Film Review: Beanpole
© Liana Mukhamedzyanova/Non-Stop Production/Alamy
This devastating and beautifully bleak film set in 1945 Leningrad in the aftermath of WW II, is an astonishingly accomplished piece of work by the 27-year old director who also wrote the screenplay. It is based on The Unwomanly Face of War, an oral history published in 1985 by Svetlana Alexievich. He has rendered an unflinching vision of the appalling damage to bodies and psyches suffered by survivors of war. The once-beautiful city of Leningrad is destroyed, frigid, and lacking many of the bare necessities – like coal, gasoline, food, and medicine. Even as there is talk of a peaceful future, there is little evidence of hope at this moment. The city and its inhabitants are all shell-shocked and enduring extreme privations.
© Courtesy of Kino Lorber
The main locus is a veteran’s hospital for the severely wounded, many of whom have PTSD. Beanpole is the nickname of Ilya (Viktoria Miroshnichenko), on account of her extreme height and slender frame. She has been working in the hospital since being discharged from the army where she received a concussion so severe that it causes her to go into weird trance-like catatonic states at unexpected moments. She is otherwise high-functioning and an instinctively empathetic caregiver who works wonders for the patients. Her life is centered on her work and the care of a young boy, Pashka, presumed to be her son. Her life gets both better and worse after a tragedy befalls Pashka and his mother Masha (Vasilisa Perelygina), comes home from the war, where the two women had served together and forged a deep bond.
The difference between the two friends could not be more stark. Ilya has an innocent “deer in the headlights” quality, while Masha is wily, intense and seriously manipulative. While Ilya is grateful to have Masha move in with her and she gets a job at the hospital. The two are inseparable but Masha has some outrageous and complicated agendas in which she is constantly engaging the passive Ilya. Some of the plot twists involve euthanasia, blackmail, seduction, implied lesbian attraction, and delusion, mostly driven by Masha and a sense of desperation.
© Courtesy of Kino Lorber
The scenes unfold slowly with a minimum of dialogue and the dynamic between the two women is constantly shifting. Ilya is largely silent and unknowable. The fact that the director has managed to make the scenes between them mesmerizing and fully engaging is partially achieved by these two superb actresses who are filmed with ravishing sets and art direction. The lighting is soft and painterly allowing the characters faces to emerge from the often chaotic murky backgrounds depicting layers of finely detailed decrepitude. He often uses unusual palettes, including deep green with periodic shots of blood red caused by frequent nosebleeds and wounds. (It brings to mind Almodovar’s intense use of color). The film is definitely an indictment of the horrors of war without showing war. But it is also about how humans can find respite in connection with one another other, no matter how imperfect it may be. It is a hauntingly beautiful work of art.
