To Russian film "Island" by Pavel Lungin
THE ISLAND OF (UN)PERFECTION
The ninth edition of the Motovun Film Festival closed with the russian film "Island" by Pavel Lungin, but due to the fact that this film was shown in the very end and because of the fact that it wasn't part of the official competitive programme, it seems that this exceptional achievement did not get the attention which it deserves. Truly, this year's Motovun's main programme was very strong and it had a large number of strong and complex achievements, but still, "Island" distinguishes itself among many things.
Pavel Lungin, in his main character, father Anatolij (Petr Mamonov), will succeed in a magical way to reflect the whole universum. Because the whole controversial character of father Anatolij on many levels symbolizes life and death, reaching in its cruelest way the worst in life and the beast in death. Life and its obverse, the life in which sense can not be found, in which the place where we belong and the peace can not be found. But even death, the wanted peace that can not come if you don't clear the handships that you carry with yourself.
Father Anatolij carries on its back the hardest sin, the sin of betrayal because of the murderer of his captain in order to save his life during Second World War when they were captured, the sin of cowardice. That sin will completely mark his life as well as his death, because no matter how much he wishes for it, it doesn't come. Not, untill you embrace life because their connection is inevitable.
On the other hand, Lungin fantastically reflects the small religious community on the island where Anatolij spents 30 years, where in a very simple way will capture a fascinating portrait of characters. Anatolij, who will became famous as a psychic and a healer, is the person that walks towards the wind, he is everything that one community with fixed rules can not tolerate. But, Lungin with a great doze of balanced humour will portray both the positive and the negative in the lonely monastery on the island, the narrowmindness and the openmindness, the fear and the openess to accept the different, the power of the believers and the unbelievers and the strength to believe in the exit even where it doesn't exist.
In the end, the film culminates eith irony. The irony which like an anthitesis always plays with the extremes. The cowardice of Anatolij is harshly punished but forgiven in the very end when he finds the peace he longed for far so long. His captain, who actually survived and an admiral now, the man that isn't scared of anything, is forsed to look for a help for his daughter who is fighting the demons, confronting the father with a completely different side of life, the side which he never wanted to see. Filled with many characters that came to see father Anatolij for his help and who are fighting the prejudices and beliefs, accompanied with the beautiful landscape of the island, of the sea and the expansion that can be very cold but full with life as well, beautiful in their peace and expectation, transform this film into a perfectly complicated picture in which the whole universum with its contrasts it's reflected. "Island" is a particular film which manages to capture perfection, to portray the world and it's whole complexity through one seemingly little peace of unperfection.
Suncica Unevska
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