Soviet Elegy

“It is a film from an extended series. It is hard to say who is the main character of “The Soviet Elegy.” There are more than a hundred faces of our compatriots. But, of course, it is not by chance that it is the destiny of a famous political figure, Boris Nikolayevitch Yeltsin, that bears a special accent in the film. Though he got to power following quite typical ways, his uncommon character puts him out of the ordinary, and in the author’s opinion it may be determined by his uncommon human nature. Our hero exists within the tragic pattern of the soviet socialist life. He is a character of a drama, of which he is one of the authors. “The Soviet Elegy” can hardly be called a documentary film in the proper sense. Of course, the author guarantees the accuracy of chronology, but he insists on an artistic mode of thinking, not on a political or historical investigation.”

Alexander Sokurov (from the author’s notes to the film)

In “The Soviet Elegy” the long train of photos of the Soviet leaders, dead or alive, stops at the portrait of Yeltsin. At the time of shooting Yeltsin had fallen down from the assembly of the Communist Party deities, and participated in the earthly life through connections of different kinds. Family chronicle, the world of nature, panoramas of new apartment blocks and cemeteries, accidental and acute episodes of life of the ordinary people of the street form the epic picture of a universal existence. Filming in the Yeltsin’s office, Sokurov shows not a working place of a high–ranked official, but an empty room of a tired office worker hurrying to go home. Then the camera finds the official at home, in deep immovable silence. This portrait of a popular figure who at that time was not the President of Russia, but an opponent of the official power, is an “anti–showcase” image. The filmmaker is interested in the personality being formed in loneliness, in silence, away from the official fuss, and only then acquiring dramatic volume and human significance.

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