CRYSTAL SWAN CERTAINLY PUTS BELARUS ON THE MAP

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bus


Logging into Mubi on an idle evening is how I now have two posts in store, one of which I happen to be writing at the moment. Now, my previous blog post might have already hinted at the soft corner I might have for ex-CCCP countries, but don’t let it give you the idea that I go soft on any freaking work. If that were the case, I’d have been writing about a very stupid Russian crime series titled Cold Shores, but the only thing I’ll say about it is that it’s terrible (not the cinematography – but the writing, certainly, overlooking crucial points just to let the plot build). However, I intend to waste neither your time, nor mine – which is why I’ll jump right into Crystal Swan (Belarusian: Хрусмаль (Crystal)), a 2018 Belarusian feature by Darya Zhuk. Now, Darya Zhuk might be a name you haven’t heard, but she’s been in the industry for quite some time, with ten directorial credits to her name (having worked on a few series, and shorts, though Crystal Swan happens to be her first feature as a director), six producer credits and also some writing credits. She began her career with HBO till her MFA turned her into the director that she now is. Crystal Swan is, in her words, reminiscent of the time when she left Belarus for the United States of America – set in the mid 90s post-soviet era – a time when the country was caught between two worlds, much like the central character of Velya.


In fact, the film does a great job telling the story of many girls like the director herself, who just never managed to  make it out of the country for some reason, and follow their dreams as they hoped to. Velya herself had studied law, but never put her degree to use, working as a DJ at a night club, living with her mother who had separated from her father, doing opioids in her spare time (the favorite class of drugs in Soviet countries), working on her tapes and applying for a US visa hoping it would land her in the womb of House music – Chicago. But the real world, especially for a country with a failing economy, like that of Belarus’ in the early 90s right after the collapse of the Soviet Union, demanded that Velya be able to afford a two-way ticket for her proposed trip to America, chances for which were nigh because the average man’s annual salary sometimes equaled the cost of just one. Velya, however, didn’t even have a job and found it easier to buy a company letterhead from a black marketeer overlooking the sale of crystal wares near Minsk. Everything was fine, till she copied the number on the letterhead as her workplace’s number, since the number never really rang the crystal factory, but the house of a person employed at the factory, in a town named Crystal – which Velya wasn’t aware of at the time. Upon learning that the American embassy would ring up the number in the form to verify her employment status, nothing’s as smooth as it could have been, and Velya’s been sent on a wild goose chase to find the person with the phone, ending up in the town of Crystal – in a Belarus she’d never seen, till her world changes altogether – and not in a romantic, beautiful way.

post soviet black market


Faced with opposition, criticism, and also disdain for her choice to go to America, the story reveals the general attitude of Belarusians towards people who wish to settle in the States, whilst showing us the post-soviet world where people didn’t have jobs, where former soldiers stunned fish with dynamite at night to catch them, where an innkeeper needed just a drink to let one stay in his cabins and where the cost of answering a phone in a stranger’s home was just way too high. As the film ends with Velya returning from the town of Crystal, she has more than just a crystal swan for a souvenir, while Derrick Carter’s I’m Sorry (Clairvoyage), which plays in the background, haunts your mind with a chill colder than any Russian winter.

velya


Belarus’ official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards (which to many people’s dismay, was never nominated), this film, despite having won the hearts of many Belarusians, still remains unknown to a large part of the world, with just a measly Wikipedia page to its name and a torrent only available on a Russian site. In fact, this style of filmmaking might be a first for Belarus, since this wasn’t exactly funded by the state, which still has strong censors, while most film projects, usually funded by the state, need to have a certain message that goes well with the state’s ideology, making works more of propagandas. However, a first certainly gives hope for much more to be on the way.

film scene


Just click on the text below to be led to the movie – which, however, doesn’t have any subtitles. You may obviously check out the scenes, and get a general idea of the story, but it’s always best with the subtitles (which I tried finding, but couldn’t). Then again, if you’re fluent in Russian, or Slavic languages and want to be part of a nice project, by say, subtitling these movies, please do let me know in the comments. This is something I really need help with. Now, here’s the link to the movie:

Crystal Swan

UPDATE: I FOUND THE SUBTITLES. YOU'LL FIND THEM BELOW!

Crystal Swan Subtitles

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