‘A Gentle Creature’ – forces of evil at work
Sergei Loznitsa is a Ukrainian director, whom I would recommend you to make a mental note of in case you meet one of his films.
After having finished his film studies at the Russian State Institute of Cinematography in 1997 Loznitsa started to make a series of quite successful, prize winning documentary films. In 2010 he issued his first feature film My Joy, a film which was nominated for the Palme d’Or in Cannes. After this debut feature film he has so far made three other feature films In the Fog (2012), A Gentle Creature (2017) and Donbass (2018).
A Gentle Creature is a powerful, harrowing film that has stayed in my thoughts this past week. It is the story of a nameless woman who lives in the countryside somewhere in Russia. A package that she tried to send to her imprisoned husband is returned without explanation. The only option left to her is to travel to the remote region in Siberia where he is imprisoned to deliver the package herself.
She has to deal with a society completely stripped of care and humanity. “Man is a wolf to his fellow man”, the taxi driver who drives her to the prison building tells her. Loznitsa shows a society where every human being is a predator, making use of every soft spot the other shows. Whoever the woman, ‘the gentle creature’, meets during her travel to the prison village, whoever she is dependent on during her stay in the village and whatever authority she needs to contact to gain access to her husband, she is met with humiliation and abuse.
It is not an easy film to see. It is long (143 min), grim, bleak and brutal. But if you want to understand more clearly the forces of social evil and see how harmful and destructive a society becomes in which people only care about their own interests and survival, go and see this film. You might feel that you have caught a glimpse of hell. Towards the end, the film shifts into surreal, dreamlike territory that drives home the hellish nightmare of her situation. It might become a bit clearer for us what kind of world we absolutely don’t want to contribute to and what we want instead.
Rinus, March 2019
*Image & video posted for non commercial purposes under 'fair use' of copyright material in recommendation of the film
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