Ayka

Extremely hard watch I've never felt this uncomfortable ever watching any movie For a few scenes I had to look away because I got physically nauseous and found it almost unbearable. It felt like all the cells in my entire body was escape from witnessing the pain. I even considered walking out which I've never done in a theatre... I can't stop comparing it to Anora in my mind not just that was the last thing I watched but also because both are kinda essentially about a russian-speaking girl who's suffering and ends horribly and heartbreakingly. Like Anora, a lot of background information about the female lead is not explicitly shown and we had to infer them- her relationship with her family, her goals and aspirations, her economic and social status, her personality. Similarly, one way was seeing all the different sides of her: polite and presentable and hardworking, desperate and panicking, raging and violent, frustrated and annoyed, neglectful and cold, and finally caring and yet vulnerable. They both waver between powerless and powerful, and it's exactly this struggle between the these two states makes the process compelling. Unlike Anora, we spend a lot of time with Ayka and just Ayka. The camera follows her and we see what she sees. To some extent we have access to her interiority. This is what I wanted and what was lacking in Anora! I want a sympathetic lens! I want to be able to empathize with characters! I wanted to know Anni, to spend time with her, to see her when she's by herself, to feel her and feel for her but I was denied that. All I got was close-up shots of her screaming mouth, wide shots of her shouting at other people, displays of her near-naked body in the perspective of her client/husband, scenes of her in the perspective of Igor as if framing her as some prize to be won. (I THOUGHT THE MOVIE IS ABOUT ANORA WHY AM I CONSTANTLY SEEING THINGS IN THE POV OF TOROS OR IGOR OR WHATEVER INSTEAD OF HERS. WHY MAKE A CHARACTER-DRIVEN STORY IF YOU'RE NOT GONNA GIVE ME ACCESS TO THE CHARACTERS.) Anyway this is not about Anora and I don't like this movie just because I dislike Anora. Russian guy who watched it together with me said he felt like the movie romanticized things a bit and I agree. Ayka is almost like this Virgin Mary figure. She's conventionally attractive and pure and hasn't made any mistakes (even her pregnancy was forced upon her) and she doesn't do anything that morally ambiguous like stealing money even in her desperate state. She remains virtuous and is punished for it and at the end she's made to give up her son. (Ironically not for a divine cause but a real and dirty one.) Reality is never as clean as that. A lot of desperate people when pushed to their limits they do bad things, stealing, robbing, scamming, etc. And empathy shouldn't be conditional on the fact that they don't do such things. They shouldn't need to remain morally pure in a world that is actively killing them to earn empathy. Yeah I'd love to see the ugly, dirty, messy sides! I think that'd be emotionally challenging in a new way. Again the subtlety makes it feel so much more realistic, not overdramatized and poignant，點到即止。We never see her breakdown, but every time she suffers a blow we know how devastating it is, and she only ever sheds a tear in the last shot. (like Anora!) The repeated but not over-the-top imagery of babies... Her subtle but observable reaction to it every time... It all builds up into this crescendo in the ending where she is finally forced to confront it and we are too. To me this is what it looks like when discomfort is substantive in art. It exists both as a result of my connection to the characters and as a way to enable that connection. I'm not just looking at Ayka, I'm looking with her. I suffer with her and for her. I'm attached and I want to be! I care! It hurts and sometimes that's what caring is like! Despite/Because of it I care! (who's up for some letting love dare us to care for the people on the edge of the night later?) Not that we have to care about every character like this every time, I'm just saying caring and not caring are both choices. And the perspective influences who and how we care and not care. The camera is never neutral. Distance is never neutral. Who we laugh with and who we laugh at is never neutral. Feeling things is never neutral! Art is never neutral!