Under-ART-ed

The film that I’m going to talk about today is one that made me think of this blog in the first place – a home for works which aren’t heard of much. I still remember the evening in the year of 2018 –   had it not been for a few friends who’d gotten me to the film festival, which was dismal at the start (with a terrible film, but I won’t name it now), I’d neither have known that such work ever existed, nor would you be reading this now. As is typical of me, I’d walked into the hall pretty late, but still managed to find a seat because it was the last show that night, starting at some time around nine or nine-thirty, which was pretty late for a weekday. When I’d begun watching the film, Andrei, the supposed antagonist, as we begin to feel later in the movie, was eyeing this woman in a light dress far from where all the action at his exhibition was – which was in my opinion, probably the best place to start, especially since, a re-watching of the movie, having procured a torrent after two

If I were to try and explain what Beanpole were in a sentence – I’d simply say it’s one of those few films based on a war where you never see a gun, or hear a bullet, but feel the same anguish, if not less. Set in 1945 Leningrad, the film begins with Iya, a nurse at a military hospital, suffering from post concussion syndrome – something which sent her into a frozen state without any prior warnings, irrespective of the time or place – becoming the very thing that would turn to be fatal to her young son, trapped in her tight embrace. But who am I even kidding – the Russians and Turks never go easy on the script – and as we move further ahead, we get to meet Masha, a friend of Iya’s who had served in the war, both, by her side, before her concussion, and even after, to avenge someone dear’s death, while, her son, Pashka, had been left in Iya’s care. Hence, with the end of the war, we finally dive into the dysfunctional lives of these two friends, who had lost almost everything they had