4, one of the current batch of Russian films, along with Night Watch, that is gaining foreign interest, starts with one of the most impressive opening shots you could hope to see in any film. Dawn, an empty street, except for some dogs lying quietly in the road. In the background an old diesel pump is chugging away. Suddenly, from either side of the frame, four huge yellow mechanical arms start drilling into the road with an explosion of sound and the dogs run off. Already two of the recurring themes of the film have appeared; the number four and dogs. From here we go to a huge meat works where we hear a man negotiating for old frozen meat, then it jumps to a piano tuner, then to a prostitute leaving the bed of a foursome. These three people then all stop at an empty, late night bar and start talking about their lives. One of the men starts talking about how he worked as a genetic engineer and how the government had been cloning humans for decades, except they were called doubles, but the most successful were ones called ‘fours’. At this point my interest was piqued and I thought it was going to be an interesting sci-fi film, but no. As he leaves the bar he reveals he made it all up, and we discover that all three people had actually been lying about their lives. From this point on I started losing interest in what was happening.
The story paid most of its attention to the prostitute, as she gets bad news that takes her back to her home village in the backwoods and we get thrown into a bizarre world that resembles something like Fellini meets Deliverance on the Volga.
Although the film was beautifully shot by three different cinematographers, with great use of colour, there were also interminably long shots that did nothing to move the story along, what little story there was. This is a similar fault to another film showing at this year’s Raindance Festival, Battle in Heaven, a Brazilian film. The opening shot to 4 was a surprise, but Battle in Heaven starts with a slow camera movement down a fat, old man’s naked body until we see he is being given fellatio by a much younger woman, and that film also goes downhill from there on, but without the benefit of being shot well.
While festivals have to cater for all tastes I couldn’t help wondering what sort of pretentious intellectuals actually enjoy these films. I know the people I spoke to about them all had the same reactions, which were, “What the hell were they all about?” Both these films were practically plotless and overlong, and while some people more intellectual than me might be able to rationalise their merits, when I see a film I like to be entertained or informed, or even both if I’m lucky. Even if these so-called art-house films are pushing the boundaries of filmmaking, I do wonder exactly where they are being pushed to. They may be the polar opposite of the mindless drivel Hollywood foists upon us, an artistic statement versus a bank statement, but they lack the most important element, a good story.
Luckily these types of films generally never go far beyond the festival circuit so there is very little chance of you seeing them at your local multiplex, but if they turn up at an arthouse cinema near you save your money or see something else.