Production :
Академия кинематографического и театрального искусства Н.С. Михалкова / Académie de cinéma et de théâtre de N. Mikhalkov
Awards : Prix des spectateurs / приз зрительских festival Short Film Days, 2023.
Plot synopsis
Year 1937. The protagonist, a driver, transports at night the collaborators of the NKVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs in charge of state security, the terrible political police). While waiting for his passenger he rolls a cigarette with a piece of newspaper without seeing that on the back of the page he has torn up the portrait of Stalin.
Commentaries
The film tells about one evening in the life of the driver of a “funnel” - a car whose tire noise hundreds of thousands of people were afraid to hear under their window. The era of Stalinist repressions, approximately 1937: there is a lot of work, and the car travels around the city without a break, transporting those arrested to places where they will never leave.
One evening, the driver Alexander is waiting for the NKVD officers, sitting in the car, and is about to light a cigarette, but discovers that he has no cigarettes left. Luckily, there was some spilled tobacco at the bottom of the pack, and there was a newspaper in the back seat. Alexander rolls up a cigarette and indulges in pleasure, inhaling the sweet smoke. Pleasure gives way to a feeling of primitive horror when the driver notices that he rolled a cigarette, tearing off exactly that part of the page where Stalin’s portrait is depicted. Moreover, one of the security officers, whom Alexander was waiting for, manages to take the newspaper home.
Because of one minute trifle, Alexander's life is turned upside down. The fear of death forces him to commit many acts that would have been unimaginable just an hour ago. But in the end, he goes to confess to a security officer friend, who reacts very vaguely to his friend’s confession.
The film “Stalin's Cranberry” by the young director Ruslan Rimovich is about how fear eats the soul. But the theme of Stalin’s repressions was taken not in order to show the fears of the past and reflect on them, but in order to realize the present and understand what is happening today in comparison with that criminal era. This method is increasingly penetrating modern Russian cinema. Here we can recall the never released “Captain Volkonogov Fled” by Alexei Chupov and Natasha Merkulova.
In “Stalin's Cranberry” you will not find answers whether you should fight fear or succumb to it. Moreover, some of us are allowed much more than others, regardless of the framework of the law that is common to all. Look for the answer yourself.
Text – Igor Dorogov https://moviestart.ru/2023/01/09/dni-korotkometrazhnogo-kino-2022-smotrim-i-analiziruem-chast-1/
