This film told what I would consider a brutally honest story. I don't think that there was one comforting part in the entire movie. The director of the film did not hold any punches; had this been made in Stalin's time, I don't think it would have been approved. What contrasts most starkly with previous films that we have watched is the realism. There hasn't been a film we have seen so far that can compare with that.
This movie presents a wide array of social problems. The family was completely dysfunctional. An alcoholic father, a mother who has a history of sleeping around, and a daughter who is rebelling against them. I think the family was used as an example of a bad family. Yes, they were obviously up against hard economic times, but they looked in all the wrong places for answers. Vera's brother was the only person that was shown in any decency. He was raising a family and had a successful career. Viktor resented his parents and sister I believe, he never brought his own family to visit. Viktor moved far away to get away from his childhood and I can't say that I blame him.
I think the mother is the cause of all the problems. She pushes Vera and tries to control her with an iron fist which just pushes Vera away. She's never honest with Vera, she never tried to teach Vera from her own mistakes. The mother slept with all the father's brothers, what was Vera supposed to think? The father was a drunk because he couldn't handle the economic pressures combined with the pressure he received from home so he turned to alcohol.
The mother gets everyone to go along with her made up story about how Sergei gets stabbed. The father stabbed him and then everything is supposed to go back to normal. She swept everything under the rug. She seemed to be unaware of her own daughters problems even when Vera tries to overdose. Vera by all rights should have died there.
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What you say about it being impossible to present such a film during Stalin's time is undeniably true. But one should also realize is that such a film would have been impossible to show in Gorbachev's own time even a year before (perhaps even just a few months before) it appeared--so remarkable were the changes that were occurring at the time and so groundbreaking was this film's appearance.
ReplyDeleteAnd you're right--here we see what we might call *genuine* "Socialist Realism," don't we.
I wouldn't take the charges that the father directs at the mother ("whore," etc.) literally--I don't think we're supposed to be under the impression that she has been anything other than a good and responsible mother in this regard.
I personally feel that the characters in this film aren't quite as responsible for what happens, at least to the degree that you hold. To me it seems that the mother herself is caught up in circumstances that have swung beyond her control. Nonetheless, she (along with Sergei) ends up being the characters I find least appealing and the most grating in this film.
"Brutally honest" (your words) does indeed seem like a very good way to describe this film...