The traumas of war linger long after the fighting has ended
for the characters of Kantemir Balagov’s
“Beanpole,” an unsparingly bleak but compelling tale of two female soldiers
striving to rebuild their lives in the aftermath of World War II.
Iya (Viktoria Miroshnichenko) works as a nurse at a veterans’
hospital in Leningrad in the weeks immediately following the end of the war.
Nicknamed Beanpole because of her tall, lanky frame and unearthly pale
complexion, Iya tends to the injuries of the male
soldiers who reside there. She has ailments of her own; a concussion suffered
during active duty has left her prone to fits of temporary paralysis. During
these episodes she finds herself suddenly unable to move, emitting guttural,
gasping breaths; limbs twitching as she struggles for air until the fit passes.
Dismissed from the army a year prior when she was diagnosed
with post-concussion syndrome, Iya has psychological
ailments to match her physical ones, but she mostly succeeds in keeping them
bottled up inside. One of the bright spots in her life is her young son, Pashka (Timofey Glazkov) and she
works hard to give him the life he deserves.
Then tragedy strikes, in a scene depicted by director Kantemir Balagov with
heart-stopping matter-of-factness. That incident coincides with the return of
her friend Masha (Vasilisa Perelygina),
giving neither Iya nor the audience time to process
what’s happened. We learn then that Masha is actually Pashka’s
mother, and she’d sent her infant back with Iya to
keep him safe.
The two women fought together as anti-aircraft gunners during
the war, but in all other ways they’re polar opposites. Despite her towering
stature, Iya shrinks back from the world, while Masha
responds with an impulsive intensity and a cruel streak that’s only exacerbated
by grief.
Masha barely appears to react to the tragic news when Iya finally tells her, but as the films goes on, it becomes
quite clear that a lack of reaction doesn’t mean it hasn’t registered. On the
contrary, it may have affected her more deeply than even she might realize,
resulting in the sometimes inscrutable actions she takes throughout the film.
Iya and Masha both struggle to
cope, and Balagov’s film is interested in the many
ways in which grief can manifest itself. War forever alters those who
experience it, permanently affecting how they interact with the world. The
women’s experiences have left them numb, so used to regularly processing the
worst that life has to offer that they come to expect nothing else.
A perversely codependent bond is formed, as the women lean on
each other in ways that don’t do either any good. Feelings of love and guilt
swirl into a complex and messy concoction, as the friendship between the women
curdles into something else entirely.
Cinematographer Kseniya Sereda’s saturated color palette fills the frame with deep
shades of green, golden hues, and the shocking vivid crimson of blood. The warm
tones lend a heightened reality to the film’s otherwise grounded view of
post-war life.
“Beanpole” was inspired by Nobel Prize-winner Svetlana Alexievich’s 1985 book “The Unwomanly Face of War,” which
gathered oral histories of female Soviet war veterans. And as the tragedies
pile up the film sometimes threatens to tip over into misery porn. Despite all
the horror and despair, the journey has its rewards, and there are glimmers of
hope amid the grim narrative.
It helps that Balagov (who won the
Un Certain Regard Best Director Award at last year’s Cannes) refuses to see Iya or Masha as merely victims. Like him, we’re compelled
to try and understand these women, seeing the ways their story echoes the pain
felt by an entire nation fighting to find its humanity once again.
Adam
Lubitow is a freelance writer for CITY. Feedback on
this article can be directed to becca@rochester-citynews.com.
This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 3, 2020.
