Candlelight, Snow, Chekov & Other Thoughts II

I have to mention one of my favourite books in recent years: Philip Marsdens Spirit-Wrestlers: A Russian Journey. There's a particular bit at the beginning which I go back to continually in my thoughts:

Each morning in the yard below my flat, there now appeared a woman with a broom who replaced the wintry scrape-scraping of snow shovels with an odd litany of shouting. 'May the devil take you! The devil dance on your grave! Jokers! Criminals! This isn't a country, it's a prison!'

Such was the vitriol of her cries that it occurred to me that she swept the yard not because she had to, but out of some desperate need for self-expression. When I talked to her, it turned out she was the widow of a former Soviet ambassador to Brazil.

I bought the book on the back of a review in a newspaper, I really didn't know what to expect and was completely fascinated and moved by Marsdens encounters with the people he met along his journey through Russia and the Caucasus.

What seems to connect everything I have read so far, things that I've caught on to, is the reassuring presence of humanity no matter where you are, it seems absolutely intrinsic to us. Even in the worst circumstances (the earthquake in Haiti recently). On the other hand, the cynic in me would think of it in terms of human selfishness (instinctual need to survive?) as an absolute guarantee balanced by human compassion and altrusim. Maybe that's what makes us human, no wonder we get ourselves into so much trouble!

--thought break--

Two moving war films come to mind here.

One surprisingly from 1985 Russia: Come And See (Idi i Smotri). A disturbing, dream-like film, capturing the disbelief, confusion and insanity of terrible events through the eyes of a Russian peasent boy. I've read a few reviews for this and some have complained about the acting being wooden and the Nazi characters being OTT stereotypes. I don't see it personally. Maybe it's our moderate, cosy, polite democracy trying to keep things level headed and objective. 'Overly emotive' I hear them say, 'Russian propaganda'. Knowing what happened to these people, I don't think they have the right to tell them how to feel. It is a kind of revenge film. Expressing the utter outrage and misery of a people treated with such brutality, they are the only ones who could make a film like this. I've never been so angered by a film, and maybe that was the point.

The other is a Polish one from 1957 called Kanal. I loved the people in this film, it was a kind of last chance ditch rallying cry before the madness and eventual dispair of the inevitable. Set in Warsaw it tells of a group of resistance fighters who find themselves in the sewers of the city trying to escape the Nazis. Part of a triology, I haven't managed to get hold of the other two films yet.

Candlelight, Snow, Chekov & Other Thoughts

We had a power cut the other week for over 15 hours. It was snowing and the whole country seemed to be at a standstill. So, having been reduced to using the old gas cooker to sustain myself as best I could and a few candles for light, I thought I'd go through some old favourites of mine. Anton Chekov popped up. A short story would do me fine I thought. Reading this reminded me of a time back in my early twenties when for some reason or other I developed a fascination for Russia.

This massive expanse of land that was neither Europe or Asia: a place between continents, seemed wild, romantic, mysterious. I was a bit of a history buff back then, and having grown up with cold war films and the vague shady politics of the day, Russia was also dangerous, harsh, a place of extremes and contradictions.

I went through a couple of books (incl. Chekov), but none of the big names like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, I don't think I was ready for that yet. Most were political/war: Orlando Figes monumental A Peoples Tragedy, Stalingrad by Antony Beevor, Intimacy & Terror: Soviet Dairies of the 1930s...

I even remember once some reps came to the door from the communist party. They were holding an event including some screenings of old Russian films, and I so wanted to see a particular film that was listed, I just said yes. God, what was I thinking? When I got to the screening room I had a good look round at the demographics of the people who were there: women, women, and more women, of the wolly, feminist kind. What does say? I really don't know. I can't actually remember the name of the film now...famous as it is...the one with the baby in the pram rolling down the stairs and the red flag against b&w film? Oh, yes, Eisensteins Battleship Potemkin.

All this politics seems far away now. I read 1984 a couple of years later and it felt as if I had read it before. Maybe because I was so familiar with totalitarian stories through films and books, it wasn't shocking as it may have been back when it was published.

I just had a thought. About the definition of 'democracy' and 'freedom'...another post maybe

Symptons of the Day

A strange thing happens when the sun disappears under that horizon. Danger, sex, heightened senses, possibilities not open until darkness falls. People seem to switch their brains into a different mode, like they've been on auto pilot for the day and now they're allowed to become themselves again. The rules of the day don't apply anymore.

A friend was on the train, about 10pm, she was accosted by a guy who thought he could take certain liberties (even with other passengers present on the train). Nothing serious happened thank god. Another friend, who by day is quiet, serious, hardworking, admitted to having a bad habit of getting completely plastered (drunk) most nights, and on occasion running down the street in high heels with nothing on top but a bra.

I feel this change too. Especially past midnight, when the streets are quieter, as if waiting for something magical, exhilirating to happen. Maybe it's the darkness, the shadows, the way the light or lack of it transforms the streets, the qoutidian becomes a playground for our desires. It's a collective thing too, a kind of authorised madness. We become social again, animals...