Russian Wives

Apologies to people who are searching for Russian brides and are misled by the title.

I haven’t done much of late except work so a brief post on two movies that I saw awhile back.

In Pedro Almovodar’s movie, Broken Embraces, a scriptwriter describes the kinds of movies that should be verboten and includes biopics. Of course to this list should be added overblown Almovodar melodramas like Broken Embraces but that is another story. I do concur on the biopics and Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky did nothing to dissuade me of this. It is not exactly a sweeping biopic and is possibly fictional being largely an account of a romance between Chanel and Stravinsky. It does end with the obligatory old people at the end of their lives shot though like all good biopics. Also tacked on is the obligatory “all that good sex inspired so much good art!” and a slightly misguided attempt to have the romance play out to the The Rite of Spring score (really). The filmmakers do their best to conjure up a passionate romance but sadly, in spite of all that heaving sex, it  remains flaccid and I use the pun intentionally. In fact, it is only the opening sequence which is based on the notorious staging of The Rite of Spring that is breathtaking; the insistent, jagged music and the atavistic  dance is startling, thrilling and beautiful even after a century of modern dance. It is a pity that the movie doesn’t follow the Russian troupe who staged The Rite of Spring and we are left with Coco and Igor.

While more or less a two hander, Stravinsky’s wife plays a small, important role in the film and it ended up being the kind of movie where she seemed far more interesting than the principals. She is consumptive, a foreigner, a mother and a neglected wife and the actress playing her provides her with a quiet dignity and restraint. There is a softness to her persona in her clothes, the things she brings, all of which has Russian folk elements. Chanel’s’ signature black and white simplicity fills up much of the screen so its punctuation with Mrs. Stravinsky's muted colours gives the movie an interesting palette. It is the one thing the filmmakers get right – the film is not stifled by its sheer beauty unlike say A Single Man. The red of a Russian rug that Stravinsky’s wife brings to this black and white abode is not just visually arresting but softens and brings life to the starkness of the house. I wish the movie had been on Mrs Stravinsky. Or at least the fictionalised version presented in the movie.

An example of The Rite of Spring staging here.

Seeing the movie reminded me of another movie of Russian artistes in exile, this one on Ivan Bunin. Though about the writer, his wife plays an important role in the film, in fact the movie is titled His Wife's Diary. Here too it’s the way the lives of émigrés who could never go home plays out in foreign locales that keeps the movie interesting and more than a roundelay of affairs. Bunin was quite the womaniser but the actress who plays the wronged wife gives it an added dimension, she still remains the concerned wife preoccupied with his literary affairs and is not in the least a martyr (the film if I remember correctly suggests that Vera Bunina had her own close relationships). It was an intriguing film and I wouldn’t mind a second viewing, sadly SBS screenings of foreign films are getting rarer by the year.