Kira Muratova by Jane s> Taubman (review)

Abstract

322 SEER, 84, 2, 2006 Revolt(Proshkin, I999); 'Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk' became KatiaIzmailova (Todorovskii,I994); TheIdiotbecame DownHouse(Kachanov, 200I). All three films representresponsesto ratherthan adaptationsof their originals,part of what the volume overall makes clear is an ongoing and productivedialogue. Department ofModern Languages andLiteratures JOSEPHINE WOLL HowardUniversit,Washington, D.C. Taubman,Jane. KI-ra Muratova. KINOfiles Filmmaker'sCompanions, 4. I. B. Tauris, London and New York, 2005. vii + I25 pp. Illustrations.Notes. Filmography.f 4.95 (paperback). THE publicationof this fourthtitlein the KINOfiles Filmmaker'sCompanions seriescomes only a few months afterKira Muratova'sseventiethbirthdayand the releaseof her thirteenthfeature, TheTuner (Nastroishchik, 2004).As such, the book is a timely celebration of the life and works of this most idiosyncratic figure. Nearly forty years after she directed her firstfilm, Muratova'scontribution has been recognized by the film world: she was awarded the Andrzej Wajda Freedom Prize in 2000. Internationally,however, the limited release of her films means that her voice is not heard alongside such other representatives of contemporary Russian (language) cinema as Aleksandr Sokurov. Muratova'sfilmsare not easilyaccessibleto a non-Russian-speakingaudience, as only a few are subtitled and the majority of published criticism and interviewsis in Russian. This survey of her career, the 'firstin any Western language',will certainlyhelp to open the worksof thisimportantdirectorup to a wider audience. By moving beyond the films that form the Muratova canon on university syllabiand providing detailed plot synopsesfor the commerciallyunavailable and lesser-known works, Taubman offers students enough information to make initialjudgements on developmentsand continuitiesacrossher body of work.In additionto providingthiscontextualframework,translated'tasters'of criticism,and a samplerof Muratovaquotationsin the final chapter,the book is also (thanksin partto the co-operationof the directorherself) a good source of anecdotal information about the bureaucratic and financial obstacles encountered in making and releasing the films, their fate at film festivals, and Muratova's relationship with her troupe, including the iconic Renata Litvinova. This wealth of extra-filmicmaterial, however, serves to highlight the limited attention Taubman offersto the films as cinematic texts. She fails to grapple with the films themselves,to penetrate their shiftingaesthetic and elucidatewhat makesthem so original,beguilingand challenging.Taubman's discussionof the filmsis confinedlargelyto descriptionof narrative'events',an approach that is inadequate for dealing with the cinematic fullness of these sophisticatedand formallyexperimentalworks. Workingunder the constraintsof the Soviet era, seeing her workcriticized, deformedand shelved,from the very beginningMuratovaembodied the anxieties of language and expressionin her films. While Taubman is comfortable when dealing with the screenplay or teasing out Muratova'smyriad literary REVIEWS 323 or musicalreferences,she is reluctantto engage with the filmsbeyond the level of spoken expression. Yet relationshipsin Muratova's films are marked by interruptedcommunication and dialogue that obfuscates,and so meaning is articulatedin the visualfilmic component:in the spatialrelationshipsbetween objects and characterswithin the frame, such as the barriers(foliage, veils, screens)and layers(make-up,wigs, theatricalgestures)that conceal them. It is only by actively 'reading'the visual elements that the viewer can fully understand both the intricaciesof Muratova's exploration of her subjectsand her formalmode. Rather than treat the visual elements of the films as a crucial part of the semantic and structuralwhole, Taubman considers them merely in terms of 'aestheticpleasure'(p. 48): Muratova,she remarks,offersthe viewer 'much to please the eye' (p. 7I) and 'Ophelia' is 'beautifulto watch' (p. 8i). Regarding an intriguing sequence in the second part of Three Stories (Triistorii,I997), a repeatedshot of Litvinovatracingher fingerback and forthover the detail on a marble fireplace,Taubman is nonplussed:'There is something erotic about this sequence and its twin, though it is difficult to say what' (p. 8i). Since she is unwilling to tackle the ambiguitiesinherent in the works, most of the analytical insights offered by Taubman are those of the Russian critics she cites. Taubman failsto graspthatbeing a 'visualartist'(p. 95)is not about simply makingthings 'look beautiful',but about a profoundinterestin the processof looking and by observingthe way man relatesto moves through, touches, shapes his physicaland materialsurroundings,discerningthe intimateconnections between them. The significanceof visual experience in Muratova's work is signalledby the use of longueurs (lingeringshots of an electricfan turning , patternedrugs, a cat on a wall);the subordinationof the dramaticto the aesthetic (most obviously in Enthusiasms [Uvlechen'ia...