Sometimes you walk into a room where you know you shouldn't be and yet you feel right at home. That room and that feeling is _Дылда / Beanpole_.

_Beanpole_ is a profound, tragic film written on the edge of a razor which will seduce you with its subtle cuts.

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.

After watching many Soviet post II War films (I was born in Poland during the communist period), this one is quite different. Showing more realistically how the life after great victory was like. Reminds me 'Anonyma - Eine Frau in Berlin' but this one is better. The only nuisance is its tempo, it should be 30-45min. shorter and the it would be perfect.

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.

Very bleak and somewhat compelling – a film I admired more than I liked

We've seen countless stories (many of them superb) about men who have fought in war, only to find themselves unable to reintegrate into society upon the cessation of combat. Dylda, however, is the story of two such women, looking at the crippling effects of post-traumatic stress disorder in an era before the condition was fully recognised. And whilst one has to admire the emotional and ideological sincerity of the filmmakers, and the craft on display (it looks amazing, with the production design some of the best you'll ever see), for me, Dylda was a somewhat disappointing experience, adding up to something quite a bit less than the sum of its (often exceptional) individual parts.

For my complete review, please visit: https://boxd.it/U3CAh