Jan

25

Part of the Russian film Festival at the Walter Reade Theatre at Lincoln Center.

Saw "Seven Bullets" today, a mixture of "Taras Bulba," "Gunfight at the OK Corral," and half dozen knife-slinger fighter cowboys vs. posses/aka guns-for-hire set in the harsh Russian steppes, with blood-thirsty horsemen and soldiers in the Soviet revolutionary war years of 1917-1920. The amazing horsemanship and gunplay, shootings, stabbings, burnings, imagined revenge for killings by wrongly identified people ("No, my son, that is not the killer; your brother's killer was handsome, and much shorter"), is alleviated only momentarily when one sees the brilliant white teeth of all parties. Real bad-guys and counter-bad-guys of that time would surely have had terrible teeth by the time their clothing got that grungy. The interesting difference between this film is that there were no stuntmen doing these leaps onto spirited stallions, or flying from building roof to saddle, or rescuing the unprepossessing young woman who is affianced to one eye-patched tribal leader "for 300 rams"–and men in both sides of the frequently changing sides are Soviet Muslims, stopping to pray inside their prisoner's cells, or facing their prayer mat hung on the yurt wall. Seeing the Russian or soviet mindset refracted through a somewhat primitive understanding of the cult of the moment is frankly fascinating, and a new theatrical experience on a number of levels.

The scenery is austere. It is also ravishing, hard and unvisited by many prior films in our acquaintance. The tiny snarky font shown by the filmmakers, and you can miss it if you aren't attuned, is the etiolated background theme from the TV show, "Mission Impossible," which detracts from the hellfire seriousness of the goings-on, but reminds one that one is watching a film, not brutal hired soldiers en route to delivering a bride-to-be. The color palette seems confined to dusty, umber and dirt-russet alleviated by black and leaden grey. The bride-to-be is a shy filly, not anyone's Hollywood idea of a knockout, but she is passionate and spirited in defense of the cavalryman she has fallen in love with. The purchaser/groom is decades older, of course, and—we learn—not really a be-caftaned and kris-decked bachelor. The men in the gang of horsemen must have families, because mention is made of their family members being trampled or knifed or hung or whatever, but we don't see these back-stories, so any sacrificed wives and children have a porous immateriality. Missing among the overacting and strident facial expressions: Yul Brynner, for whom this would have been catnip.

When the shooting commences in a silent, deeply canyoned village, perfect for an ambush, the audience cannot figure out which team to root for, or who is what, since they none of them wear identifying colors, and the action is nonstop bang-bang for quite a time.

 It is not a fun movie, but it is a rich sociological document. The Asiatic Russian tribesmen, as well as the handsome cavalry riders (no telling which were the necessarily good guys, which the bad, since both seem astonishingly fierce and whacko, except when they show the slightest mercy for the hapless condemned–just a moment, mind you)–speak a tough but clear Russian, and the translations are serviceable.

This film is exceptional in being less than the usual superb Russian lenser output, such as the remarkable Alexei Popogrebsky's "How I Ended This Summer"~ two men set against the icy sweep of the far North at a Russian radiation-measuring station. The two men, one a grizzled vet, the other a green newcomer to the field, interact in ways that keep the mind and eye glued to developments in mood, temperament and story twists, along with the strong 'character' of the rough glacial scenario itself, its unforgiving nature and sudden shifts. This film, nuanced and restrained, but taut from start to finish, lingers long in the memory.

In Russian, English subtitles.


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