The days of the first

In the Moscow Cinema "Illusion" at a compressed pace (three films a day, rush to watch!) Until March 10, shows of films of the Khanty-Mansi Film Festival "The Spirit of Fire" are held . A rare chance to watch on the big screen that kind of cinema that could be called avant -garde - if the radicality of the director's method had not been combined in it with an appeal to the classical, dominant tradition. We talk about all the films of the program, including a short meter.

The full -length directorial debut of Graham Swan, the producer participated in the last year’s “Spirit of Fire” of the “classical period” of Tad Fendt and the “notes of the visible” Ricky d'Ambrose. Like Fendt with d'Ambrus, Swan represents a marginal but extremely curious line of modern American cinema, equally distant from the Hollywood mainstream, and from the Sandansovsky Indie with Mubblecor. There are few similar stylistically, all three are interested in European dominant culture and the possibility of abundant use of literary text in the cinema. It is not surprising that in Europe they are much more appreciated than in their homeland - in the USA the premiere of the film Swan has not yet been appointed.

Gothic in the genre, baroque in form, “The world is full of secrets” is equally inspired by radio sponsor and dumb cinema of the 20s, especially French, masterfully working with influxes and multiple expositions. The film, in fact, is a series of stories that teenagers tell each other: having gathered for an overnight stay, girls arrange a competition of terrible fairy tales, which are based on real events. Ninety -time -time percent of the screen time we see a large -sized storyteller removed without speakers, and they last for 20-30 minutes. Such a decisive rejection of representation in favor of the audience imagination is an experiment for the cinema, in its radicality, comparable to the most daring antics of the “new wave” and, I must say, in this case quite successful. But the film would not be so interesting if it were limited only to formal diet. Everything that happens is enclosed in the storyline - after this summer night of 1996, none of the participants remained the same. The real horror that exceeds any story cannot be transmitted on the screen, it is taken out of brackets - to create a jewelry, nostalgic, lovingly embedded image of the fragility of childhood and a feeling of imaginary security from threats of the outside world.