- Title: RUSSIA: VALERY TODOROVSKY'S NEW RELEASE "MY STEP-BROTHER FRANKENSTEIN"
- Date: 16th November 2004
- Summary: MOSCOW, RUSSIA (NOVEMBER 15, 2004) (REUTERS -- ACCESS ALL) (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) FILM DIRECTOR VALERY TADOROVSKY "I began to feel that the war was affecting me. I began to feel that the atmosphere of tension and alarm had entered inside of me, that it had infected me. So I made this film, and it turns out that I made it against a frightening background. We filmed it in th
- Embargoed: 1st December 2004 12:00
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- Location: MOSCOW, RUSSIA / VARIOUS FILM LOCATIONS
- Country: Russia
- Reuters ID: LVAD3JG776JGFAKQR6NH85C1LK51
- Story Text: Valery Todorovsky's new release, "My Step-Brother Frankenstein" is a war film without a war. The up and coming young Russian director has chosen instead to focus on the human cost of conflict, on how a war in a very distant part of the country can literally land on the doorstep of a happy family and tear their life apart.
The film, which has won the critic's prize at the Karlovy Vary Festival, follows the return of a young war veteran. Pavlik, the ugly and unloved Frankenstein of the title, has lost his eye in fighting and arrives to be reunited with his father, and his very distant world with his new, young family.
But the young man is tormented by visions of spirits and enemies. He is unable to adapt his scarred life to the norms of the peaceful, established Moscow intelligentsia.
And the family struggles to contain his inner fury from harming themselves, while also trying to reach out to their own flesh and blood.
Nowhere does the film mention Chechnya, where Russian troops have fought rebels in a bloody, decade-long independence war. And nowhere does the film mention the recent suicide bombings and hostage attacks throughout Russian cities. But the war permeates the film.
"I wanted to make a film about the war that is in the air and surrounds us. People are inclined to think that all the terrible events are happening somewhere far away and have nothing to do with them. But I think the war is in the air we breathe, so I wanted to make a war film without war, without showing the actual war on the screen. I wanted to make it about the war that is in our own homes, about how we cannot hide from it. I think this is obvious.
Everyday, we may try not to notice it and we may try to push it out of our minds, but sometimes this is impossible.
At some point, a man comes to your house. He comes from there, and he has brought the entire war with him--into your kitchen. And this isn't just any man--it's your very own son," said Tadorovsky.
The film was released in Russia this fall, just after a wave of suicide bombings and the Beslan hostage crisis, where a group of gunmen took over 1,000 children, teachers and their parents hostage resulting in the deaths of more than 330 of them.
Tadorovsky said that his film anticipated the extent to which the Chechen war would affect ordinary Russian life.
"I began to feel that the war was affecting me. I began to feel that the atmosphere of tension and alarm had entered inside of me, that it had infected me. So I made this film, and it turns out that I made it against a frightening background. We filmed it in the summer of 2003 and it was released just as the Beslan school hostage crisis broke. People and journalists have asked me how I anticipated all of this, well, I felt what had been accumulating, the atmosphere. I made the film because it was becoming uncomfortable not to talk about it," said Tadorovsky.
One scene from the film chillingly presages the Beslan incident, where Pavlik seizes the family's two children to protect them from inaginary enemies, but refuses to release them or let the parents approach.
Critics have described the film as dark, disturbing, but also at times light and humourous. Tadorovsky draws on the talents of two television programme stars for the male roles with Leonid Yarmolnik playing the father and Daniil Spivokovsky playing his disturbed son. Veteran stage actress Elena Yakovleva plays the step-mother. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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