what easy naturalness and freshness they play trusted roles. Thanks to this, a full-fledged author's film appeared, shot as if with a hidden camera, without any stars of Russian cinema.
Swallows Have Arrived is a socio-psychological film. It is valuable primarily for its “documentary” style of intimate chronicle-histories. He is interested in the social theme raised by the director and screenwriter in one person, the topical and acute problem of drug addiction in Russia. We find in it a contrast between tragedy and comic, between the criminal plot and the lyricism of the situation. This is the first picture after “The Needle” with Viktor Tsoi in the title role, the subject of which was so painful for modern civilization theme, the drama of human disunity.
The film describes two days in the life of literature professor Constantine (nicknamed Peak), who found himself at the bottom of human society, among drug addicts, struggling with himself. He carries a briefcase and a syringe, and it is these two elements that reinforce the contradiction between human education and all the ills that modern society faces. The psychological drama is accompanied by his inner intimate monologue, the struggle between falsehood and the truthfulness of life in a morally sick society, leading him to a hopeless situation. The psychology of the film is enhanced by the contrast between the inner experiences of the protagonist and nature, the beautiful city "N" with its old buildings, mosque, church. This in the film is like an unknown city with beautiful architecture, with embankments, bridges and avenues, with nostalgic trams of Czech production (and the viewer knows that it is Vladikavkaz) is full of contrasts. On the one hand, life is boiling here, on the other hand, tragic human destinies take place in his womb, in the film represented by the “vicious circle” of the main characters – Peak, Gerasim, Khali-Gali, Chukcha and Mulla. Such cities we will find in the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Hungary, in any country, it is a city full of dramatic life. And yet the authors are optimistic about the disease of drug addiction, which can be cured with the good will of each patient. At the end of the film with spring, when nature awakens from its winter sleep, swallows fly in as messengers of God, and with them hope and faith in love and goodness.
Aslan Galazov turned to art film and really tried to bring Ossetian cinema, which almost completely lost contact with the world, out of isolation. With each meter of film, he raises new questions of cinematic understanding of the world, far surpassing a number of other naive attempts. It is an original approach to reality, gives authentic evidence of life, in a way that brings a new reality, more interesting, deeper. The audience will be convinced that Galazov with his film, undoubtedly, comes to a leading place in modern local cinematography, creating a kind of phenomenon with his first artistic achievement. It is characteristic of this original personality that, as already mentioned, in addition to directing, he also writes scripts, with the poetics of his acutely social psychological film, continuing all the high-quality that Russian cinema brought to the world. But the question remains whether the nostalgic form of Galazov’s film will be able to cross the already reached border and appeal to the general public and specialists abroad. After all, we are talking about a too modest artist who lacks the courage to break the ties that bind him to the past and rush to meet the new challenges of modern cinema. It seems that he is not persistent enough to react to everything that happens in the hectic environment of film professionals, to engage in conflicts and solve them in their own way. Nevertheless, his work will take its unique place in Russian cinematography and together with the commercial and medium currents will create the ground for real discoveries.
In Vladikavkaz, the problem of drug addiction was highlighted.
First of all, I want to note the courage and talent of director Aslan Galazov! Courage, because he was able to make a similar film in Ossetia, where very different customs and customs, a different mentality, and even drinking alcohol causes public condemnation. And talent, as the director was able to make a clear, with a deep moral sense film, hearing the story of Irlan Khugaev, who plays himself in the film.
The film tells about a small excerpt from the life of a drug addict-intellectual Konstantin and this image is not taken by chance, it is collective, the author wants to show all the depth of the problem of drug addiction in modern society and says through the lips of Chukchi:" here, take any family man exemplary, hit him once in the master’s way, so that he jumps out of his slippers, here his reasonable life will end. The house will be pledged, the tree will be cut to matches, the son will be sent to steal. The city of Vladikavkaz is a small city where everyone knows each other, where people have not lost moral values, such as faith in God and respect for elders, where there are not so many dens and such dependence is not mass. “Swallows have arrived”, in a literal sense, an epithet for the fact that Aslan Galazov believes that if you eradicate the brothels, society will be cleansed: the weak will break and die, and the majority will break down and still be able to “find a human form.”
The picture can not be called realistic, it is deeply idealized, drug addict Peak, the maximum that can do on a strong break is not to pay the conductor in the bus, police officers, catching up with the main character only give him a warning, and colleagues of our hero, deeply condemning his lifestyle, do not shy away. I believe that this movie is not for everyone, that such films cannot be promoted on forums and social networks, since it is unknown what age a person will watch it and whether it will give a backlash.
“Lord, the black sun has risen again over the earth. You have to walk, talk, lie.
I absolutely did not expect that the film “Swallows Have Arrived”, shot by Ossetian director-debutant Aslan Galayev in Vladikavkaz, will be so long.
A leisurely narration about the life of Constantine, a philologist specializing in the study of Baudelaire. In the life of this seemingly ordinary teacher of a state university, there is a secret: after lectures, sending negligent students to hell, Constantine turns into Peak, a drug addict with experience.
Stunning shootings, the sky, black with a full moon, the city, bustling, humming, swings, the creak of which does not leave, deliberately irritating the viewer, children playing where drug addicts “die” in anticipation of a dose.
Amazing game of the main character. Thin, something elusive like Baudelaire, with fallen cheeks, a stranger at the celebration of life, lonely. Very attractive, although repulsive at the same time. Very good actor. Showing a drug addict who still has a living conscience is a difficult business. Irlan Khugaev succeeds in this.
I really, really liked the first part of the film, when the hero is completely removed from the life process. And then the time is too compressed: the first part is about a day in the life of a drug addict, the last ten minutes contain the time from autumn, when the swallows have already flown away, to spring, which seems to give hope for revival. To be honest, the director does not promise anything.
A little annoyed voice-over, although the voice is beautiful, but I do not like didactism and that’s all.
After the film rushed to re-read S. Baudelaire “Wine and hashish as a means to expand the human personality”. I thought, thought, remembered the song of the group “Agatha Christie”.
Wine and hashish Istanbul and Paris
Sailor, why are you sad?
Take a cigarette clapping wine
And sing a song about the dead man's chest.
I learned that:
“Wine elevates the will, hashish paralyzes it. Wine is a physical support; hashish is a suicide weapon. Wine makes good, sociable; hashish leads to solitude. Wine is, so to speak, industrious; hashish is essentially lazy. Why work, plow, write, produce anything, if you can get to heaven without any difficulty? Finally, wine is for the people who work and who are worthy to drink it. Hashish belongs to the category of lonely pleasures; it is created for despicable slackers. Wine is useful, fruitful. Hashish is useless and dangerous.
There it is. Well, he probably knows better.