I recently watched an old Russian four-part film based on a 1933 V. Shishkov novel set just before the 1917 revolution: Ugryum Reka, or “Gloomy River”. I was dismayed to find that no English subtitles exist for it, for I would so strongly recommend it to any of my friends interested in politics and the human condition… therefore I decided to synopsise it in (very) brief. My Russian is far from perfect, so some of the details might be inaccurate and the quotes are heavily paraphrased, but the meaning shone through to me almost like an epiphany, despite linguistic obstacles (my god, was it chock full of beautiful literary Russian). Here it is anyway. There is a whole religious theme running through the piece as well which I did not mention for lack of thorough comprehension.
A film about the inherent corruptibility of man.
The film starts with an old bandit on his deathbed, warning his son not to follow in his footsteps. First thing the son does is dig up his father’s ill-gotten goods.
Years later, he has built up a successful enterprise and sends his own young son on a long adventure up the Ugryum river to help expand trade. The father sends a Circassian guard with him: a brutal, slavish man with a wild accent. The man who rows their boat (carved out of a single tree trunk) tells them the story of a ghostly shamanic woman who lives in the woods by the river and appears at critical moments in people’s lives.
Continue reading “Gloomy River – an allegorical masterpiece of Soviet cinema”
The Atypical Political 