Beanpole

It's incredible that a 27 year old has enough guile to make any feature film yet alone one this good. And it's Kantemir Balagov's second feature. How does one so young get the life experience, technical know how, intellect, ideas and confidence to accomplish this project? I have no idea. It's a tale of two women rebuilding their life after the war in the barren, torn apart Stalingrad, but could also be an analogy for how the city or even Russia itself begins to heal wounds and give itself new life after conflict. The film is bathed in a rich green colour palette to perhaps symbolise peace / fertility / hope / a new era etc. The performances by Viktoria Miroshnichenko and Vasilisa Perelygina are completely off the charts. They portray these broken women searching for any way to become fixed, if that's even possible. A search for new life after all the death they must have encountered. Although the final 20 minutes is a tiny bit flawed, this is a stunning piece of work by someone who's seemingly one of the most promising young directors around.

There are different types of violence. The director demonstrated in his first film a tendency to suggest it, and now the story is focused in shocking, provocative scenes (death of the child, the rape ...) more than in the construction of a solid narrative. The war as a virus that remains after finishing, the characters physically and psychologically wounded, are themes that languishes with an unbalanced direction.