48th NYFF 2010: Aleksei Fedorchenko’s Silent Souls

Russian filmmaker Aleksei Fedorchenko’s Silent Souls plays at the New York Film Festival following its three awards at the Venice Film Festival, including the Ozella prize for Best Photography. This is one of the better films at the fest, and with its positive reception at Venice, TIFF and now NYFF, this will hopefully find some kind of a theatrical release, albeit it being a small art-house one.

The story is based on a novel by the writer/director’s friend Aist Sergeyev. This is the fourth project they have collaborated on, and Fedorchenko claims they have five more to go. The story is a kind of historical fiction, with a little “extra” fiction added since the records of the people and events described are long lost. The story follows two men who live in a small village and are descended of an ancient race called Merjans that seemingly comes from folklore even in the diegetic narrative of the film.

The tone is set by our protagonist Aist’s (Igor Sergeyev) narration. He speaks in a monotone, somewhat distant, after the facts voice, with the content reflecting vivid memories. The opening describes for us a town that lives in the past, where nothing really happens, and days just pass one after another, lives and loves come and go, decay slowly progresses, color is uneventfully diluted both metaphorically and physically. It appears Aist’s life is defined very much by his surroundings as well. He has no family or really friends even. He goes to work. He tends to his buntings (small birds).

His life is only mildly thrown off course when his boss and assumedly loose confidante Miron (Yuriy Tsurilo) takes him aside from work to tell him that his wife Tanya (Yuliya Aug) has died. Miron does not tell Aist how she died, but only that he wishes Aist to be the only one who carries out the rituals with him.

This is where we are introduced to some of the Merjans customs. Death is taken very differently to these people—it’s more like moving on. They worship the water, so the best way to die is to drown. One cannot drown oneself though, for that is selfish and would be taking the spot of someone else who has earned it. For those who do not die in water, they are ritualistically cremated and their ashes spread in the nearby rivers. This is the catalyst of the plot of Silent Souls.

The film is made up of three concurrent narratives really. The first is the external one—the plot—where we watch Aist and Miron go on a trip to take care of Tanya’s body. The second is told in narration and flashbacks, and illuminates the events that lead up to Tanya’s death. The cause of death is never revealed (although I have a theory), but there are many elements in the relationships between Aist, Miron and Tanya that are of interest here. The third narrative is our education on the history and customs of the Merjan people. What makes this film work so well is that all three narratives are compelling and all three work cohesively together.

The other major strength of the film is its cinematography, which as previously mentioned has already been acknowledged by the Venice Film Festival. If the New York Film Festival has an oeuvre or a style, Silent Souls certainly fits it well. Cutting is sparing. The camera orbits around and points our glances at areas of interest. The color is as expressive of the themes and story as the action is—as many shades of grey in here as Michael Mann had shades of black in Collateral (a lot). Close-ups within long takes are choreographed and plotted expertly. In the films most cathartic scene, where they burn Tanya’s body, Fedorchenko never cuts, but still uses a long lens. The entire scene maintains a shallow depth of field, capturing timely close-ups and also giving us the gorgeous scenery where the sequence is staged.

Fedorchenko and DP Mikhail Krichman do not opt for the kind of shallow depth of field that fancy film school grads and horror movies love so much, but rather one that is much more expressive and pointed. They pull focus to not only shift our attention, but also dictate the shifting of our emotional weight. There is a fog over the entire film. It is created first with the narration of Aist. Then the settings, which are beautiful, but grey, and in the context rather depressing. The areas where they shot are absolutely indicative of the feeling this story is going for, perfectly typifies this dying culture of the Merjans. They are slowly disappearing, but not even acknowledging it. Fedorchenko figures that the color scheme he used is one that is very specific to the end of the Fall season, and symbolizes the death of the individual both to him and the culture. The blue tones they also use symbolizes sadness. That sadness, death, disappearance and fog is expressed thirdly with the shallow depth of field they use. It is really a rare case where the style is perfect and never overused in order to be flashy—rather the opposite here.

You will go for the cinematography and the mood it creates, however, one more area to give credit is the mythology. It might not be clear, however, the Merjans never existed, at least not as the film describes. That is, they might have, but nobody knows. They are based on ancient Finnish tribes that have since been scattered all across Russia. The Merjan name in particular comes from a non-Slavic tribe that would have its last remaining population just north of Moscow. The traditions and culture that Aist describes in such detail are completely convincing though. Fedorchenko, co-writer Denis Osokin and novelist Sergeyev deserve a lot of credit for creating a reality and history within the film. This is a must see.