Beanpole
War is followed by peace.
The above statement is true, yet misleading. Whilst it is literally and logically true, what it implies does not correspond to the hope to which you might have clung during the relentless onslaught of violence, horror, and devastation. Whilst the absence of military operations means the end of the war, in peace, you soon realise that it is not exactly what you expected and desired. 'Peace' does not mean the restoration of 'normalcy', that is, the life before the war began. In 'peace', you are forced to acknowledge that you cannot take back what war took away from you. The severed limbs, lost eyes, or dead children would not suddenly come back to you. Still, the ending of the war, any war, is good. As bombing and shelling stop, the daily death toll drops, and much-needed supplies begin to trickle in. You no longer have to feel exceptionally lucky to have a slice of bread whose main ingredient is sawdust. If you can move at all, you can go down the street without fearing snipers. If you were lucky enough to have found shelter in a bunker, you may now find your way out, if there is one, and breathe the free air. When the mass killing stops, life can begin again. Yet, 'peace' does not mean the absence of suffering. In incognito, suffering silently grows. Without the grand narrative of collective struggle unfolding in real-time, suddenly, the experience of pain becomes personal. Your suffering becomes yours, and yours alone. This means one thing: 'peace' does not mean the vanishment of violence. And this is not what you were fighting for, not for yourself, not for your loved ones.
Kantemir Balagov's second feature film, Дылда (Dylda), or Beanpole as it is called in the English-speaking world, makes this point hauntingly explicit before the film even begins. Against the pitch-black background, the brief opening credit begins. It informs us tersely in letters that the story is set in Leningrad in the first fall since the end of WWII. The former imperial capital, Sankt-Petersburg, which was renamed after the founder of the Soviet Union, has just survived the most brutal siege, a genocidal campaign that lasted for almost 900 days, or more precisely, 2 years, 4 months, 2 weeks and 5 days, the infernal ordeal which claimed about 4 and half million Russian lives. Once a glorious cultural centre, the city is now gutted hollow and its starving inhabitants are surviving on scarce resources and bare-bone food rations, and Russian winter is approaching again. Then, in that darkness, you begin to hear a strange sound. For the entire duration of the opening credit, you are forced to give full attention to this audible distress. After a moment, you realise, to your horror, that the sound originates from a human vocal cord. You cannot discern whether it is the sound of someone sobbing or choking. The experience is unnerving. You sit in the dark, tense, and cannot do anything but to listen. You are not even allowed to wait, for you have no idea what comes next.
Suddenly, a close-up of a woman's face strikes our vision. It is washed out, frozen, expressionless. It appears that she has no awareness of her surroundings. Her body is there, yet she is not. And her throat continues to make this strange sound as she twitches. There is a woman in the background, toiling with laundry. Then, another woman's voice is heard, calling the frozen woman's name, before a hand begins to shake her shoulder. She calls repeatedly: Iya, Iya. The voice is muffled and distant. There is no response. She pinches the woman's cheek, then taps her nose, calling her Dylda, or Beanpole, a reference to the young woman's exceptional hight. Seeing this, the laundry woman asks the woman to pass her a soap. She obliges and then asks: How long has she been frozen? Ages, the laundry woman replies. She says that she has stopped paying attention to this happening, a testimonial to the frequency with which the young woman becomes unresponsive. Then, the audio suddenly intensifies, and the young woman is gripped by pain. A moment later, Iya (Viktoria Miroshnichenko) slowly comes to her senses. The woman comes over to Iya and asks what she was doing there. Iya smiles and replies that she was dropping off the laundry. She tells Iya that Nikolay Ivanovich needs to see her. When Iya goes to him, Nikolay Ivanovich (Andrey Bykov) informs her that one of the patients died and, in his capacity as the chief medical officer, he is going to transfer the food ration of the deceased to Iya so that she can have more for her young boy, Peshka (Timofey Glazkov), discreetly referring to the child's malnourishment and the resulting underdevelopment. Iya smiles and gratefully accepts.
Beanpole tells the story of a woman named Iya who tends the wounded at a military hospital in Leningrad. Her presence has given some solace to the survivors of the Homeland War, the most brutal war in human history which was fought between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, who invaded the former on 22 June 1941. Having overcome the genocidal campaigns of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union as a whole suffered over 194 million casualties by some estimates, the staggering figure which dwarfs others in comparison. She leaves her young boy, Peshka, to a grudging neighbour during her shift at a military hospital. It is later revealed that Peshka is not her own. Iya was asked to take care of him by his mother, Masha (Vasilisa Perelygina) when she was discharged from her duty as an anti-aircraft gunner due to the post-concussion seizure which frequently renders her unresponsive for a prolonged time with no forewarning. According to Masha, the two women served together at the front until Iya was sent back. Masha's husband was killed in action, and she fought on all the way to Berlin. The two women developed a strong bond forged during the intense battles. Yet, when the pair reunite, Peshka is missing. When Marsha realises that he is now dead, she drags Iya for an outing, to get laid.
The human drama that follows from this point on has all the hallmarks of classic Russian literature in the vein of Dostoyevsky: it is impossibly messy, unfathomably cruel, intensely passionate, darkly tragic, comically wretched, non-sentimentally dramatic, heartbreakingly tender, and unmistakably humane. Against the bleakest possible backdrop in the wake of the cruellest siege in human history, two women reunite and rekindle in the darkest circumstances of all. The war has at long last ended, yet the life in the battered city forcibly exposes the deepest possible flaws in every character. Every survivor of the brutal campaigns at the front is broken, physically and psychologically. The same generally applies to everyone, to the entire city of Leningrad, and to the entire nation. To understand the Soviet perspective, one must situate ordinary Soviets' ordeals within the devastating story of a nation which goes far back to the October Revolution of 1917. The Bolsheviks ended Russian involvement with the WWI in February 1918 when the Soviets signed the armistice with the Central Powers of German Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. During the six-year conflict, Russians suffered over 1.8 million military casualties, not counting civilian deaths. Yet, Russians had no repose. The armistice was immediately followed by the fierce civil war contested between Bolsheviks and anti-Bolsheviks, or known as 'Whites', which consisted of a motley crew of royalists, liberals, and ultranationalists. They fought tooth and nail for another six long years, devastating the general population with the loss of up to 12 million lives, of which most of the casualties suffered by civilians. Yet, the end of the Civil War brought neither stability nor peace.
When the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, took control, there followed the fierce struggles amongst the rivals. There soon followed the Polish-Soviet War in 1920, which began with the Polish invasion of Ukraine followed by Soviet counterattack. When Lenin's dream of expanding revolution beyond the national border was effectively shattered by the successful Polish counter-offensive led by Józef Piłsudski in the Battle of Warszawa, fought from 12 August to 25 August 1920, the political tensions within the communist leadership came to its head, Lenin and Trotsky accusing Stalin of the decisive loss. Overall, the war saw heavy casualties from both sides, with the loss of 70,000 Polish lives and 47,000 Soviet lives. Nonetheless, Stalin steadily expanded his power and influence within the party, and he was appointed by Lenin to the position of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Having rid of his old rivals such as Trotsky and Zinoviev, Stalin assumed the absolute power within the Soviet Union. Under his leadership, the political prosecution became commonplace and many, such as kulaks (landowning farmers), were sent to Gulags. During the First Five-Year Plan, he forced the collectivisation of farms, resulting in the Russian famine of 1921-1922, which claimed about 6 million lives. Then, in 1936, Stalin began the 'Great Purge', which began by eliminating 'Old Bolsheviks' who fought alongside Lenin during the October Revolution. The scope of the purge soon expanded exponentially and military leaders, intellectuals, ethnic minorities and foreign nationals were arbitrarily deported and executed. NKVD, short for Naródnyy Komissariát Vnútrennikh Del (The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs) arrested more than one and a half million people during the period of two years between 1937 and 1938; NKVD executed over 1,000 people a day on average and managed to shot nearly 700 thousand of them in total. The estimated deaths caused by the purge was between 950,000 to 1.2 million.
All of this happened to the Soviets even before they faced the most ruthless army on the face of the earth, whose leader had only one aim: their total extermination. In this, we are not even accounting for the hardships they endured under the Imperial rule. And what are all these sacrifices for ordinary Soviet citizens? Whilst the prospect of total annihilation must be worse than life under the cruel dictatorship, Beanpole unflinchingly exposes another historic betrayal: the Bolshevik revolution did not end the class struggles on behalf of proletariats. In a striking scene, Masha's boyfriend's mother, Lyubov (Kseniya Kutepova), is seen walking her dog in the city wherein every dog was said to be put on human consumption during the siege. She has maintained access to food, resources and above all, power. She and her family live in an elegant estate. Her son, Sasha (Igor Shirokov), is a spoiled brat who drives around at night with his playboy friend in search of easy sex. Lyubov flatly tells Marsha: this life is all he knows. This means one thing: when the nation was engaging in the total war to fend off the unprecedented existential threat, some were allowed to evade compulsory conscription and live without a care in the world engulfed in infernal flames.
As someone who has not lived through such a history, I cannot begin to imagine the level of exhaustion and the traumas they accumulated before the story of these two women took place. Therefore, it should not be surprised that Beanpole is a story of individuals who are broken, battered, crippled, and exhausted. These individuals can be hard and cruel even, yet they are also capable of profound compassion, unexpected generosity and great sacrifices. The protagonist, Iya, is tormented by the life-altering failing that has plunged her into the darkest place, and yet, she is still capable of her desire to atone and to love. Whilst nothing can undo what she has done, she also goes a great length in her sincere attempt to right her wrong. Whilst Masha is shrewd and cold-blooded in her pursuit of 'happiness', to the point where she is down-right cruel, she too had her share of misery and despair. Masha's story represents the untold story of many women at the front: she has been sexually exploited by their 'comrades' and, due to many abortions, she is no longer capable of pregnancy and motherhood which she fervently wishes to reclaim. Yet, despite all this, you will have to recognise that Masha is still capable of being touched by human affection. If you realise that a genuine expression of love does not resemble the scenes from Disney movies, Hollywood flicks or so-called 'reality TV', then you should be ready to appreciate how awkward it often is to the point of being unrecognisable as such. Whilst Iya's love and devotion to Masha is singularly clear, and so is Iya's old admirer's, most of the characters' expressions of affection or love are subtle, or muted even. To note and feel such affections requires us to be truly attentive to others with genuine disinterestedness. To be interested in other beings without regard to some gains for oneself is not only essential for one's capacity for aesthetic recognition; it is what it means to be human, for this ability is the prerequisite for one's capacity for genuine empathy. Without this, one's affective response in encountering distressing individuals or situations is not about others' experience; it is all about one's affective reaction itself. Beanpole is pedagogical in this precise manner; it does not follow the norms imposed by blockbuster productions designed to please and entertain. Yet, if you are open to genuine human experience, it touches and moves you by shaking you to the core.
Beanpole is a quintessentially Russian in the best possible way. Not because it is directed and performed by Russians. Not because it is situated within a significant point of Russian history. Like the best works of Russian authors such as Tarkovsky and Dostoevsky, it shows the improbable glimmer of hope in the human capacity for love and empathy in the darkest vortex of the human condition without a shred of sentimentality that only serves egomania. These authors allow us to curse, shouts, shake our fists in anger or despair. They even allow us to die. What they do not allow us to do is doing so by ourselves in seclusion. We do so with each and every character. Despite everything, these authors do not give up on humanity, and they do not allow us to do so in despair. And when Russians say 'everything', they mean it. Beanpole holds nothing back. Yet, it feels authentic thanks to Balagov’s sincerity. When we live in seclusion and the allure of separation from the Other has been silently and pervasively diminishing our human capacity for empathy, it is vital to be reminded of its endurance by exposing ourselves to the work that disrupts our delusional comfort. Hence, fellow cinephiles, please rejoice the arrival of a great Russian auteur, Kantemir Balagov. Beanpole is his only second feature, yet it is already a classic. You may find it hard to bear its intensity, yet you will not be disappointed.