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Reviews
Shinel (1959)
A haunting tale.
Aleksey Batalov's 1959 production of The Overcoat is an earnest adaption of Gogol's famed short story. Batalov closely depicts Gogol's critical portrayal of Russian society. The emphasis of humorous aspects of the narrative gives way to a somewhat genteel spin on Gogol's central character, Akaky Akakieyevich, but the tragedy of the story and the critique which it underscores remain resonant in the film as a whole. Some of Gogol's frankness and the authenticity of third person experience are lost in the humorous flourishes of the movie.
Even in the opening scene, where viewers find Akaky Akakieyevich in the cradle attended by his mother, who rocks him gently, an amusing spectacle cast in a charming light takes the place of Gogol's rather stark and unnerving scene. The mother is surrounded by friends who offer her names for her child. She gingerly dispenses with each suggestion in favor of the name of the father. Here bestowal is a redundancy, which in Gogol's darker treatment sets off a theme of austerity. His account of the room is dissimilar. Godmother and Godfather list names for the prone mother who protests bitterly, only to choose the above in deference to "fate." Akaky then cries and makes a "wry face" as if to foreshadow his gloomy existence.
Departing from Gogol's tone, the film adopts a rather organic understanding of Akaky's debacle. The repetition of familiar scenes depicting modern trifles in humorous light deaden the impact of pathos. Akakieyevich bumbles in his apartment plagued by a meddling and captious landlady. The theme of chill is evident in the commute scene but its prevalence does not match Gogol. The society of the office is a farce the extent of which ruptures Gogol's realistic scale. Akaky is a persecuted hero who speaks directly to his attackers: "why do you persecute me." His words find purchase in the consciences of his coworkers even amid social distraction. The scene takes on a fable- like quality which undermines its relevance.
Gogol directly apologizes early in his story for the indulgences of his narrative which bring peripheral characters into view. He notes, too, his decision to omit the name of the department under discussion, "to avoid all unpleasantness." This places his character in direct correspondence to a social atmosphere. The reader understands the author is subject to a dangerous set of liabilities. The story seems timeless even in this context of social oppression. Akakieyevich is tethered intractably to a condition which itself seems eternal. The film portrays a man, whose tale is floating in the nebula of history, a fiction of import unattached to place and time. The humor is a modern variety reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin. Episodes, such as Akaky's struggle to do laundry in his landlady's quarters, resonate with Gogol's themes but fetch laughs which drown the author's intentions in the absurd.
Onegin (1999)
Love In Early Russia
The 1999 cinematic production Onegin left this viewer as moved and distraught as the 'superfluous man.' Although certain social observances, such as 'the duel,' or marriage as an intractable institution, are without equivalents in our society, I believe Onegin's dilemma is identifiable. He is molded by the times and St. Petersburg's decadent society of nobles, but he is also alienated by it. He stands in observation of its faults and of his own. The story finds the character uncompliant but not rebellious. He is without outlet, or his own definition of nobility.
The figure of Olga's French tutor assails Onegin for acknowledgement, but Onegin, in his clever way, dispatches this symbol of the Russian Gallomania. The Onegin character displays the uncanny ability to see through society's contrivances—even if he arrives at no definite conclusions. At the same dinner conversation he submits his sentiment that no man should own another in active defiance of the nobility's hold over the serfs. This audacious statement brings him closer to his would-be love, Tatayana, who looks on in admiration.
She bears her heart to him, an offer he refuses. His explanation that marriage holds only disappointment seems to highlight his particular reaction to social norms. While he enjoys the freedom of nobility as well as explicit decadence, he broods on the critique of a society engaged in its own disgrace. His response to cynical nobility is alienation. His answer to the squalid institution of marriage is debauchery. And for these shortcomings he, himself, seems doubly jaded. He faces Tatayana as an apologist, and he seems embarrassed. After all, her offer of marriage is an opportunity to engender a true nobility of mind and spirit.
Pleasure-seeking, and intellectualization are a vain reaction to what appears to be a cold and aggressive world. Tatayana exposes him in this respect. On the other hand, he has earned her love through his own keeping and defiance achieved through isolation. Onegin invites destruction on both himself and Tatayana in pursuit of this love. Viewers find him beseeching her in a room of marble, her royal husband asleep upstairs. Finally, she admits to him her continued love, which has not been destroyed, even by his neglect and the harshness of society. This admission is both a victory and a wretched fate.
It is preferable to the fate he invites. His gesture promises to ruin Tatayana's honor as well as his own. For Onegin, the moment is a test of the conviction of love. He, therefore, marches directly to Tatayana where she sits reading in her husband's mansion to profess his love and defy institution at all cost. She turns him away forever to avoid total ruin.
This fate is the fate of the 'superfluous man,' of the Russian who grapples with questions of self and places his will at odds with the forces of nature and society. The principle pathos of the film is the search for answers to those "accursed questions" which elude Onegin in the city and through the country landscape. Viewers peer through his windswept heart ultimately to dicover Pushkin's heroine, Tatyana, who like those answers, shall remain untouchable in the house of Nobility.