LONELY VOICES HEARD

PERFECT NUMBER

28 is traditionally considered a perfect number, although some complain that the Molodist (Youth) Festival is anything but perfect. Personally, I don't care, because imperfection is an invariable characteristic of all festivals, just as it is of all manifestations of life. Turmoil is natural here. The running man is not the title of the Hollywood thriller but a synonym for a festival spectator. The latter is always on the move, sweating, feverishly looking for things and people, eyes bulging and bloodshot with exertion, hunger, and sleeplessness. Where to run now? The Sanussi or Monicelli retrospective? Maybe the Elite Film Directors selection? Entries preview? Ukrainian or East European Panorama? Where is the show? The Cinema House or the Movie Palace, Zoriany or Kinopanorama movie theater? The program booklet is dog-eared and well-thumbed, the thoughts in perfect turmoil. The festival's nine days gathered 80,000 such running men. Albeit imperfect, it was a record number for Molodist.

MASTERS' INTONATIONS

The festival's merry-go-round began with the documentaries "Bergman's Voice" and "Transformer, Portrait of Lars von Trier." A close-up on two filmmakers head over heels in love with an art where the slightest false overtone would be immediately discernible. One says commonly known, even trite things and the other shares UFO stories, in both cases the illusion of face-to-face contact is perfect, possible only on the screen conveying every nuance in voice, look, and gesture. All festival craze aside, such films will remain interesting for the crew and audience. It was no accident that the Grand Prix went to the Russian documentary "Voices" about Maximilian Voloshin.

CLOSE-UP ON LIFE

In the documentary about Bergman the Swedish celebrity relates an interesting fact: in the early twentieth century cinematographers avoided close-ups, considering them too vulgar a technique. After all disasters of the first half of the century it turned from vulgar to very much in. In the 1990s the close-up remains a key technique applied by film directors of all age groups. Actually, it is more than a technique, it is a philosophy, since the cinema is a singular art capable, more than any other art, of making a very ordinary life story a major captivating event. This was true of all more or less noteworthy pictures submitted as entries and numerous retrospectives. The same close-up on trifles marks all of the prize-winning films, including the French short "The Rock" (directed by Fausi Bensaudi), a black-and-white ascetic narrative of a day in the life of an Arab boy-slave. One can see scores of the likes of him on Ukrainian streets these days. Smart, cocky, quick with the pockets and purses of passersby, picking up empty bottles, living a simple life and dying a simple death. As horrifyingly simple and inevitable truth permeates another French picture winning the full-length nomination: "Angels' Ghostly Life" (Eric Zonka). Reality ruthlessly deals with two girls who are like angels but complete castaways, killing one in the end. However, the little man can be portrayed literally. The Yves Montand Prize for the best male role went to Jean-Yves Tual starring in the Belgian picture "The Red Dwarf." This production is far lighter and variegated than the first two. Youth is prone to fool around with the universe, laughing and mocking it, until...

SAD STORIES

Sorrow and gloom seem prevalent in the movies of the 1990s. In many productions the hero suffers and can expect help from nowhere. Quite a few have the bittersweet taste of solitude. Considerable attention is paid to social problems, remarkably in productions originating from countries generally considered affluent in all respects. Masterfully selected films from the famous Tish School of New York, a nursery for future Spielbergs and Tarantinos, turned out a true apologia of social and daily failures. Miserable children in "The Rock," girls hunting for jobs in "Angels," a married couple torturing each other in the elegant German production "Five-o-Clock Shadow." Today's youth hero is either a workaholic or a lumpen, cast by fate in the gutter of life. At times this is portrayed in excessive detail. That was probably why both the audience and jury agreed on "Voices" as the Grand Prix winner. This documentary is about poets of the Silver Age and after the Russian Revolution, a time of disastrous tragedies, yet the film is a story as full of light and elevated spirit as Voloshin's Crimean watercolors. Moral criteria continue to play as important a role in filmmaking as the aesthetic ones.

THE UKRAINIAN CARD

Regrettably, it was not a trump, compared to all the other entries, except that Ukrainian animated cartoons miraculously remain on top, year in and year out. This time the audience was expressly pleased by the films of the Sisters Ilmensky, "Weekend" and "Cafe Grounds" (Diploma of the Movie Clubs' Association). The other nominations showed mostly battlefield landscapes. Traditionally, the festival started with the ceremony of awarding the best Ukrainian production the Arsenal Prize. There were only four nominees and the trophy went to "Two Julias" which was interesting in places but left no desire to watch it again, ever. The only consolation was that "Two Julias" gathered an audience comparable only to the Molodist opening and closing ceremonies. Ukrainians, of course, do not want to feel lonely in the filmmaking world. After all, we did have Dovzhenko and Paradzhanov, didn't we?

RUSSIAN INVASION

The northern neighbor's filmmaking renaissance, much advertised over the past year and a half, was attested to at the festival: four trophies won by Andrey Osipov's "Voices" and an almost sensational debut of the young but established script writer Pёtr Lutsik's "Suburb", Yuri Grymov's kitsch "Moo-Moo," and Vadim Abdrashitov's swan song, "Dancer's Time." Whether it is money, being in wealthy people's good books or rich tradition would be rhetorical questions. New people need a new cinema, although referring to the authors of the above as young would be highly debatable.

GROWNUP "YOUTH"

The festival's "side dishes" consisted of a variety of retrospectives contributed by mature and experienced filmmakers. However, entries, supposed to be brand new in every respect, mostly represented authors well on in years. Many had several previous productions to their credit and otherwise quite eventful resumes. In a word, they were battle-hardened and also battle fatigued, the latter quite evident in their pictures. Perhaps because cinematography as such has grown up over the years?

THINGS LEFT OUT

I have not mentioned prospects and prognoses, scandals, and in gatherings, coffee sessions, short entries, problems of eroticism, Sanussi productions, and a few other things. My voice is a lonely one, and my story may end on an optimistic note, as did the Molodist festival. But there is also a polyphony, clear ringing voices of the cinema, films, and festivals merging in a bewitching choir that will never end, despite its consisting of lonely voices.