THE KILLERS (RUSSIA/1958/ANDREI TARKOVSKY, MARIKA BEIKU, ALEKSANDR GORDON)

The Killers, a twenty-minute student film directed by a young Andrei Tarkovsky and his colleagues, takes its inspiration from the Ernest Hemingway short story of the same name. The film is set in an American diner, the favourite eatery of regular customer Nick Adams. In the first scene, two menacing gangsters enter and inform the owner George to keep an eye out for one Ole Anderson, whom they plan to kill for an undisclosed reason. The gangsters tie up Nick Adams and the diner’s poorly blacked-up chef, ordering George to keep up the pretence in the hope that Anderson will turn up. Adams later meets Anderson outside the diner, but fails to dissuade him from meeting his fate.

It is refreshing to see that Tarkovsky’s first work shares all the hallmarks of modern student films – the acoustics are shaky, the set is pokey, the cast members (including Tarkovsky as a whistling customer) all seem very young. But of course, one could say the same for most directors’ first works, and Tarkovsky’s legacy of outstanding international classics is testament to the axiom ‘everybody’s got to start somewhere’. It was apparently Tarkovsky’s suggestion to use Hemingway’s story as source material, as his works had only just become available in the Soviet Union. The resultant adaptation is something of an oddity, a film noir with Soviet ancestry. Credit where credit’s due, there are some lovely angles, and the pace is admirable, but this is mostly of interest to fans of Tarkovsky or Hemingway.

LILIYA BELGII (RUSSIA/1915/WŁADYSŁAW STAREWICZ)

An unnamed little girl wanders through the woods aimlessly, until she comes across a dead lily pulled from its roots. Taking the lily home with her, she shows it to her entomologist grandfather, who begins to tell her a fantastical story about it. The lily had been growing for a time in a beautiful spot by a stream, becoming the envy of many a flowering plant. The lily, so says grandfather, was so beautiful that she inspired grasshoppers and frogs to convene beneath her and play music. But of course, such majesty has the ability to attract negative attention too, as a group of territorial beetles plan to kill her as part of the expansion of their empire. Despite the lily’s protestations, she is callously cut down and used as a bridge for the beetles to wage war on their neighbours. Of course, the rest of the woods refuses to let this happen, and the beetles are ambushed by frogs, grasshoppers, and even a furious pine cone.

Władysław Starewicz, the animator responsible for this touching short, was one of the first artists to make use of stop-motion animation, frequently using dead insects and animals as his puppets. Here, he mixes it with live action to tell a saddening tale of death and belligerence, in clear reference to the First World War which had been ongoing for a year when this film was made. Though aimed at children, the message of Starewicz’s film should resonate with everyone through its heartrending purity.

BY THE BLUEST OF SEAS (RUSSIA/1936/BORIS BARNET, S. MARDANIN)

In quiet contrast to the existentialist Soviet hero films being churned out at the time, Boris Barnet’s By The Bluest of Seas presents a warm, compassionate alternative which was to be heavily championed by French New Wave directors later on. Our heroes are Alyosha and Yussuf, two sailors washed up onto an unnamed island where they stay to work in the local farming community. Before long, the men’s attention is focused on flirtatious gamine Misha, who toys with their hearts while grappling with her own emotional problems. Through all their pleasantries and playfulness, all three characters have their desires denied, but by dint of their familiarity, no hard feelings are experienced.

Occasionally, the film invites more fatalistic readings, a practice which has muddied several minor Soviet works into obscurity. But even in light of its melancholic undercurrents, the film is optimistic through and through, the intermittent musical numbers painting this as a film to enjoy and cherish. The photography here is gorgeous, reflecting the film’s more inexpressible depths. Waves undulate ominously throughout the film, reminding us that the characters are isolated together on this detached fragment of land, while splashes of sunlight echo the carefree exchanges in this halcyon love triangle. But nothing can compare to the heart-stopping slow-motion sequence where a distraught Misha, fingers defiantly in her ears, lets her broken necklace slip from her hands, the crystal beads falling like voluminous tears. A clear inspiration to Jules et Jim, this joyful jaunt is guaranteed to raise a smile.

RUSSIAN ARK (RUSSIA/2002/ALEKSANDR SOKUROV)

Russian Ark is a difficult film to rate, and seeing it a second time hasn’t made this review much easier. The obvious point to make about the film is whether or not the one shot worked, and for me, it was mostly a success. The idea of ‘sailing’ through history, and the slipping between rooms as if they were different time periods was carried out with oneiric grace, and the use of one continuous shot depicted history as a fluid force, rather than a series of discrete events. However, there are times where it is clear we are watching not just a film, but a filmic experiment. For example, when the ‘European’ is moving between rooms, he chatters and repeats words to himself in a clear effort to stall the camera to allow for the next vignette to prepare – there is even the moment where he puffs air at a disgusted-looking man peering through a door. While they don’t disrupt the flow enough to justify calling the experiment a failure, they certainly seem strange, as does the confidence of this rakish eccentric, who waltzes in and out of shot.

This having been said, the film triumphs visually – kudos to the Steadicam operator for his smooth camerawork, and to the lighting crew who kept the entire museum lit beautifully. Finally, the end sequence with the camera panning back to incorporate what may be the entire cast of the film seemingly leave the museum engenders an emotional response unlike anything I’ve experienced in any other film.