To begin with, this is my second film Tverdovsky (the first was 'Class of correction') and the first film left a greater impression and the story itself and the director's presentation. The same film did not cause any feelings, except disgust at some moments and a couple of approving nods towards scenes that took their subtle realism - a parallel to our reality (this is the scene about medicine, and ' snake' collective, and gossip grandmothers, blinkeredness and zombification news).
Yes, the film is layered and there's a lot to think about, but that layeredness is a little sloppy, it lacks grace.
The first layer we see the story of an unremarkable heroine, obviously crushed by an authoritarian mother, who suddenly ' gets sick ' as a result of which everyone turns away from her (and were they turned before?).
The second layer is the metaphor of human & #39; features & #39; (but are they always as nasty as this unfortunate tail?). A person unlike others is stigmatized, shunned, condemned, even rejected. Especially it happens in small provincial towns, which is shown to us in the picture.
But here is an amateur ' unusual', a kind of local pervert) who likes this feature (which smelled very zoophilia in this context and, rather, disgusted). Although, of course, this hero is a kind of savior of the heroine. The one who instilled confidence, hope, strength when everyone turned away.
Again, for me, this story is more about struggle. Most often, it is an unpleasant event that makes us move from a dead point and come to life, not vegetate, it is the hard, unpleasant, seemingly unbearable, that changes us and our lives.
And yes, there is a third layer - a layer of mythological or archetypal, where each hero can be attributed to one or another type, but I'm not sure that the author conceived this way, so let's omit.
If we talk a little about artistic techniques, then everything is quite typical for the classical contemporary Russian social drama: hyperrealism that goes into negativism, thickening of colors, but at the same time clearly ' drawn ' the psychology of iconic figures (doctor, mother, boss, gossip grandmothers) are the very collective images that we see every day in our reality.
What's missing? What I would like to wish, probably to all our beautiful and talented viewers: a little hope, light, all tired of darkness, darkness and darkness. Yes, our reality is disabled, with a lot of vices and slag that artists shout about it in public! You can’t sing about how beautiful the world is and wear rose-colored glasses when there’s a stench around, I agree.
Why not look even in the decline of the features of revival, drawing the viewer’s attention to them. After all, there is a way out of any *op and it is not always black:
It is no accident that he postponed the revision of Zoology until the very last moment, because he intuitively felt that this movie would not be for everyone. The point here is not even in the interpretation of the basic fantastic assumption, but in the general difficulty of the viewer’s assimilation of both the author’s concept and its execution. It is no coincidence that many critics wrote about the thematic and intonation unity of Zoology with the early films of David Lynch: not just the raid, but the thick mystery of this Tverdovsky film expresses, apparently, the irrationality of a post-secular, but at the same time non-religious, vision of the world.
The powerful anticlericality of Zoology was also not questioned by any of the critics: showing the phobias and frustrations of a fanatically oriented towards finding the last truth of consciousness, Tverdovsky creates a gloomy portrait of the Russian new Middle Ages, where obscurantism, superstition, rumors, have long supplanted sincere and sober faith in God. As once in “The Holy Groove”, in his first short film, Tverdovsky by artistic means proves that religious fanaticism and as a consequence – intolerance of the Other, a kind of ontological xenophobia – is a serious mental deviation.
Unfortunately, Tverdovsky in his films does not give an alternative portrait of religious adequacy, self-criticism and tolerance for the Other, but he is not obliged to give it, because in Russia religiously adequate people are a minority, and the ball is ruled by the most disgusting superstitions and fears that give rise only to hatred. In many ways, using the plot of Dreier’s Day of Wrath, where a completely religious woman is persecuted as a witch, Tverdovsky shows not just a mysterious “disease”. Natalia, which is not explained in any way (except psychoanalytically, as the acquisition of a phallus), but the rejection by society of its Other due to its non-fitting into social, behavioral and existential frameworks.
As Lynch himself would have done, Tverdovsky does not explain the heroine’s acquisition of the tail, but carefully demonstrates its consequences for her fate. For the first time inviting Pavlenkov to the role in his short film “Snow”, one of his best, the director opened the way to the big screen for the not young, but extremely talented actress. Now she has already played in all his feature films, starring in the next (the long-suffering “Conference”), but it was in “Zoology” that she revealed her acting abilities one hundred percent. A soft, gentle voice combined with a nondescript appearance make her an ideal patient - an object of ridicule and persecution of colleagues and relatives.
In the “Class of correction” her character is not so patient and even rebels in the final, in “Toss” she is a cynical part of the circular vices of evil and corruption, that is, the director does not close it within one role. However, in Zoology, her character is more complex than it seems at first glance: suddenly she changes both externally and internally, acquires dignity, daring colleagues and doctors (the clinic and medicine in general is shown as a Kafkaesque labyrinth and becomes the object of the most powerful criticism of the “Soviet heritage” in our society: formalism, soullessness, framework, which became the school in the “Class of Correction”). She ceases to be ashamed of her otherness, shockingly demonstrating it in public.
The indisputable merits of Zoology include a scene in the zoo closer to the finale, in which the veil of secrecy over the plan and concept of the director is partially opened, and after all, it is not only in contrasting the Russian society with its Other, but in the desire to completely emancipate this Other. Here Tverdovsky shows himself as an attentive recipient of Western poststructuralist concepts: the task of the future in Russia, as the director understands it, is to rehabilitate the corporeal, the animal in man, his instincts and desires, suppressed by spirituality and obscurantism. Thus, the tail of the heroine is not even a phallus, but her desires, which can no longer be hidden, are unacceptable for the Russian society, fanatically inclined to manic reproduction of tradition.
This desire is not so much of a sexual nature (recall how the heroine is disturbed by the behavior of her partner in the zoo), as the desire for recognition (the desire to recognize a person as the Other, the legendary psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan generally considered as fundamental, more important than sexual), namely the marginalization of the Other – the scourge of even Western society until the late 1960s, and still – one of the main problems of Russia, the unwillingness to legitimize and recognize it as equal along with normative social and moral content – the central problem of “Zoology”. The film is so named precisely because the Other is devoid of human features in the Russian world, although often more humane than the “normal”, philistine and everyday.
Animal, animal, immediate closer to the heroine than her crazy fanatic mother and the Church, turned by the efforts of obscurantists into a store of religious services (a brilliant phantasmagoric general plan for the heroine’s exit from the temple). Not knowing that living and institutionalized faith in God are different things, Natalia goes to a fortune teller, to trainings like “new age”, it is difficult for her to free her consciousness from the phantoms of the post-secular new Middle Ages, she has not yet fully accepted herself as a tailed woman, that is, with great needs and desires, who has a body.
The surrender of the heroine to the pressure of the world that does not want to recognize her is the only way out for the unfortunate Natalia. After all, she cannot change the world, because even love for a woman with a tail is a luxury and bait for perverts. Zoology is actually a very heavy, depressing and gloomy film, convincingly showing that it is simply impossible to live in an atmosphere of such thick phobias in front of the Other, the Other, the Alien, as in Russia. And, of course, the best scene in the film, and perhaps in the entire filmography of Tverdovsky, is the arrival of Natalia in the finale in an apartment painted with crosses.
The viewer has not experienced such horror for a long time, most importantly, as in Serebrennikov’s “The Apprentice”, almost the whole society is on the side of mentally deviant fanatics. If religious fanatics understood how they discredit belief in God in the eyes of atheists and doubters, and how sickening it is for sober believers, they would back down. I don’t know what to expect from spiritually blind, mentally ill people. “Zoology” – that animals and people, different from the majority, are more human than the cannibal and xenophobic majority.
“Zoology” is Tverdovsky’s most complex film and at the same time his best film, because by removing the taboo from social wounds, this director exposes our own Other before us, putting us face to face with problems that we do not want to notice, the work of Ivan I. Tverdovsky is very inconvenient for the so-called “patriotic” circles seeking Russophobia in everything but themselves, although these guards and chain dogs of the regime are the main haters of Russia, who do not want to see it as a prosperous country. Tverdovsky’s films are tough and uncompromising, made with great love and respect for the personal diversity of people have already become a bone in the throat of self-styled patriots (the problems with the Conference clearly indicate this). Let us hope that they will still stir up public opinion, firmly defending the dignity and humanity in man.
“We are all not without flaws” – such an idea could be seen in many films and TV series, where the main character (or hero), most of her life lived in complexes due to some physical disability, suddenly shows character and is modified to spite her abusers. However, such films rarely conveyed the essence of the idea, as happened in the mystical drama of Ivan Tverdovsky “Zoology”.
Synopsis Natasha lives a boring and measured life with her mother in a small seaside town. She has no friends, no husband, no children. The only outlet is work in the local zoo, although there she is haunted by rude ridicule from colleagues. One day, Natasha decides to change her life once and for all, to meet her first true love. However, one serious problem prevents all this: Natasha has grown a tail, which she is forced to hide from everyone.
Game of actors Since the key role was assigned to the heroine Natasha, it is necessary to focus on the performer Natalia Pavlenkova. Since she is a mostly stage actress, she is not often seen in movies. But despite this, even with episodic roles, she has proven her talent. In Zoology, she perfectly embodied the image of Natasha, a lonely elderly woman who lived a meaningless life in a sleepy little seaside town, but decided to change her fate once and for all. Especially impressed by the transformation of the character of the heroine, who first appears as a quiet weak-willed lady, afraid to say a word, and towards the end can safely rebuff those who did not even perceive her.
Directorship With the work of Ivan Tverdovsky I had the opportunity to get acquainted while watching his debut full-length work “Class of correction”. Like this movie, Zoology is also metaphorical. Behind this gray seaside town, behind the original image of the gray mouse in the face of the main character, behind this ill-fated tail lies a deep meaning without any social or political overtones. Through the prism of this complex metaphor, the director shows that there will always be problems in life that, one way or another, will interfere with its well-being. But life does not end, and you need to live it fully, and not spend on tears and self-flagellation.
Scenario Of course, one should note the work of the same Tverdovsky for his idea, which he embodied in the film. As mentioned above, the main character Natasha lives in a quiet seaside town. She is fifty years old and still lives with her mother. Judging by her appearance, she has long scored on the latest fashion trends, preferring gray, long skirts and a depressive look. But behind all this there is a serious reason or secret that the heroine is forced to hide even from her mother: Natasha has a tail. Once at a reception with a radiologist, she meets a charming doctor Petey, who does not care about either the tail or her appearance, because he likes her the way she is. From this moment, the heroine radically changes her life: she changes her hairstyle, wardrobe and even character. Natasha feels really happy for the first time in a long time. But all this is constantly hindered by the tail.
Result Of course, Zoology is a very unusual film. Although to some extent it may even seem nasty and unpleasant, but still metaphorical undertones, good acting of actors and, of course, the idea itself left a general positive impression. But I can say that the film is suitable for viewing fans of independent cinema, because the average viewer risks simply not understanding it.
7 out of 10
A funny combination of genres characterizing this tape are found on the sites: comedy, black & #39; film, drama, art house. The last two positions can be accepted. But I can't figure out where there's anything comical about this movie? Unless you're riding heroes in the pelvis on some concrete throw? It is unlikely, given that the plot of the film is replete with ridiculous actions and deeds - this scene only adds to the general chaos. Or maybe the viewer needs to laugh at the moments when the doctors send the heroine to take x-rays for the third time? Weird. Here reads an angry and rather sharp satire on our medicine, but not able to cheer.
And ' black' I wouldn't call it that. It's more pathological. To be clear, pathologically unpleasant. And it's not even about the tail. Although, of course, the director tried very hard to make this vestigial really unpleasant. Pathology lies in the heroes themselves. In their relationships, their conversations. In fact, there is no normal contact among the characters throughout the film. Rest a little is possible only on the footage, which shows animals in the zoo. That's too bad! The animals are in cages. Doomed. So there is no rest, as such. But they look incomparably more interesting and livelier than all the other characters of the film combined.
So the film is not "black" and some gray-green and with a distinct smell of mustyness. Even the footage of the sea does not save the situation. A kind of hopeless haze that lasts an hour and a half: from the initial credits to the final. And during this time, you try hard to find in the plot at least some glimpse, at least some ray of light in the dark realm. But don't give yourself hope. There will be no light.
The director tried very hard to make the action unpleasant. And he did it in all the little things. Yeah, it must be talent. But for some reason, you want to run away from such talent, and forget “Zoology” as the nonsense of a patient.
Yes, someone may think that this film is about loneliness, misunderstanding, people’s indifference. But, the main character at the same time is not sorry. She doesn't evoke the slightest sympathy. At the very beginning of the story, the director paints her portrait very vividly: first she faints, then pukes in the toilet, then swallows pills and smokes in the entrance. A good gentleman’s kit for the lady was not the first freshness. And then a tail is added to this bouquet, causing the viewer the first attack of nausea. And the tail, as I wrote above, is really ugly: a kind of long, pale, naked substance, which you will then have to endure until the end of the story.
And at the same time, the heroine continues to carry the mask of some walking misunderstanding. Is she trying to get out of her loneliness and misunderstanding? Hardly. She is like a wilful gray sheep who has become the object of constant ridicule in the workplace. The workplace itself ceased to exist. The moment of writing under the dictation of the application for dismissal perfectly shows that the main character is not going to fight for her place in the sun, and that she does not need anything. She just goes along with the situation, giving some ridiculous humility to what is happening. I am sure that she could have written a petition for her own death penalty just as uncompromisingly.
Then the passion (not love, but passion) of this elderly woman, and the doctor who is, in fact, suitable for her sons. This relationship also looks pathological. They have no happiness. No flight of feelings. No joy, no smiles. There's carnal kissing and alcohol. Non-drinkers at the beginning of their acquaintance heroes in the process of developing relationships begin to drink more often. Is that normal? I doubt it very much. Well, in fact, the end of these “feelings” turned out to be quite natural and causing a new gag reflex when viewing a scene in a cage.
In general, there are a lot of broken and unopened lines in the plot. What a fortune teller episode. That strange father in church. What are the incomprehensible doctors, for whom there is nothing but x-rays. Plenty of commas. Lots of questions asked. There is no logical solution, no answer. Even the tail itself: what is it? How? No history. It's just there. And yet, for some reason, the heroine’s own mother does not know anything about him, and doctors react to him as if half of the patients have similar tails.
And all these absurdities are complemented by a decent number of ugly fat women, which abounds in this film.
So this plot left an attack of nausea, which is urgently required to drink plenty of water. I do not sincerely recommend it for viewing, because Ivan Tverdovsky was talented in his pathological fantasy and embodied it too naturalistically: a kind of close-up effect of squeezing out hemorrhoids.
Old Maiden Natasha works in a zoo in a small town, suffers humiliation and bullying of colleagues, listens to the delusional stories of her skunky elderly mother, and in general, faced with provincial reality, drags on a painful existence. And recently, the tail has to be hidden (one day it turns out that in panties). This tail, which is remotely similar to the tail, does not grow in front of the viewer, cracking and crunching through the flesh and skin, as is customary in fantastic genres, but simply appears after malaise. Such scarcity in visual means through the entire tape, which deprives it of surreal aesthetics; and genre to refer the picture to fiction is not necessary. What the authors did not stint, so it is gray tones and chewing the Russian way of life, in which they themselves are poorly versed, but are suspected of hopelessness: mayonnaise, obese rude ladies with a squirrel, cold corridors of the clinic, killed porches and much more familiar from childhood. The clinic, by the way, is an important environment here, in which, as in a mysterious forest from a Russian fairy tale, both monsters and good people live, and which of them is a villain you can not understand. The main character got lost (actually asked for help), met Petya, a young radiologist, and plunged headlong into the abyss of passion. It should be noted that Peter as if did not notice her ailment, they say, the tail - eka not seen! Such an inconsistency of the story, I believe, should alert the sensitive viewer.
Perhaps the director deliberately retains the heaviness and “dries” the script in order to leave the mood of the social drama in a beautiful garment of a parable, but the lack of metaphors pushes to think about the lack of talent in this field. What could have become empty and unimportant for two loving people in a tender fairy tale, the director mussulates with ecstasy and, probably, will please fans of “black” and zealous opponents of a bright future. Here you are everywhere and a hint of a slave mentality, and the church in medieval glory, and the cruelty of the environment, but the ability of a person to truly love is stopped, which is quite strange, because according to the director, this is “a film about why we are loved not for what we would like.” To put the theme of love on the shallow waters of such a scenario, perhaps, should not have been, and no one in fact put, but simply shot, protruding the extraordinary and ability to swing at the experiment.
6 out of 10
Ivan I. Tverdiev told an optimistic story. This is the story of the liberation of the individual, the living of his life, the embodiment of the right to be himself. Just one day begins to physically nauseate from the carnivorous chuckling of colleagues at lunch, from banal conversations. It becomes unbearable to always conform to other people’s ideas about how you should behave. The tail, of course, has nothing to do with it. But the image is good. He's natural. It is assumed that everyone once had it or could have. But everyone around Natasha perceives this rudimentary formation - innate delicacy, non-aggressiveness, non-vulgarity - as shocking ugliness. The only one who took Natashino originality as a variant of the norm is a radiologist Petya. Although he does not reach his tail. Natasha wants to see in him support and protection from the unsightly world, from the ubiquitous hypercontrol, and he himself reaches for a strong woman with whom he is interesting. He can not invite the heroine to his home, because there is also an imperious and simple to disgust mother or wife, who is wild to assume that the controlled object is drinking wine with a woman on a deserted beach, or went to a nightclub, or commits strange acts. Riding in a basin like a slide, in the concrete bowl of an abandoned locator or climbing into the zoo at night is fun. But you don't have to.
The environment does not forgive Natasha the person she suddenly became. Which one? Just a little more relaxed, more modern, but quite tastefully dressed. Even more: if she had come to serve in this “procurement department” a vulgarly made-up girl in a miniskirt, and then one day decided to change her image, even for such a dull old maid, this would also provoke aggressive rejection. It does not forgive the process of change.
Only what grows in the soul, you do not pluck a kitchen cleaver, even if it is difficult to live with it. So the finale is open.
I confess that I was skeptical of Zoology in advance, for the film, which was fondled with festival criticism, aroused suspicion: here it is again, the topic of dull Russian reality, wild society and intolerance of any dissimilarity in all its glory. Well, as much as you can, tired ... Of course, all this is in the film, but not in those parts to cut an eye or heavy weight to drag the film to the bottom of mediocrity. Of the minuses, I note some bias against the church, public hospitals and everything related to them, women of a strongly post-Balzac age, allegedly forming public opinion. Perhaps this is due to the youngness of the director, rather than true reality. Youth is often cruel to what traditionally refers to the “mature” world.
But despite some excesses, the film turned out worthy. Using a simple technique in the form of unpresentable atavism, Tverdovsky, however, sculpts a subtle, multilayered tragicomedy. The atmosphere of the film can not be called beautiful, although the action takes place against the background of exciting seascapes, under the noise of waves and the cries of seagulls. And in the heroine itself there is no aesthetic gloss - an ordinary Russian old maid of pre-retirement age, and even this bald tail of her, living an independent life. And here is the first test for the pattern of perception. We react sensitively and painfully to any non-standard and foreign - spit, close our eyes, tap our tongue. In fact, what is a tail? In many cases, the part of the body provided by nature, or the echoes of the animal, the primitive heritage, in fact, nothing so ugly. Just a part of the body.
But the main character, like the absolute majority, does not accept this difference. She goes to the doctors, wears long skirts, hides her shameful defect in every way. Only for each tail there is an amateur. And the heroine, Natasha, if you look at it, is very lucky that she met someone who fell in love with her, not quite standard. It would seem that this is the salvation from global, dreary loneliness, but no. After all, everyone wants to be loved for their beautiful, rich inner world or attractive appearance, and not for allegedly ugly shortcomings. The problem is that the heroine herself cannot accept her otherness. Accepting who you are is sometimes incredibly difficult, isn’t it?
Symbolic image of the cat Barsik, who "confused spring with autumn". He's too old, Natasha says. It's easy to draw parallels. And the director does not particularly disguise them: the whole film is an old cat sitting locked up and howling in an empty room, to eventually be buried in a box of women’s shoes. Elderly Natasha only for a moment feels like the same spring cat, drawing herself in front of the camera, but quickly comes to herself, ashamed of her impulse, and again returns to the dull, stone shell of an ageing woman.
So perhaps the tail is a metaphorical representation of late female love. And for Natasha, it is like a shameful growth, with which she has to walk everywhere. Unattractive, indecent, partly serving for sexual discharge, he repels, causes rejection, shocking with his “unnaturalness”.
Perhaps, behind this tail, everyone will see their own. Yes, and ultimately, everyone has it, just not everyone dares to reveal it to the world. It is easier to break the X-ray machine, which so rudely and without embellishment highlights what is really.
The secondary characters are written in a hyperbolized comical manner: both the puppet curls on the head of the square boss, and the grandmother in the hospital – all on one face, and the inspired soul healers who put blinders on their eyes, promising “the whole universe in their hands” – all this is a great cream on Tverdovsky’s multi-layered tragicomedic cake, which, alas, will not seem edible to everyone. Perhaps only the animals from the zoo are beautiful and natural here.
It is impossible not to mention the game of Natalia Pavlenkova, who incredibly talentedly embodied on the screen a rather difficult, controversial image of Natasha.
The bottom line: Zoology is a grotesque sura, ironic and metaphorical, about how incredibly difficult it is to accept oneself and have the courage to open oneself to happiness; about how the least path of resistance is to become like everyone else. But what if it means death?
9 out of 10
In principle, it would be possible not to continue further - everything else follows from this fact: and the work of this elderly woman in the zoo and on the verge of a grotesque working environment, professing absolute hypocrisy and double morality (especially characterized by a couple of episodes with foreclosure, and then all claims in the spirit ' look too good'), and an authoritarian old woman-mother, slightly touched by Orthodox obscurantism, bordering on pagan prejudices and an unexpectedly young fan-doctor (or traveler).
A simple movie is about how difficult it is to be different from others. Many not without reason draw parallels with the intelligentsia, which should be difficult in their lonely and somewhere innate, natural nonconformism (tail). Although it seems to me personally that Tverdovsky smiles condescendingly, then grins deeply buried in the elderly crushed female nature complexes, mocks the grotesqueness of the everyday (petty-bourgeois) intolerance of the Russian hinterland (although the matter is somewhere in the seaside south - apparently hints at the aged Mermaid Anna Melikyan?) and perverted snobbery (?) of the medical intelligentsia.
There can be only one claim - the movie looks with interest and curiosity and even, despite the director's sarcasticness, with a sentimental feeling, but the catharsis that you expect for some reason does not happen. And, of course, you will not go to the mass audience with this. But this is more a claim not to the film, but to the viewer.
No, he's not a penis, he's another.
Tverdovsky-Junior made a film that falls not only from today’s, but also from the Russian context as a whole. The movie is ambiguous, equally attractive and repulsive. Such a movie will resonate much longer than other opuses crowned with festival awards or acquired financial success. Such a movie, which remains a thing in itself, has more chances to gradually acquire that cult status, which over the years only increases the flock of idolaters.
I think that the director himself did not fully realize what happened to him in the end. Following in the footsteps of his father-documentary, he in his first short films indicated an interest in real cinema, the boundaries of which he himself began to systematically blur. Control over the situation and, on the other hand, the desire to capture some spontaneous course of things did not always lead to the desired consensus, which could be called a creative achievement.
The problem with maintaining this balance was also that Tverdovsky gravitates to provocative situations and topics that are usually pushed out of consciousness due to their pain and trauma, and become blind spots where a person is afraid, often can not, and even more often simply does not want to look. To make sure of this, it is enough to look at the impressive filmography of Ivan’s short films and boldly put a “disappointing” diagnosis on him.
For example, in “Pain points” (2010), he follows the heels of a furtive student of the capital’s theater university, the future (at that time) actress Maria Shumakova from Novosibirsk (playing partly herself) in that most important period of her life, when the girl decides to part with innocence. To understand clearly where reality ends there, and a certain role-playing game begins, seems to be a very difficult matter.
A similar problem arises when viewing the opus Like Waiting for a Bus (2009). There, a girl waiting late in the evening for the last bus, passing by young people persuaded to get into the car. And they bring it to a "bachelor party", which in small provincial cities are not distinguished by special fiction. The documentary style of shooting forces the viewer to witness not just a reality show like “House 2”, but something more serious, which, at his own request, a educated person would not look at.
The thirst for pressing the most painful points was demonstrated by Tverdovsky in his debut full-length work, The Correction Class, where the first love of teenagers was passed through the filters of social standards with such frenzy and emotional intensity that they turned the main character into a lamb for slaughter. Of course, it turned out thanks to the talent of the director, who immediately declared himself even too loud.
Now is the time to test the second film. Or the initiation of creativity, which is usually much more difficult to pass. Because you already have some expectations on your account, and advances are no longer issued and you have to pay the bills. In Zoology, Tverdovsky undertakes to tell the story of a woman with a tail, and how a quasi-documentary director initially puts himself in a win-win situation.
Where Tolstoy (in Holstomer) or Gogol (in The Nose) went into the space of metaphors and symbols, where the play of verbal turns forced the reader to independently establish the boundaries between reality and fiction, in visual Zoology there is only one choice: to accept or not to accept the director’s vision. Personally, it did not convince me too much: the author’s inherent realistic presentation of the material began to conflict with the surreal plot he invented.
And it is in short: a modest employee of the zoo named Natasha, who stayed in girls until 50, lives together with her mother in a small seaside town. Her life is boring, measured and predictable. At work, Natasha has long been the subject of constant ridicule by colleagues. But one day a strange metamorphosis occurs with her: literally before her eyes, Natasha grows a very decent tail.
Those who are familiar with the work of Dr. Freud are tempted to see in this metamorphosis almost a literal embodiment of female envy for the penis. But there is some doubt that such a psychoanalytic topic would have inspired our kinship-minded Ivan. And when he wrote the script, he probably meant some other - allegorical - meaning. I'm not sure he even knows which one. Sometimes designs get out of the control of their creators and begin to live by their own laws.
The wheelchair girl from the “Correction Class”, a character quite social, was replaced by a tailed woman – the image is more fabulous than believable. However, the director immersed her in the same, well-known to him, moistened environment of a small peripheral town, where everything unusual causes an extremely acute and, as a rule, strongly negative reaction of others.
Unable to find an explanation for the appearance of this ugly atavism in the clinic at the place of residence, Natasha right there finds for herself quite acceptable moral compensation - in the face of a courteous male radiologist, who experiences not only participation, but also undisguised interest in her. So Natasha, in addition to the tail, also acquires the meaning of existence, with which she has a shine in her eyes, a new hairstyle and a youthful outfit. And this immediately begins to irritate all her matron colleagues, who categorically do not want to part with the ugly duckling so easily - a constant object for their mocking bullying.
The passive frond of the eternal outcast could turn into an awareness of himself as a witch, especially since the word of mouth immediately launches the news that a tailed woman appeared in the town, who does wild things to people... However, to live in society and be free from its prejudices is the lot of the strong. Natasha is clearly not one of those. She lacks the courage to break these limits, just as she lacks the courage to transcend tragicomic realism.
Farce does not turn into phantasmagoria or hoax. Apparently, the modern Russian province is too musty environment for one night in the sky above it you can see Margarita flying to the Sabbath. Therefore, Natasha decides to ruthlessly get rid of her own uniqueness, and not daring to adopt a new image. Something similar happens with the film, which at first promises so much that the spirit is breathtaking, but then somehow quickly dives down, conveying almost literally the disappointment that overtakes the main character during so much promised farewell to frigidity.
The theme of sexuality, a red thread that runs through a number of works of the 27-year-old director, is chosen here for the forefront. However, too whimsical scenario intrigue, drives her into the corner of the ring, where, and strikes a knockout blow with the latest frame. Whether it is the author’s self-control, financial restrictions or simply the desire to circumvent censorship – God knows. And the reluctance to turn this story "at least" into a melodrama about unhappy love, deprived "Zoology" also potential viewers, unwittingly making the most unclaimed picture of the year.
Ivan Tverdovsky’s new film continues the theme of people different from most, which was devoted to his debut film “Class of correction”. However, in Zoology, this problem is considered from a completely different point of view.
If in the first film of Tverdovsky the reason for the otherness of the characters was external, then here the heroine differs from others primarily by her inner world. At the beginning of this story, she looks like a completely ordinary woman, what distinguishes her from others is that she is not able to live the life they live. Pavlenkova’s heroine, Natasha, is in her own world and does not try to establish contact with the outside world. She is quite comfortable in her shell, she does not suffer from loneliness. The situation changes only when its dissimilarity with others passes from the internal state to the external. The tail can be seen as a symbol of its difference from the so-called normal people. With the appearance of this strangeness, Natasha begins to try to do something with her life. But her aspirations do not lead to anything good. She only realizes the truth about her uselessness in this world, the truth that she managed to ignore for so many years. It’s just that the real world, as the director shows it, is so terrible that it’s impossible for her to fit in.
Zoology is much more complex and ambiguous than Tverdovsky’s previous work. “The class of correction” is, after all, primarily a story about first love, and not about the difficulties faced by “not like everyone else.” The problem of distinguishing heroes from their peers is also present in it, but is not the main one and is revealed more as a social rather than a psychological one. Despite the fact that others refuse to put heroes on an equal footing with themselves, and the environment itself is hostile to them, they themselves feel the same as everyone else. And the main character of the “Class of correction”, Lena Chekhova, despite her disability, is the same person as everyone else, and just like physically healthy people, is able to live a normal life. Unlike her, Natasha can not live life, although, it would seem, nothing prevents her. It’s like there’s a wall between her and the world, like the one Pink Floyd built in Alan Parker’s movie. The only difference is that here the world is nothing good, there are no close people in it who would try to break through this wall, and the creation of such a barrier could be considered quite a conscious action, if not for the sudden impulse of the heroine to break out of the fortress she created for herself.
Once upon a time, I read that in England people who stand out from the crowd are called freaks. They have one condition: their way of life should not interfere with others. An example, not the English truth, is a woman who fed pigeons in a park in Home Alone. Do you remember the shock it caused by its “otherness” at first?
Ivan I. Tverdovsky, I think, made a film about a woman who could not cope with her condition of the Other, and about the narrowness of the corridors of consciousness of people who surround her. And she walks in the same corridor.
Once in my youth at a disco in between dances, I heard the excited murmur of the crowd. It turned out that a new couple came to the dance. The girl was of unprecedented beauty: I remember her thick, blonde braid lying on her shoulder, huge blue eyes, amazing complexion. All those present kept their eyes on her and whispered loudly. After 15 minutes, the guy and the girl left the disco. What prevented her from enjoying her partner’s dance and company? The crowd reaction? But she must have walked the streets and looked at her.
Beauty, as well as ugliness, distinguish a person from the crowd. Not everyone can live with it.
Now for the second layer of pie called Zoology.
In the title, it equates the world of creatures on the screen to one denominator. There can be no talk of love in this world. What replaces animals with this feeling? Right, the instinct and attachment of the higher animals to those who tamed them. In this zoo, everyone sits in his cage, and no one can or does not want to part. In the human world, however, there are rumors that some animals break deep burrows to break out of prison. Therefore, people take very thoughtful measures to prevent this from happening.
But sometimes there are attempts because there are fire gates, torn nets, the ability to climb over the fence. It doesn't matter if you climb over a fence, you end up in a cage. The main thing is that in your imagination it has a chair, a hammock and other amenities. More importantly, what are you going to do in this cage, live your life? Suddenly you will open the attraction of the face, eyes, lips. There will be a spark from which you can grow something that breaks cells.
You know how it ended.
I don’t have a tail, but for years I’ve been kneeling in front of my mother and saying, ‘Hear me, I’m your daughter.’ It does not matter from what height or baseness, from whose influence, but in her corridor of consciousness I am not yet.
When you start opening your own cages, many locks and caretakers inside and out will stand guard.
The first lock is called “why it happened” and the second is “what to do about it.”
I can't help but end on my favorite note. In Russian, the letter P was called “peace” and it is similar to the gate, Passage.
If you look from one side, this is the entrance. Look at the other way out.
It's not a new idea, but a woman with a tail is intriguing. With the help of this simple sura, the director was able to quite tolerably beat painful topics. Yes, it turned out toothless, I agree, but it is watchable, and that is the main thing.
It is very ironic to show our developed bureaucracy, which is capable of destroying everything good, even attempts at healing. Our medicine is stuck in paperwork. She's even trying to treat them. Everyone has faced this and it is so scary that all you have to do is laugh, because life goes on.
Human inability to change is also demonstrated. People cease to be themselves, rush from extreme to extreme, which will necessarily attract unwanted attention - the patient attracts the patient.
You and I have lost the ability to be that person. We have become alien to everything that makes us human. Compassion, even sympathy, or at worst, interest in the neighbor, is absent, at best in an embryonic state. The heroine did not go to the zoo for nothing, it is calmer there, at least not pointing a finger. They just don't exist.
I will recommend the film for viewing, it is a curious, sometimes caustic satire on our lives, where there are slight excesses, but when the heroine gets another gossip, it becomes bitter from this truth, even with a tail.
It was half dark outside.
There was a window under the roof.
The light flashed, the curtain flew,
A quick shadow fell from the wall.
Happy who falls downside down:
Peace for him for a moment, and another. (V. Khodasiewicz)
The key to the admission to the other world of the main character of “Zoology” (Natasha), bogged down in her own life as in a swamp, was a suddenly grown tail.
Temporary deliverance from unbearable loneliness makes the main character, who was magnificently played by Natalia Pavlenkova, happy, but very expensive: "He who becomes a beast, gets rid of the pain of being a man," but even animals have their own pain. After all, to change something in your life, you first need to understand why and why you want to do it, and only then the courage and willpower to implement it. Unfortunately, throughout the film, the viewer was not shown reflections of the main character about her life, so personally, against the background of the dramatic plot, she caused conflicting feelings - from compassion and pity to indifference.
I did not read reviews of Zoology before watching, so the film became ambiguous, extraordinary, controversial, not the easiest to perceive, having many ambiguous episodes in which everyone will find their meaning.
Despite the songs performed by Alena Sviridova, Natasha’s fate is beyond certain time limits, therefore, universal and can be felt by everyone.
Of course, Zoology is worth seeing first and then discussing. To look even in order to understand how not to become even more hopelessly dependent on the hopeless reality.
Zoology: when the tiger is easier to explain than with a person.
By a late step, I entered VGIK. She smiled at Tarkovsky at the entrance. And I plunged into the darkness of the room with the giggling students.
That’s how I got to see Zoology, a critically acclaimed and award-winning movie. I thought the film was insecure, as if the director is not completely sure what he made the movie about. This was confirmed in a subsequent discussion with him. “I leave the viewer to think for himself,” he says not only about the open end, but also about the meaning of individual scenes. Like the episode in the aviary. The one I laughed at the most.
"Suddenly, how did that happen, huh?"
Yeah. Quite unexpectedly.”
I laughed a lot more than I expected from the drama. Tverdovsky’s humour is good and sometimes it’s hard to keep from smiling, but I wouldn’t call it subtle, as someone in the audience has noted. In many ways, it is even clichéd, but the charm and relevance of this joke lose little. But you can talk a little more about fine directing.
I loved how the pieces of the film were assembled. Ivan wrote in an interview that he himself always edits, because "this is the most sacred, the most important process in making a film." I totally agree. But the camera work seems to set itself the task of rocking the unhappy viewer with a “shivering camera”. He said, “What looks like a twitching phone is actually more expensive than some interesting picture.” I shrug my shoulders. He promised foreign operators for the next film. We'll see.
From the point of view of coloristics, blue tones for Zoology are exactly what you need (and I’m not talking about this scene in the aviary). Just remember the other meaning of the word "blue" in English. Sad. We remember Jarman's Blue.
As for references, I like to look where there are none. I noticed that the scene on the pier, the picture, the location of the characters and the actions of the main character are very similar to the scene from Hiroshima, my love. She seemed to think so:
"He'll kiss me." He'll kiss me and I'm gone.
Ask the director so dared not, perhaps I just invent and think. But I develop imagination, all according to the precepts of Tverdovsky.
In general, Zoology seemed to me a kind of existential drama, mixing Surrey and Russian realism. The atmosphere is remotely reminiscent of Dostoevsky's novels. Only in a new reality. Polyclinics, excessive religiosity, blat, rumors - Russian routine, beaten not for the first time. Remember the same "Student" Serebrennikov. The very metaphor of the grown tail is banal and insanely simple - it personifies something new in the life of the heroine, radically changing the boring life. A metaphor to show how the Russian people have not yet learned to accept the other and the new, different from their views in life, without compassion and the desire to understand. And the Russian soul will fear this new, avoid, or love with strange and painful love. So strange that it will eventually turn into a perversion.
The director quietly whispers to us that we should already start accepting a new one. Whether it is a tail, Western principles or artachus cinema, this is the decision of everyone.
If we consider the film as a whole about the opposition of one person to society, we can compare it with 'Golgotha' or more pop 'Small'. By inventing the tail, the author simply created the conditions for this confrontation. And if you remember that in the film, in addition to the extras, this tail was seen only by two characters, radiologist Petya and mother of the heroine, and they did not react to it, you can imagine that the tail is a figment of the heroine’s imagination. Around her, everyone began to talk about the existence in their town of a certain raving woman with a tail, the heroine feels special and alien among the people around her. Accordingly, her imagination and subconscious worked hard to grow her tail. But all this is not really important against the background of the meanings that the author puts in the film. In addition to the confrontation between spirituality and spirituality, one can roughly imagine what Dr. Freud would say about the tail of the heroine. No wonder this is a lonely woman, next to whom I have never seen a man. It is interesting how the church is shown in the film, it is not by chance that the church building is built into some Soviet-style grocery store, but the fact that the priest for an incomprehensible reason does not allow the heroine to perform the rite of communion adds a bit of mysticism.
Unlike the hero 'Golgotha' who bore his burden of confrontation to the end, not afraid to pay too dear a price for it, the heroine 'Zoology', like the heroine 'Malena', could not bear this burden and submitted to the pressure of cruel realities.
Of course, it is worth noting the amazing game of Natalia Pavlenkova. It is a joy when talented young directors give an opportunity to unknown actors to play significant roles in the cinema.
Ivan Tverdovsky’s new film continues the theme of people different from most, which was devoted to his debut film “Class of correction”. However, in Zoology, this problem is viewed from a completely different point of view. If in the first film of Tverdovsky the reason for the otherness of the characters was external, then here the heroine differs from others primarily by her inner world. At the beginning of this story, she looks like a completely ordinary woman, what distinguishes her from others is that she is not able to live the life they live. Pavlenkova’s heroine, Natasha, is in her own world and does not try to establish contact with the outside world. She is quite comfortable in her shell, she does not suffer from loneliness. The situation changes only when its dissimilarity with others passes from the internal state to the external. The tail can be seen as a symbol of its difference from the so-called normal people. With the appearance of this strangeness, Natasha begins to try to do something with her life. But her aspirations do not lead to anything good. She only realizes the truth about her uselessness in this world, the truth that she managed to ignore for so many years. Just the real world, as the director shows it, is so terrible that it is impossible for her to fit into it.
Zoology is much more complex and ambiguous than Tverdovsky’s previous work. “The class of correction” is, after all, primarily a story about first love, and not about the difficulties faced by “not like everyone else.” The problem of distinguishing heroes from their peers is also present in it, but is not the main one and is revealed more as a social rather than a psychological one. Despite the fact that others refuse to put heroes on an equal footing with themselves, and the environment itself is hostile to them, they themselves feel the same as everyone else. And the main character of the “Class of correction”, Lena Chekhova, despite her disability, is the same person as everyone else, and just like physically healthy people, is able to live a normal life. Unlike her, Natasha can not live life, although, it would seem, nothing prevents her. It’s like there’s a wall between her and the world, like the one Pink Floyd built in Alan Parker’s movie. The only difference is that here the world is nothing good, there are no close people in it who would try to break through this wall, and the creation of such a barrier could be considered quite a conscious action, if not for the sudden impulse of the heroine to break out of the fortress she created for herself.
As they say, everything brilliant is simple, and although the idea of this film is far from genius, but its simplicity and obviousness it attracts the viewer from the go. The plot fits into three or four words: “A woman has a tail.” We've heard something similar before, haven't we? "A man has become an insect." "A man's nose is missing." Any physiological change in the hero—that vivid metaphor for his inner and social life—would not surprise anyone, but it would attract attention. Not denied universal attention and "Zoology" I. Tverdovsky.
First, I think the best part is the secondary characters. They are drawn so typical, ridiculously absurd and sadly recognizable that you inevitably fall in love with the truthfulness of the image of a provincial seaside town with its residents so familiar to us in Russian literature.
The main roles, in turn, are performed very thinly. Natalia Pavlenkova bows separately for her passing on the knife blade. Playing such humiliating and provocative scenes without causing disgust and pity is expensive.
It is worth noting the tone with which this story is told. On the one hand, without depressive blackness, without tears and cries for help, without dullness, frenzy and other decadent motives, so popular in Russian cinema. The picture does not sink to the universal lamentation about the fate of downtrodden Russian villages - and for that I thank him. On the other hand, she does not retreat into naked, soulless surrealism. It keeps on the verge of some Gogol-Schedrinian absurdity, very gracefully maneuvering between psychological drama and social satire.
So it's all good in parts, but what about the whole thing? Personally, I don’t have a whole story. Then her tail grew, and the white crow in her soul became white. Now you can no longer hide from your whiteness, otherness, now the inner problem of the heroine Natasha on the face (actually – in another place). It would seem that now everything will be even worse - completely jammed. But in an unexpected way, the tail gives her the opportunity to discover femininity in herself - that secret sexual energy that she walled in herself for some reasons unclear to the viewer, apparently even in her distant youth. Apparently, she just lacked a tail for this - a kind of challenge to society, the laws of nature and, finally, herself. Well, she accepts this challenge and throws herself headlong into the pool of love. The stylistics of the film and common sense tell us that there is some catch and the happy ending is not worth waiting. However, when the catch is discovered, Natasha returns to her starting point. She's alone again, struggling for her place in life. What's added to the heroine? Only despair. What added to me as a spectator? Alas, nothing.
The inner self, freed in heroin, faded as quickly as it burst into flames. The last, final gesture of the heroine tells us that she never grew up. The ugly duckling didn't swan. The Prince did not come to Cinderella - he needed her shoe, not her herself.
For me, the essence of the story turned out to be less surfaces than its wrapper. So I don't want to bet any more.
6 out of 10
There is a feeling that the script was written introducing the heroine of 25 years, and then the idea of making her older came to mind. Or it's subtlety and I didn't get the point. Or poor implementation. Or I didn't get enough sleep. Or maybe all together.
The phrase 'Mommy, I'm so tired ... and td' (spoiler) is not credible. Suffering is not portrayed in an accessible way. Or all love is escapism, trying to escape pain. Or a couple of inept smoke breaks should be enough. Or the reason for my low sugar.
The film has an idea and he painted it. In reality, the tail is intangible. The inconsistency of the main character and the plot creates a sense of wrongness and discomfort, and I can not say that this is bad.
I'm looking for people like me.
Crazy and funny,
Mad and sick people.
And when I find them,
We're going to get out of here.
We'll leave here at night.
We're leaving the zoo!
E. Summers
Since the time of monkeys, people have been accustomed to evaluate others, dividing everyone into “ours” and “aliens”, and these statuses, in turn, are assigned according to the most noticeable external features. Someone who looks like me is “his” and the more similar (and a blood relative tends to be more similar than just a tribesman), the more “his” he is. “Self” causes confidence and calmness based on a sense of predictability of their actions (since a person is like me, then his actions are similar; I know myself, so I know him). From this calmness comes sympathy. Needless to say, the feeling is false, and for many who take it too seriously, it has come at a cost.
Those who are not like us are fearful on the same animal level. Dissimilar = incomprehensible, and incomprehensible means unpredictable. And then the well-known mechanism of “bey-run-freeze” is included, depending on how a person a priori, as well as on the basis of existing experience and the analogies arising from it, assesses the correlation of forces between themselves and the stranger. The more harmless a stranger looks, the more aggression he causes.
The heroine of Natalia Pavlenkova, who received several prizes for her role in Zoology, including the award for the best female role on Kinotavra and White Elephant, is just one such example. Intelligent, quiet, shy - she looks like a white crow among her chabalistic colleagues in the zoo administration, and is always the target of their blunt wits and cruel pranks. But Natasha is unlike them even more than it seems at first glance. Natasha has a tail.
In fact, the growth of the tail in humans is quite rare, but, nevertheless, repeatedly observed phenomenon. From a medical point of view, nothing special. If Natasha lived in India, she would be recognized as a messenger of the god Hanuman and would be treated with reverence and awe. But she lives in places where tails (as well as any other deviation from someone and once prescribed standards) are treated quite differently.
Obviously, Ivan Tverdovsky is not interested in the peculiarities of the intrauterine development of the human embryo, the tail in his film is only a metaphor, and therefore he makes it deliberately unnatural, striking. The tail is an excellent image, it can be hidden for the time being, but you can not hide it forever, sooner or later it will come out, and then a person will have to deal with the world around him, for whom in the blink of an eye he will turn from "his" to "alien" with all the ensuing consequences.
The interiors of the zoo for the film were chosen, of course, not by chance, and not at all because the tail makes Natasha look like an animal. On the contrary, among the characters of the film, she is the only one who retains a human appearance. The rest demonstrate the whole spectrum of reactions: from a persistent unwillingness to see the obvious to the desire to take advantage of the vulnerability of another person in the most perverse way.
Tverdovsky spares neither his heroine nor the audience, does not illuminate the darkness of the world around her with a single ray of light. In this sense, the finale of the picture, which at first glance seems helplessly open, on closer examination, seems more like an act of mercy of the director towards the audience. In fact, the plot of the film is completely revealed, and the only uncertainty that remains at the end is not about the characters, but about the audience. After all, the characters of the film, although painfully similar to real people, are still fictional, but those sitting in the hall are real. And it depends on them how people will feel in society with tails, wings and other characteristics that distinguish them from the average individual in the population. Which laws will apply, zoological or humanistic? Will the response to the unknown be reduced to the “fight-run-freeze” triad, or will the cognitive power of the mind expand horizons and habitats? Can a stupid, evil monkey evolve into a human being? The director can ask these questions, but only we can answer them.
7 out of 10
Despite the fact that Tverdovsky’s first film “Class of Correction” left a pleasant impression, the synopsis of this film drove me away from watching. But the recent news that Russian film critics awarded their award to N. Pavlenkov for best actress, still prompted me to watch Zoology. And it was not for nothing that I was repulsed, as it turned out.
The picture is shocking, and at the same time striking in its absurdity. And that's not a compliment. I'll start with the main character - tail (sorry for the pun)! He's terrible. And he gets all the attention. It’s too much, and all the scenes when the heroine bares it are disgusting. Especially in moments when it is clearly not used for its intended purpose (scenes in the bathtub and the zoo). Seriously, I was expecting some small 10-15 cm process. And here's the tailer hanging almost to the ground. And it's not very natural. The calm reaction of doctors to this ailment of the heroine is striking, as if they had not observed this for the first time. With such pathologies, you should immediately give directions to the best clinics, to the best specialists, and not send them several times for x-rays. I don't understand the church scene. Why the priest does not allow Natasha to take communion is not explained. If the cause is in the tail, then where does he know about it is an open question.
As for the main character, Natasha, her frivolity and unreasonable stupidity (and this against the background of her ailment) does not cause sympathy at all, unlike the heroine of the same Correction Class. Who has a similar behavior attributed to age and looks plausible. And the dances of GG to the songs of A. Sviridova cause laughter and horror at the same time, and certainly not nostalgia for the 90s (as some reviewers write). Some kind of obscurantism.
Precisely I will make two points. First, Tverdovsky again successfully chooses locations for filming, thereby showing the black reality of the Russian hinterland. Second, believable secondary characters. Each of them talks and behaves like a real ordinary provincial man.
Result. While I was writing the review, it dawned on me that the film was about almost the same thing as in the correction class. The same girl (woman) with an illness, trying to solve problems with others and find her place in society. Only the tools for storytelling in these stories are used different. If you look at Zoology, despite all the absurdity of surrealism, then everything seems to be fine. But I believe that if the film is called surrealism, then this very sura must be in everything and to the end. And here is an unsuccessful attempt to impose something fantastic on our Russian relevance.
For the most part, there is nothing to expect from Russian films. There are exceptions, there are masterpieces, but this picture is not one of them. We are shown an ordinary seaside town where the heroine of the film Natasha lives. What if this girl (or woman) had one? By age, it can be given the age of 45-50 years), a tail appears - a phenomenon quite interesting, but let's leave it to the fans of fiction. Here the plot, seemingly excellent drama, but the further forward, the more illogical scenes become.
First, the presence of the main character in the temple. It is not clear why she was denied communion. I guess this is done to show how society rejects it and does not accept it, but in essence it is complete nonsense, for people with any physical defects are admitted to the Sacraments.
The second is endless visits to doctors. You see, this defect can be eliminated surgically. A person faced with such a situation would think about the operation. But the main character, for some reason, decides to cut off this tail herself or in any case hopes that the strange doctors of the clinic will help her with the help of meaningless consultations and running to the X-ray office.
Third, the relationship between the main character and the radiologist. How they became bosom friends, how they came to the fact that they began to drink wine, being non-drinkers, the author reveals vaguely and incomprehensibly.
In the fourth, the already mentioned doctors from the clinic, whose actions are hopelessly idiotic. The motivation of their directions for x-rays for me personally remained a mystery. Is there something missing from the X-ray? There are other ways to make up for what is needed. MRI, for example. Or maybe it's some kind of magic?
In the fifth, crosses painted on the walls in one of the final scenes. This is absolutely absurd. The priest (here designated as Father Andrew) who advises to do so would actually have been purged. The wildest and therefore unrealistic obscurantism even for the most ardent fundamentalists from Orthodoxy.
Of the relatively pleasant sides of the film, I could only note the good acting of the actors, and a rather unconventional idea for drama.
As far as you know, the film reached Europe (Czech Republic, in particular) almost six months earlier than our screens, although it was created by a Russian director in Russia (Crimea, Tuapse, Novorossiysk, etc.).
In fact, the plot / annotation / trailer may well confuse a potential (namely Russian) viewer - and this fully explains the country of priority rental, because a middle-aged lady living somewhere in a seaside town suddenly grew a tail, and even without a brush at the tip.
What do you think? Another wild story.
Yeah. Only stronger, more saturated and much more truthful (and the tail has nothing to do with it) - in contrast to the decadent Leviathan, shot from a book not even Soviet or Russian, but quite an American writer.
Screw the tail. It's not really about him.
1. It is a matter of change, or rather change, for which a person is never ready. He gets lost, scared, shuns from side to side - and just loses the usual way of life.
2. It's about people. People who like to despise those who do not come into contact with them, who consider laughter and bullying as the norm and are generally alien to a full-fledged human attitude to those who are different from them.
3. The matter is endless paper confusion, hospital bureaucracy and the absolute indifference of most people in various instances.
4. The point is in deviations that humanity will begin to readily accept only a few centuries later (and that is not a fact).
5. Rumors among people spread like an epidemic, and no one can ever do anything about it.
And here's the picture: a kind, beautiful and sympathetic woman doesn't know where to go when she grows a tail. She meets a good person, she lives with a kind and overly trusting mother, she tells the truth and treats animals from the zoo well. But he receives neither truth, nor goodness, nor responsiveness.
It always happens. And you need to know about it, remember - and try to avoid it.
8 out of 10
Natasha lives in a seaside town with her mother and works at a local zoo. She is too meek and driven, which is why her colleagues do not mind mocking her well. One morning, the heroine Natalia faints tragically, and then suddenly finds her tail. This is where the story begins.
Natasha runs to the doctors, buys pills, in short, trying to get rid of such an unusual problem. It is clear that the pills do not help, and the surgeon constantly sends her for a second X-ray as the picture “was not very clear.”
And despite such an unpleasant factor, Natasha begins to be friends with a young radiologist, after which their friendship ceases to be something more, and finally our heroine at the end of her “second youth” begins to truly blossom.
Ivan Tverdovsky became famous in 2014 with his “Class of Correction”, which made a splash on Kinotavr and Karlovy Vary. I must say that such a young (for Russia certainly) director continues to explore the topic of what it is like to be different, an outcast, not like everyone else. And if in his previous picture this theme shouted with drama sobriety, then Zoology, of course, is close to drama, but to a drama completely arthouse and horribly surreal.
This tragedy, some poetic-dreamy satire preserves all the original Russian genres. All this has once been Gogol, Dostoevsky, Bulgakov in literature, in the cinema Tarkovsky and Sokurov.
Tverdovsky literally ridicules what the “glossy” cinema and the “new wave” of Russian cinema so gracefully demonstrate. He ignores everything beautiful, and even though the film is shot in an amazing sea city (the name of which is hushed up), it does not make it aesthetic. Tverdovsky with terrible truthfulness shows all ever-Russian images: these money in clinics, who wash the gossip heard near the entrance, and superstitious women, and people hooked on TV, who constantly complain about non-christians and atheists from Europe.
And the main character is part of this environment, in her fifty-plus years she has neither on her own family (except for an elderly mother), nor a good job where she would be valued, nor even adequate self-esteem and elementary self-respect.
But here comes the tail, it's a metaphor, it's the main problem, and it's the main salvation. Natasha comes out of her comfort zone, begins to change, falls in love, and falls into a zone of absolutely terrible discomfort, which is able to finally shake the heroine properly and force her to accept the challenge of fate. And it accepts this challenge, goes against itself and, most importantly, society.
It's less about the cruelty of society, it's more about the courage to be yourself, and also about the fact that love happens. Strange, wild, but nevertheless it is.
The picture leaves a strange sediment, and probably this is caused by the openness of the finale, which the director and the scriptwriter of the tape likes to do so.
There will be no Hollywood happy ending, but the viewer is also not invited to sob for aortic rupture. And it is proposed to look into the eyes of the oddities that are in each of us and understand that for these oddities have to pay.
His victorious movement ' Zoology' Ivan Tverdovsky began with Kinotavr-2016. At this festival, the film received two impressive prizes - for the best female role and the Guild of film critics and critics "Elephant". This was followed by a successful international festival release, which did not leave the film and its creators without deserved awards. I doubt that 'Zoology' will be accepted and loved by a wide audience, because Tverdovsky not only tries to touch the metamorphosis of the appearance of the tail in the main character for a living, but gives this event a touch of sacredness. How do you live with that? The answer is in 'Zoology' - a social absurd-psychological drama that grows up with a timeless Kafkaesque plot in one of the Russian seaside towns.
It is a great pleasure to study the mechanisms of the scenario and its implementation in 'Zoology'. Tverdovsky’s film is completely devoid of a provocative component, the territory of the tape is a field of the collective unconscious, on which the director successfully explores the archetype of physical reincarnation. The main character Natasha (Natalia Pavlenkova), a modest and infantile employee of the procurement department of the zoo, living with a devout, Orthodox mother (Irina Chipizhenko), unexpectedly overtakes what can be called the drama of the layman. Thanks to the demiurge-director, who endowed her with atavism lost during evolution, Natasha ceases to be just a strange creature and the object of malicious ridicule from colleagues in the financial department. Natasha, herself unwittingly, becomes a public bogeyman, and at the same time demonstrates a remarkable female ability to change and move to a completely new life.
' Zoology' convincingly shows that the drama of physiological otherness for Natasha very quickly ceases to be such. The world of adults, shown by Tverdovsky, is no less infantile than the main character herself. The director of the zoo analyzes the work of unscrupulous employees with the intonations of the class leader of the most high school, the conversations of old women in the queue at the clinic as an animated illustration from evening conversations about a white woman and a black hand from a scout camp, a wound radiologist Petya just says ' nonsense' on examination. Therefore, the appearance of “Woman with a Tail” & #39; and all her subsequent demonization are shown in the film and written in the script very superficially, Natasha, who once set foot on the border between animal and human, is tossed between two fires, albeit extravagantly, but predictably. I note that, according to the thought of Tverdovsky, it is thanks to the appearance of the tail that the age Natasha gets out of a protracted childhood and enters into something like a puberty stage, not forgetting to use the tail for carnal pleasures.
Freeing the heroine, changing clothes and creating the ground for her some bright teenage acts, the director provokes a swaying of the ground already under himself, demonstrating to us the heterogeneities ' either as a social farce, then as a psychological drama, then hitting into satire regarding Orthodoxy and psychotechnology. This gives the tape some remarkable scenes in the form of males recognizing their gorillas in Natasha in the zoo, red crosses on the walls of a modest apartment painted by a devout mother who refuses to understand the surprise and irreversibility of changes in an adult daughter, and finally, visits and libations at a crowded pseudo-training for successful in the culture house. Disclosure of collisions ' Zoology' takes place against the background of plays from ' Children's album' Tchaikovsky and a couple of old songs by Alena Sviridova, which adds an artless sound color to the film and places it in quite an indefinite time. Leaving the film with an open finale, Tverdovsky pushes to the surface the issue of freedom of dissimilarity with other participants of society and the need to defend this dissimilarity. This is also another problem of a bright and long imprinted in the memory of the film. At the age of Natasha, we should think about grandchildren and rub the ground, and not let ourselves into questionable gender self-determination.
Each of us has its own tail, which we either accept or do not.
How often do you see a movie that is impossible to predict? It would seem that our dull reality is always spoken gray and monotonously. You always have to rely on the story. But every frame of Zoology is filled with air and feeling. Sviridova’s choice as a musical accompaniment is no different, but only music from the 90s can create such an atmosphere. And the hits of those years, covered by local Karaokev residents. I admire Ivan, the musical range in the "Class of Correction" was also so bad that it was beautiful, which is only worth "Suicide" - [Yellow Asphalt Corporation]. At the same time, it is fun and scary, because while you were happy, your sense of taste died.
The plot of the film penetrates through the eternal existential problems. As in F. Kafka’s “Transformation”, the changes are vital for the heroine to finally question herself and realize who she really is. After all, she never had time to think about her existence, in a closed world of home and work. Quietly short time together with a superstitious mother, all the interest in life, which is concentrated in the TV screen, and news occasions and gossip just paint day after day. Colorful ladies at work, she is completely shunned and tingled with jokes, for them Natasha and without a strange tail. And then fate finally gives Natasha a chance to change everything and atone for the guilt before her own “I”, for the fact that she did not really live, because she has the “will to be herself”.
With a new appearance, Natasha finally begins to feel the breath of life, and the tail seems beautiful to her, she completely accepts herself. A twisted love story reveals to us another heroine, the tail gives her inspiration, she may feel life for the first time. Riding on pallets with concrete slabs, hiding from the mother of wine and a man, so that she suddenly did not think that her daughter had grown up. I mean, daughters are in their 50s. Crazy dances to very bad music, a dress made of faquets, like "Scene du Bal" in the film "Laurence Anyways" by K. Dolan, only in the context of Russian space. She's young and happy and she doesn't care what's going on around her.
For a while, it starts to seem like a happy ending. But the zoo scene, which you don't even see on the BBC, puts everything in its place. A shocking animal passion and an all-consuming desire to possess a fetish rather than the person to whom it belongs. It causes confusion even in the most courageous spectators. And after a while, you understand the disappointment of Natasha calmly leaving her beloved. After all, she was “open” with this feeling, and loved her not at all what she would like.
Natasha is left alone with her tail. Excessively naturalistic tail with all its appearance repels, causes rejection, becoming only a greater barrier to understanding the heroine by the people around her. Her own mother is turning away from her. But the greater the gap between the heroine and society, the closer it becomes to the viewer.
Having known herself, she at least understands the unbearability of her situation. And her departure would be a liberation.
Of course, we understand that nothing happened before, but now nothing at all. And when everything collapses, when her own mother does not accept her, what is the way out? .