Marxism Today November 1982 3t9

A TRAIN STOPPED IN John Birch

While people in Moscow wait for the succes- An investigator arrives in a provincial sion to the leadership to be resolved, and town to determine the reasons for a train genuinely new policies to be implemented derailment in which the engine-driver was instead of the stop-gap food programme, a heroically killed trying to prevent the crash; new film has been showing at the capital's the local party already has plans underway largest and most prestigious cinema theatre, for a memorial to commemorate this town the Rossiya on Pushkin Square. hero. But the more he probes the further the Advertised as a tale of 'irresponsibility', A responsibility and culpability for the acci- Train Stopped marks the last appearance of dent stretches: from speedometers that actor Solonitsyn (familiar to Western film- never worked, and drunken linesman to the goers as Tarkovskii's ) who station manager, and back to the driver who died recently. Yet there is little doubt that a simply tried to jump and save himself too film held back for two years, touching such late. The investigator is warned off, and critical subjects as local party cover-ups, when he persists his adopted stray dog is press distortion, endemic irresponsibility killed. Finally he leaves, defeated by the and with such an excellent cast is being collusion of the local party and the press (the shown as a political act of some importance, journalist played by Solonitsyn) who The Georgian film Swimmer (about repres- between them have built up the myth of the sion in the 30s) was recently released in a 'hero engine driver'. And, as the monument strongly censored variant and at an out-of- is unveiled, he walks away whilst music the-way surburban 'palace of culture': A drowns out the speechifying for TV cameras Train Stopped is being shown with few cuts by station master, workmates, former teach- and its pessimistic final sequences ers and the film cuts from the ranks of blank- undoctored. faced and uniformed Komsomol teenagers Marxism Today November 1982 41

to the lonely retreating figure of the good', retorts Solonitsyn, 'You're just going to see A Train Stopped: the box-office investigator... upsetting everyone — at least the old woman draw of the cast was neutralised by the sub- The story is hardly a novel one, and over will get a hero's pension for her son because ject. Many who went walked out — though the last few years many aspects have been of what I'm doing.' whether through boredom or being unable treated with increasing frankness in Pravda What then are the ideas behind releasing to take the quite undiluted and pessimistic and other Soviet papers. However, the direc- the film now and, just as important, the realism of the film, one could not say. tor has produced a film of great artistic and audience reaction? The strict enforcement An excellent and disturbing film marking moral power, a compelling if exhaustingly of 'the rules' to eliminate corruption and a crucial point in the development of the intense account that catches exactly the atti- inefficiency is an ambiguous goal, since they , which will be well worth tudes and turn of phrase of each representa- are in themselves contradictory, and espe- seeing when it reaches the West — although tive character, and very accurately depicts cially because the golden age harked back to by then it may have been already out-dated what a provincial town actually looks like, by some (both young and old) is a vague era by subsequent (even consequent) events. from plush party offices to old-fashioned before the War ie, the 1930s. Others have sanatoria and slightly run-down hotels. concluded that rather than the bogus heroes Thus it takes social criticism well beyond and heroic deeds invoked from that period the one-room, one-enterprise setting of the on, what is needed, now at least, is for every- Bonus and without that film's rather con- one to do their job responsibly (at least in trived and hopeful ending. It also avoids any Man of Marble there was a hero in the first caricature or black and white character- place.) Yet overall, there is no clear conclu- isation: the investigator is a meddling fool, sion to be drawn, thus reflecting the perva- 'You haven't understood a thing, have you?' siveness and intractability of the problems says the station master towards the end with involved, and its showing serves to open up weary condescension: 'The rules? The more realistic discussion (of internal prob- rules? We haven't kept to the rules since lems) as the increasing criticism in the 1934!' cries the elderly linesman driven by Soviet press has also been doing. cross-examination to exasperated self-expla- The main problem in this struggle, even nation (and a fatal heart attack), 'and if we race, to create a wider thinking public had, nothing would ever have worked!' In between a mass who unthinkingly accept the major confrontation of the film the and those who have long ago given up read- investigator accuses the journalist (with ing or listening to the official media is sheer whom he has been friendly and shared the indifference. Compared to the long queues hotel room) of selling out by writing of the to see the popular Rossiya's usual fare of 'Driver's heroism' when he knows it's not escapist Soviet and generally second-rate true: 'Look: you're not going to do any Western films, in August notably few were

From Stalker, directed by and starring Anatoly Solonitsyn as the writer.