Eternal Homecoming [Вечное Возвращеиние]

A man visits a woman; he is an old acquaintance from her school years and seeks help to resolve his deadlocked situation. Different actors may duplicate one another as they play the same role, or sometimes the same actors may play the scenario out again, taking on completely different visual styles. Veteran actor Oleg Tabakov, for example, first appears in a standard suit, while actress Alla Demidova wears a19th century granny-style dress; the two then reappear wearing strikingly different fashions: now Tabakov is in a cap and hoodie while Eternal Homecoming Demidova sports a short black wig with a cigar. [Вечное возвращеиние] Duplicated images, and thus blurred identities, emerge in the names of characters as well: the Ukraine, 2012 heroine cannot figure out whether her visitor is Color, 108 minutes Oleg or Iurii. As the heroine points out, the Russian with English subtitles nicknames of his wife, Liuda, and girlfriend, Director: Kira Muratova Liusia, come from the same name. The Screenplay: Kira Muratova director’s typical tactics level out differences Camera: Vladimir Pankov and resist the uniqueness of the characters. Cast: Renata Litvinova, Oleg Tabakov, Sergei Only when the film has progressed to Makovetskii, Anna Demidova, Vitalii the middle does the trick become apparent: the Linetskii, Natal'ia Buz'ko, Georgii Deliev, Uta scenes turn out to be fragments of casting Kil'ter, Iurii Nevgamonyi, Gennadii Skarga, auditions by a deceased film director. In order Evgeniia Barskova to continue making the film, a young producer is Producers: Oleg Kohan showing the portfolio of scenes to a potential Production: Sota Cinema Group investor, who pretends to understand this “non- Awards: Nika Award for Best Film of CIS and commercial, art-house” film. Muratova has used Baltic States this film-inside-a-film structure before, in her most well-known film, Asthenic Syndrome Eternal Homecoming, the most recent (1989), to make a sharp comment on the film directed by Kira Muratova, holds relationship between directors and audiences in challenges for the audience that are similar to the Perestroika period. Here, Muratova uses it those of the director’s previous films. It is not to make fun of the film production process. The difficult to recognize Muratova’s authorial scene is conveyed by ironical self-reflection, as thumbprint on the film: the appearance of her she cast her real producer Oleg Kohan and her favorite actors, (including Natal'ia Buz'ko, grandson Anton Muratov respectively to play the Renata Litvinova, Anna Demidova and Oleg simpleminded investor and the cunning Tabakov); the mise-en-scène of a genteel, well- producer, who successfully grabs the investor’s furbished apartment filled with her typical props money by deception. (paintings, mirrors, a piano, house plants); and This device—of a film-inside-a-film— most importantly, her signature use of “twinned” shifts the focus away from the fictional hero and images, from the level of props to repetitive heroine to the actors participating in the casting scenes. The most important chains of doubles in audition. The insistent repetitions allow this film are created by the recurrence of spectators to discover forgotten lines and crude episodes. acting, along with changes to the set and two The same simple story unravels several specific, recurrent props. The heroines bring times over, played out by several pairs of actors of different ages, personalities, and occupations. these props into the scene again and again: the contract. By contrast, in a separate scene painting “A Ghost in an Armchair” and a tangled towards the end, the camera closes in on knot of rope. The two objects repeat themselves Litvinova, sentimentally reclining on the bed visually, structurally, and metaphysically as while Petr Leshchenko’s song plays in the metaphors in several layers of frames. An background. While Buz'ko’s scene reveals that armchair (covered with white fabric in the the previous scene is a mere celluloid world, painting) resonates with similar chairs shown in Litvinova remains in the melodramatic frame, the production screening room where the within the status quo. As the canny producer producer and investor are located; they create a points out, without knowing the deceased film mise-en-abyme between the two camera angles, director’s intentions—which fragments to directed towards the screening room and the include (the prosaic reality or the melodramatic casting-test films. The rope’s knot, which the screen world?)—the whole film becomes a kind heroine struggles to untangle, is not only of “game” to be played with the viewer. duplicated in one of the on-set paintings, but also implies off-screen backstories: the hero’s Kiun Hwang tangled love life; a man’s suicide; and the narrative, tangled into itself. Kira Muratova was born in Soroca (in present- To resolve the situation, a choice must day Moldova) and completed her studies at the be made. The hero is constantly put on the spot State Institute for Filmmaking (VGIK) in to choose between two options: whether to drink Moscow in 1962. After directing two films coffee or tea; whether he came by plane or by together with her husband, Aleksandr Muratov, train; whether he is Oleg or Iurii; and, finally, she began her solo directing career in 1967 whether to choose his wife or his girlfriend. But with Brief Encounters, the first of her many he denies or ignores any given question. films to be banned and/or severely censored by Moreover, as the heroine herself notes, his the authorities during the Soviet era. Since the selection would be meaningless; it does not collapse of the Soviet Union, Muratova has matter who he is and whether he chooses Liuda emerged as one of the most important or Liusia. Regardless, he is coming back, twice, cinematic auteurs of her age. Her late- thrice, even from a suicidal death reported on perestroika film Asthenic Syndrome marked the television. He continues his eternal return. peak of so-called chernukha filmmaking, and Resisting or evading choices lies in the her post-Soviet work continues to challenge both film’s fundamental structure: a chain of ethical and aesthetic sensibilities. Despite her repetitive, apparently un-edited fragments that long association with Odessa Film Studios, all of render all the situations meaningless. The her films to date have been in Russian. replays exhaust the melodramatic mood otherwise set up by symbolic domestic Filmogrpahy: decorations and nostalgic, sentimental music (this includes Petr Leshchenko’s songs of the 2012 Eternal Homecoming 1930s and Zemfira’s performance of the Duke of 2009 Melody for a Street Organ Mantua’s aria, “La donna e mobile”). An 2007 Two in One irresolute man (with his bathetic story of a love 2004 The Tuner triangle, one man’s suicide and another’s return) 2002 Chekhovian Motifs becomes a light-hearted skit about human 2001 Minor People failings and dilemmas that repeat forever. 1999 Letter to America Twice in the film, the endlessly 1997 Three Stories repeating parade of casting-test scenes is broken 1994 Passions by a black-and-white screen that offers two 1992 The Sentimental Policeman contrasting critical moments when the camera 1989 Asthenic Syndrome follows the two main actresses, first Buz'ko and 1987 A Change of Fortune then Litvinova. In the middle of the film, the 1983 Among the Grey Stones camera tracks back, following Buz'ko from a 1978 Getting to Know the Big Wide World low-angle; the actress is coming out of the set 1971 The Long Farewell and yelling at the phone, complaining about the 1967 Brief Encounters .

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