A RUSSIAN OLIVER TWIST
THE ITALIAN
Directed by Andrei Kravchuk; written by Andrei Romanov; cinematography by
Aleksandr Burov; editing by Tamara Lipartiya; original music by Aleksandr
Knaifel
With:
Kolya Spiridonov, Maria Kuznetseva, Denis Moiseenko, Polina Vorobjeva, Olga
Shuvalova, Nikolai Reutov, Dariya Lesnikova, and Yuri Itskov. Rated PG-13.
In Russian with English subtitles. Running time: 90 minutes
1/2
Reviewed by Joel Johnson
If you
see this title on the marquee at your local theater, plan to see it. I don’t
mean sometime before the next equinox or sometime in the next month or even
sometime next week. Plan to see it before the theater will be changing its
offerings, and the safest way to ensure that is go see it that day. This
Russian film is a raw, sweet, and powerful little gem. However, as a foreign
language film with a cryptic title (who’s the Italian?), this is a gem that
will be hard to find and won’t stay long in one place.
The
film is about a little five-year-old Russian boy named Vanya (Kolya
Spiridonov), who has been abandoned and has spent his entire life in gloomy
Dickensian orphanages. Much of the film has been shot in late winter with
snow, mud, fog, and starkly naked trees being the key visuals associated
with the orphanage. The current institution where he resides survives on the
industry, ingenuity, and murky morality of its residents as the adults in
charge show themselves as pathetic and venal in their efforts to provide
care to the children. Kolyan (Denis Moiseenko) is a teenaged boy, part Fagin
and part Artful Dodger, who enforces a harsh communism. The boys both work
and run scams to contribute to the common survival. The girls—at
least those who have reached a certain sexual maturity—earn money as
prostitutes for long-haul truckers. Despite the institutional neglect and
the privations that the orphans experience, there is a community that has
developed, with the children caring for each other and the older children,
particularly, taking responsibility for the younger ones.
It
looks like Vanya will be leaving the orphanage when an Italian couple comes
to meet him. They have already paid fees to an adoption agency headed by the
avaricious and officious Madam (Maria Kuznetseva). This visit is just a
formality before the couple’s adoption becomes official. Since Vanya will
become an Italian when that is finalized, everyone has already started
referring to him as “the Italian.” Everyone tells Vanya it is great that he
is being adopted. The Italian couple—Roberto and Claudia—seem nice, but
Vanya can’t really talk with them. He clearly has some reservations and
holds onto a dream that his mother—for whom he has no memory—will come take
him home. He is told by everyone that the women who gave up their children
were mothers who didn’t want to be mothers, and these women are usually
referred to using crude invectives.
His
lingering desires for a reunion with his mother get a jump-start when the
mother (Dariya Lesnikova) of a friend of his who had already been adopted
shows up at the orphanage. Thrown out by the orphanage director, the woman
drunkenly pours out her disappointment and pain to Vanya as she waits for
the bus. Later, word comes back to the orphanage that the woman has died
after falling under a train, and there is much speculation as to whether
this was an accident or suicide. Vanya now knows that his mother may want to
be reunited with him just as much he would like to be reunited with her.
Time is
of the essence if Vanya is to learn anything about his mother before he is
whisked away to Italy. Once he receives an Italian name, he is told it will
be almost impossible for his mother to ever find him. First he needs
discover how he came to the orphanage, and to do that he needs to read his
record. Fortunately, Vanya is a little charmer and is able to get a lot of
help from teen-aged caretakers Natasha (Polina Vorobieva) and Irka (Olga
Shuvalova). Irka helps him learn to read. He gets access to his record and
learns that he came from an orphanage in another city. Irka then decides to
give Vanya the chance he needs to find out more about his mother. As he
waits for the train to leave the station, Irka is accused of stealing a
man’s wallet and gets arrested. Suddenly on his own, Vanya watches as the
train leaves the station just moments before Madam and her sinister henchman
Grisha (Nikolai Reutov) arrive to apprehend him. Madam enlists the aid of
the police by virtually putting a bounty on Vanya and then heading off on a
race with the train.
The
film has this young boy on an incredible journey to where his mother left
him, with Madam and Grisha in hot pursuit, needing him to complete the
adoption deal; with police trying to earn a bonus; and with various
ne’er-do-wells just out for whatever self-enrichment they can
opportunistically get. Vanya also meets a series of folks who do help him
get there. Yet there are also times when Vanya has no one but himself and
his own guile to make it through those who are trying to stop him.
The
film is very effective at eliciting the audience’s sympathy. Much of that is
directly related to the endearing qualities embodied by the young actor
playing Vanya. The film clearly works on the personal level of a universal
story of a child looking for his mother. This has been used by storytellers
from Dickens to Disney, and there is definitely a bit of both in this film.
Yet the
film also has broader implications as a portrait of a Russia that is unable
to care for itself—as exemplified by its inability to care for its children
and its toleration of profiteers eagerly shipping them abroad. The film also
shows the free-market economics of post-Soviet Russia that has the adult
caretakers more interested in profits and pay-offs than acting in the
interests of the children for whom they should be responsible. The children
then have to engage in a variety of questionable businesses just to survive.
Contrast this with how the film shows the children sharing resources for the
common good. Certainly, that shows unease with an unfettered free market and
wistfulness for Communism’s ideals. These issues are ripe for discussion and
may well need to be better understood as the current world situation often
makes Russia both an ally and an opponent of the United States.
