By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Aleksei German MI
Starring: Anastasyia Sheveleva | Chulpan Khamatova | Merab Ninidze
Original language title: Bumazhnyy Soldat
Country: russia
Year: 2008
Running time: 118
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1284576/
Bruce says: “This strange film is haunting me in spite of my not particularly enjoying the viewing experience. I do not doubt the filmmaker’s talent; he appears one to watch. The problem is the story which is off-putting mostly because there is no character to root for and little structure in which to anchor one’s feelings. PAPER SOLDIER is set in 1961 and takes place in Kazakhstan. Daniel Pokrovsky (Merab Ninidze) is the medical doctor in charge of the astronauts as the Soviet Union prepares to launch the first man in space. Whether a cosmonaut (the official USSR terminology) is fit for mission is up to Dr. Pokrovsky. His responsibility and authority weigh upon him heavily.
“Pokrovsky is the son of famous liberal thinkers who were victimized and eradicated during Stalin’s Great Purge. Even in the current Khrushchev days, intellectuals are considered weak, vulnerable creatures. In the middle of a bad patch in his marriage, juggling two mistresses, fighting bad dreams almost every night, Pokrovsky is having a meltdown. Nina (Chulpan Khamatova), his wife, decides to visit the military base. She arrives, looking like Audrey Hepburn and dressed alike, too, with her designer suit distinctly out of place and her high heels sinking deeply into the soggy soil of the bleak steppes. Nina is less than pleased to discover one of the mistresses not long after her arrival. ‘Did you leave me for her?’ she asks Pokrovsky about Vera (Anastasyia Sheveleva). ‘I just left,’ he replies listlessly.
“‘Soon one of us will fly to the stars and everything will change,’ a cosmonaut optimistically muses. Whether there is still time for Pokrovsky to pull himself together before that glorious day is unlikely. PAPER SOLDIER is a difficult film in that it tries to evoke history and mood through a cinematic stream of consciousness. Aleksei German MI is overly ambitious in his attempt to accomplish so much, but he has the rare talent of making the bland interesting and the inert fascinating. PAPER SOLDIER has a coda which, timewise, is set ten years after the main story. It contains a delicious surprise. 3.5 cats
“(PAPER SOLDIER was screened as part of the New Directors/New Films festival sponsored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and MoMA.)”