Beanpole (Kantemir Balagov)

[Philip J. Fry]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b1/Beanpole_%28film%29.jpg

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73_7Y95snIs

IMDb (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10199640/) / wiki (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beanpole_(film)) / RT (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/beanpole) / Meracritic (https://www.metacritic.com/movie/beanpole)

Official website (https://www.kinolorber.com/film/view/id/3731)

[Peng]

Writer-director Kantemir Balagov is so deliberate in his maneuver of bleak situations that the film somewhat shortshrifts its characters. The two feel more like a collection of closely intertwined, twisted drives for propelling the events forward and being symbolic of the story's historical context, rather than people with with real, deep individual psychologies, which are crucial for their specific motivations and actions to register as more empathy than provocation on the the filmmaker's part. But if the writing is seriously lacking for me, his filmmaking remains exquisite throughout, with sumptuous visuals and pacing rhythm that add immensely to the oppressive atmosphere of shell-shocked post-war. Insane to think that at the time of its Cannes' release, Balagov was 27 while cinematographer Ksenia Sereda, who does gorgeous wonder with green and red, was 24. 6.5/10

[Stay Puft]

My goodwill pretty much evaporated with the first tragic incident (those close-ups, lmfao no) and I struggled to stay with it all the way through, as it routinely attempts to twist the knife by carefully withholding information but instead quickly establishes a narrative pattern that is dramatically trite and predictable (culminating in that risible scene with the tram near the end). This is compelling material, a facet of the war not commonly explored and certainly putting faces on the war we don't commonly see in cinema, but stylistically this struck me as needlessly belabored (and even hamfisted; the color-coding of the characters is just lol), a banal festival circuit flavor-of-the-month.