Post by stephen on Jan 12, 2020 19:02:09 GMT
Hoo boy, this movie. So I had been looking forward to this one after the initial word out of Cannes, where it had been getting comparisons to the likes of Come and See. I thought that a movie about women in war-torn Leningrad dealing with the ravages of the war both physically and mentally would be truly something to behold. And indeed, Kantemir Balagov’s movie is as punishing and grim as advertised.
And yet.
I feel like as dreadful as the circumstances get in the movie, Balagov keeps us at arm’s length, particularly due to the rather oddball nature of the film’s protagonist. The titular “Beanpole” of the film is a woman: a willowy specter called Iya (Viktoria Miroshnichenko, easily a head taller than any other character in the movie), who suffers the chronic after-effects of a bad concussion attained during combat. Iya now works as a nurse in a Leningrad hospital, looking after the wounded—as well as the young child of Iya’s best friend, Masha. Iya is a haunting presence throughout the film, partly due to Miroshnichenko’s ethereal stature and even more because of Balagov’s treatment of her, but it also keeps us from fully empathizing with her.
Which is a shame, too, because on the whole, Beanpole shows very strong directorial confidence from its wunderkind filmmaker (Balagov is twenty-seven!), and both Miroshnichenko and co-star Vasilisa Perelygina (Masha) are very good with what they are given. But I feel almost like the wrong approach was taken here. Certain scenes and actions are done so elliptically that it comes off as too cryptic, especially as our protagonist hardly strings more than a few words together at a time. Watching Beanpole put me less in mind of Come and See and more of Of Mice and Men. Which isn’t a bad thing, per se . . . but I’m not sure how much of it works because we’re put in the vantage point of the Lennie surrogate instead of George’s.
And yet.
I feel like as dreadful as the circumstances get in the movie, Balagov keeps us at arm’s length, particularly due to the rather oddball nature of the film’s protagonist. The titular “Beanpole” of the film is a woman: a willowy specter called Iya (Viktoria Miroshnichenko, easily a head taller than any other character in the movie), who suffers the chronic after-effects of a bad concussion attained during combat. Iya now works as a nurse in a Leningrad hospital, looking after the wounded—as well as the young child of Iya’s best friend, Masha. Iya is a haunting presence throughout the film, partly due to Miroshnichenko’s ethereal stature and even more because of Balagov’s treatment of her, but it also keeps us from fully empathizing with her.
Which is a shame, too, because on the whole, Beanpole shows very strong directorial confidence from its wunderkind filmmaker (Balagov is twenty-seven!), and both Miroshnichenko and co-star Vasilisa Perelygina (Masha) are very good with what they are given. But I feel almost like the wrong approach was taken here. Certain scenes and actions are done so elliptically that it comes off as too cryptic, especially as our protagonist hardly strings more than a few words together at a time. Watching Beanpole put me less in mind of Come and See and more of Of Mice and Men. Which isn’t a bad thing, per se . . . but I’m not sure how much of it works because we’re put in the vantage point of the Lennie surrogate instead of George’s.