The stylistic flourishes of Ilyenko I have come to love feel largely absent here. While I was able to spot a few trademarks, most notably I have come to adore his window shots, they felt few and far between. In fact, this movie feels, by all accounts, fairly “normal.”
A generous read might compare this to something like Mirror, especially with Ilyenko’s name attached. But while it obviously has an adoration for the matriarch, it doesn’t seem interested in her true interior.
I observed a stark difference in treatment between the protagonist of this film versus the previous film’s (Defying Everybody). Both films express a sort of adoration akin to proverbial sainthood to these characters. However, here, I often felt deprived of Aleksandra’s interior. Our empathy was constrained to the releflection of events through her eyes.
I will offer one counter to my own point which adheres to Aleksandra’s own words at the end. She seems* to reject the kind of recognition she gets because of principles. Presumably she protests the monetary implication (I think she reiterates the mention of salary). If this is true, then perhaps Ilyenko opted for a more reserved telling of her story out of respect for this kind of sainthood aversion. Just speculation on my part.
Overall I found this surprisingly typical even in its sentimentality. Still got that window shot tho…
*The Youtube copy I watched only had auto-generated translated subs which were, at times, very difficult to follow.
The stylistic flourishes of Ilyenko I have come to love feel largely absent here. While I was able to spot a few trademarks, most notably I have come to adore his window shots, they felt few and far between. In fact, this movie feels, by all accounts, fairly “normal.”
A generous read might compare this to something like Mirror, especially with Ilyenko’s name attached. But while it obviously has an adoration for the matriarch, it doesn’t seem interested in her true interior.
I observed a stark difference in treatment between the protagonist of this film versus the previous film’s (Defying Everybody). Both films express a sort of adoration akin to proverbial sainthood to these characters. However, here, I often felt deprived of Aleksandra’s interior. Our empathy was constrained to the releflection of events through her eyes.
I will offer one counter to my own point which adheres to Aleksandra’s own words at the end. She seems* to reject the kind of recognition she gets because of principles. Presumably she protests the monetary implication (I think she reiterates the mention of salary). If this is true, then perhaps Ilyenko opted for a more reserved telling of her story out of respect for this kind of sainthood aversion. Just speculation on my part.
Overall I found this surprisingly typical even in its sentimentality. Still got that window shot tho…
*The Youtube copy I watched only had auto-generated translated subs which were, at times, very difficult to follow.
