Sade. Geometry was the pervert marquis's true passion and so it is for the director of this film. In the pornographic writings of the famous prisoner of Bastille, desire is abstracted into highly complex angular figures composed of pleasure and pain-seeking bodies. Likewise, Balabanov loathes primitive melodramatic triangles and presents the viewer with a decagon. The result is an aesthetic study of that particular blend of suffering and pleasure, of exhibitionism and voyeurism, of evil and good
of freaks and men, that no number of spoilers in this review can compromise the pleasure of watching.
The film starts with a triptych as the viewers are presented with Yohan (a clandestine pornographer in early 20th century St. Petersburg), a little girl Liza who will grow up into his Justine and a pair of Siamese twins adopted by the unhappily married doctor Stasov (they will become pornographers' prey too). Nevertheless, the key to Balabanov's contemplative pleasure is symmetry. His characters form symbolic (and real) pairs that interact with one another. In this symmetrical structure there is hardly a development that does not involve or is not brought about by any given couple of personages.
Engineer Radlov and Doctor Stasov are friends and heads of the two households who will see the end of their happiness and meet their own ends as a result of encounter with the corrupting world of pornography. Both are well-meaning naives: the former dies from heart attack after learning that his shy daughter Liza exposes herself in masochist compositions before camera. The latter is killed never realizing that his unloving wife with the misty unseeing eyes does the same.
The chambermaids of the two houses, Grunya and Daria, serve as a conduit of corruptive influence. The latter is an eager model of the pornographers that seduces the Siamese twins. The latter is a secret mistress of engineer Radlov to whom he bequeaths his property and custody of Liza not knowing that Grunya is in fact Johan's sister.
Yohan has an alter ego in the person of his assistant, an aspiring pornographer Victor Ivanovich. Yohan is a foreigner who features thick hair, an unsmiling countenance and cold autistic eyes warmed only by the masochist spectacle. Victor Ivanovich could not be more Russian in both name and appearance, is absolutely bold and always eerily cheerful. Whereas the object of Yohan's voyeuristic passion is Liza, Victor Ivanovich dreams of the Siamese.
The inseparable brothers are in a way the key element of the entire composition. Most unmistakably twins of all the paired characters, Kolia and Tolia embody the lighter and the darker side of human nature. The latter succumbs to the lure of the chambermaid's bare breast, while the latter indignantly rejects it. Forced to a glass of vodka before the first filming, Tolia eagerly takes to drinking, whereas Kolia remains virtuously sober to the very end. This makes the twins emblematic of that peculiar blend of humanity and freakishness - displayed by nearly each character and face in the film – that provides Balabanov's philosophical bottom-line.
Yohan's old and half-witted nanny who delivers punishment in the masochist mis-en-scenes and the young director of photography Putilov constitute the final pair. They stand at the opposite ends of the camera and facilitate the spectacle in a purely technical way. The former is Liza's whip wielding nemesis, who seems to be unaware of her role; the latter is her self-proclaimed saviour, who defaults on his promise. Having failed to extricate Liza from the squalid net of which he is himself an element, Putilov disappears and immediately thereafter Johan's nanny dies.
The disappearance of this pair announces the implosion of the entire decagon. Yohan collapses in an epileptic fit (a kind of temporary death), whereas Victor Ivanovich meets his real death at the hands of Kolia, who fires a gun picked from Yohan's pocket in an attempt to save Liza, whom he desperately loves. Released from the grip of the geometry of desire, Liza parts with Kolia (and, of course, Tolia). She takes the train to the West (something that she contemplated since the beginning of the film), while they board and eastbound ship in order to realize their intent to find their father.
The train and the ship, or rather the engine and the boat, in fact constitute an additional (non-human) symbolic pair. Periodic appearances of engine on the screen (engineer Radlov's house stands near a railway) announce new episodes in Liza's pornographic career. A steam boat takes Yohan and Viktor Ivanovich to each new accomplishment in their sordid activity. Both the engine and the steamboat represent the antagonistic unity of fire and water, water and metal, metal and fire To be sure, humanity is always chased by its freakish shadow which is suggested by the film's soundtrack. Never reaching the South-East Asia, the Siamese end up on a concert tour around Russia performing the same song about train that they rehearsed before their soon-to-be-corrupted adoptive mother. Tolia drinks himself to death and is bemoaned by Kolia, who is sure to follow his brother in a short time.
In an unidentified "western" town to which the engine takes her, Liza hears the same melody that accompanies the opening scene of the film - the countess's aria from Gretry's Richard the Lion Heart. Popularized in Russia by Tchaikovsky, who included it into his Queen of Spades, the aria expresses the irresistibility of desire. Accordingly, Liza heads for the local red light district where she is seduced by a leather-clad male prostitute with a whip in his hand. Back in St. Petersburg, Yohan steps on the melting ice of the Neva river, after watching for the very last time the film with his nanny whipping Liza's bottom. Masoch
The film starts with a triptych as the viewers are presented with Yohan (a clandestine pornographer in early 20th century St. Petersburg), a little girl Liza who will grow up into his Justine and a pair of Siamese twins adopted by the unhappily married doctor Stasov (they will become pornographers' prey too). Nevertheless, the key to Balabanov's contemplative pleasure is symmetry. His characters form symbolic (and real) pairs that interact with one another. In this symmetrical structure there is hardly a development that does not involve or is not brought about by any given couple of personages.
Engineer Radlov and Doctor Stasov are friends and heads of the two households who will see the end of their happiness and meet their own ends as a result of encounter with the corrupting world of pornography. Both are well-meaning naives: the former dies from heart attack after learning that his shy daughter Liza exposes herself in masochist compositions before camera. The latter is killed never realizing that his unloving wife with the misty unseeing eyes does the same.
The chambermaids of the two houses, Grunya and Daria, serve as a conduit of corruptive influence. The latter is an eager model of the pornographers that seduces the Siamese twins. The latter is a secret mistress of engineer Radlov to whom he bequeaths his property and custody of Liza not knowing that Grunya is in fact Johan's sister.
Yohan has an alter ego in the person of his assistant, an aspiring pornographer Victor Ivanovich. Yohan is a foreigner who features thick hair, an unsmiling countenance and cold autistic eyes warmed only by the masochist spectacle. Victor Ivanovich could not be more Russian in both name and appearance, is absolutely bold and always eerily cheerful. Whereas the object of Yohan's voyeuristic passion is Liza, Victor Ivanovich dreams of the Siamese.
The inseparable brothers are in a way the key element of the entire composition. Most unmistakably twins of all the paired characters, Kolia and Tolia embody the lighter and the darker side of human nature. The latter succumbs to the lure of the chambermaid's bare breast, while the latter indignantly rejects it. Forced to a glass of vodka before the first filming, Tolia eagerly takes to drinking, whereas Kolia remains virtuously sober to the very end. This makes the twins emblematic of that peculiar blend of humanity and freakishness - displayed by nearly each character and face in the film – that provides Balabanov's philosophical bottom-line.
Yohan's old and half-witted nanny who delivers punishment in the masochist mis-en-scenes and the young director of photography Putilov constitute the final pair. They stand at the opposite ends of the camera and facilitate the spectacle in a purely technical way. The former is Liza's whip wielding nemesis, who seems to be unaware of her role; the latter is her self-proclaimed saviour, who defaults on his promise. Having failed to extricate Liza from the squalid net of which he is himself an element, Putilov disappears and immediately thereafter Johan's nanny dies.
The disappearance of this pair announces the implosion of the entire decagon. Yohan collapses in an epileptic fit (a kind of temporary death), whereas Victor Ivanovich meets his real death at the hands of Kolia, who fires a gun picked from Yohan's pocket in an attempt to save Liza, whom he desperately loves. Released from the grip of the geometry of desire, Liza parts with Kolia (and, of course, Tolia). She takes the train to the West (something that she contemplated since the beginning of the film), while they board and eastbound ship in order to realize their intent to find their father.
The train and the ship, or rather the engine and the boat, in fact constitute an additional (non-human) symbolic pair. Periodic appearances of engine on the screen (engineer Radlov's house stands near a railway) announce new episodes in Liza's pornographic career. A steam boat takes Yohan and Viktor Ivanovich to each new accomplishment in their sordid activity. Both the engine and the steamboat represent the antagonistic unity of fire and water, water and metal, metal and fire To be sure, humanity is always chased by its freakish shadow which is suggested by the film's soundtrack. Never reaching the South-East Asia, the Siamese end up on a concert tour around Russia performing the same song about train that they rehearsed before their soon-to-be-corrupted adoptive mother. Tolia drinks himself to death and is bemoaned by Kolia, who is sure to follow his brother in a short time.
In an unidentified "western" town to which the engine takes her, Liza hears the same melody that accompanies the opening scene of the film - the countess's aria from Gretry's Richard the Lion Heart. Popularized in Russia by Tchaikovsky, who included it into his Queen of Spades, the aria expresses the irresistibility of desire. Accordingly, Liza heads for the local red light district where she is seduced by a leather-clad male prostitute with a whip in his hand. Back in St. Petersburg, Yohan steps on the melting ice of the Neva river, after watching for the very last time the film with his nanny whipping Liza's bottom. Masoch