The Hollow

Yar

(Russia, 2007, 103 mins)

35mm

North American Premiere

Selected Filmography:  

PROD: Olga Agrafenina
SCR: Marina Razbezhkina, Pavel Finn, Lidiya Bobrova
CAM: Irina Uralskaya
ED: Yury Gedert
MUS: Anton Silayev
Cast: Mikhail Evlanov, Polina Filonenko, Svetlana Obidina

This strange, enigmatic and strikingly atmospheric movie is the second dramatic feature from veteran documentary filmmaker Marina Razbezhkina--some four years after her acclaimed début, Harvest Time. Like Harvest Time, The Hollow is set in a village, in this case in the early years of the 20th century. It begins with an almost pagan ceremony in which the women disrobe and walk around the village through the early morning mist--beating out the devils. But the demons that haunt this story are not so easily dispersed.

Based on early prose pieces by the Russian poet Sergei Yesenin, who was born into a peasant family but went on to fame and fortune (he was married to Isadora Duncan for a time), The Hollow shows Kostya (Mikhail Evianov) entering into a short-lived arranged marriage with Anna. When he discovers her with another man, he quits the village--such an unthinkable abandonment that the locals assume he must have drowned in the Volga. In fact he makes a new life for himself on the other side of the river, but things don’t go any more smoothly for him there.

Artfully photographed by Irina Uralskaya in dank, sombre browns, Razbezhkina’s movie is less concerned with linear storytelling than weighing the textures of rural life--earth, mud, water, fog--and enveloping them in a succession of portents, symbols, dreams and mysteries. Fans of Tarkovsky and Béla Tarr should feel right at home.

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