Grandpa wants to become an actor, and grandmother wants love

Two films about old age: Artdokfest

In December, the Artdokfest documentary festival will begin. Medusa talks about all the paintings participating in the 2017 competition. In this issue, the president of Artdokfest Vitaly Mansky represents two films “King Lear” Denis Klebleev and “Grandmother” Lyudmila Bychkova, united by one topic - the theme of old age, to which filmmakers turn quite rarely.

Vitaly Mansky

director

I clearly remember how in childhood I passed by one Lviv club, on which the announcement of “Dancing for those who over 30” constantly hung. It seemed to me then that “for 30” no one was living and I myself would not live, and in general these dances are dancing under some funeral marches. I almost do not exaggerate, the sensations were just such - that, after 30, there is nothing. Now I myself have exceeded a fifty dollars and I can responsibly say that this line is an incredibly bright and rich life. And this life is very rarely dedicated to cinema. That is, cinema can be devoted to honored personalities, but not the age itself, but this age is very interesting. Today I want to imagine two paintings from the ArtdoxFest contest, which are united by the theme of old age.

"King Lear"

The painting “King Lear” is about a man who wants to turn his maturity into hypertrophied wisdom; He tries to play King Lear and in some ways involuntarily turns into him. This is the film of a young, but already well -known director Denis Klebleev, a graduate of the school Marina Razbuzhkina; His previous film “Strange Particles” was in Locarno, and the painting “31st Flight” a couple of years ago became the winner of “Artdokfest”. The director’s horse is to give artistic imagery to a completely ordinary everyday event. The most unexpected in the “King of the Lear”-as the author at some point turns all this phantasmagoria into absolute reality, completely turning our elderly on the hero and that his dreams are unattainable.

"Grandmother"

This is also a picture of a student of Razbuzhkina, director Lyudmila Bychkova. This is definitely a challenge, a very frank film, because the “grandmother” shown to us is trying to resist physical aging with all its existence. She lives for the sake of love - in all the meaning of the word, including carnal love. She does everything to get this love into her arms. Interesting females - that the native daughter teaches the heroine of life, wisdom, restraint, that is, what is usually inherent in old age, and not youth. And this generational conflict makes a picture, which is located at a completely opposite pole from the “King of Lear”, even brighter.

Attention: in the video, obscene vocabulary sounds!

I must say that these two films, shot by young scanners, put a brick in a large and fundamental wall of the image of old age in cinema. There has not yet been a single year in the history of Artdokfest, so that the Lockeys did not take any prize.

PS About the rest of the films of the competitive program "Artdokfest - 2017" can be found here .