The white nights of the postman Alexei Trjapitsyn

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Movie
German title The white nights of the postman Alexei Trjapitsyn
Original title Белые ночи почтальона Алексея Тряпицына (Belye Nochi Pochtalona Alekseya Tryapitsyna)
Country of production Russia
original language Russian
Publishing year 2014
length 93 minutes
Rod
Director Andrei Konchalovsky
script Andrei Konchalovsky
production Andrej Konchalovsky Evgeniy Stepanov
music Eduard Artemiev
camera Aleksandr Simonov
cut Sergei Taraskin
occupation
  • Alexei Trjapitsyn: Lyosha, the postman
  • Irina Ermolova: Irina
  • Timur Bondarenko: Timur, Irina's son
  • Viktor Kolobkov: Vitia "Buns"
  • Viktor Beresin: Vitia, the sailor
  • Tatyana Silitsch: Tatyana
  • Irina Silitsch: Irina, Tatjana's sister
  • Juri Panfilow: Law
synchronization

Original sound with German subtitles

The White Nights of the Postman Alexei Trjapitsyn is a film by the Russian director Andrej Konchalovsky . He received the Silver Lion in Venice for directing the film in 2014 . The German premiere took place on May 30, 2018 on the television channel Arte . The feature film appears in the guise of a documentary film. It is an insight into life on Lake Kenosero in northern Russia. The actors play themselves, they are laypeople.

action

The postman Alexei Trjapitsyn, known as Lyoscha, lives in a hamlet on Lake Kenosero in northern Russia. He fetches the mail in his small boat with an outboard motor from the small post office in Vershinino and distributes it to the hamlets on the rugged, wide-open lake. It's not just letters and newspapers. He also brings the pension and delivers bread, groceries and other items from the small shop next to the post office if necessary. The people live in simple wooden houses. There is no running water, it is taken from the lake. Power is the only luxury that makes watching TV and listening to the radio possible. Alcohol and cigarettes are common. Lyosha was also addicted to alcohol. He's been dry for two years. He has already had a whole life with his family and farm, you learn when he shows photos from his past at the beginning. Many of his friends have fallen victim to alcohol addiction. Now he lives alone. The camera accompanies his daily routine.

Lyosha is often the only social contact of the villagers. He listens to the same stories over and over again. He pays attention to Vitia, called Brötchen, who drinks heavily and is usually drunk. Sometimes Lyosha is also visited by neighbors. They complain about their lives, about the pain in the soul that alcohol sometimes alleviates. They say that when they were young and faced the rigors of military service, they believed that sometime after that, life began. But it never started.

This time he has to bring a registered mail to Irina, a former classmate. You haven't seen each other for a long time. Irina has a son, Timur. Your husband is gone. She doesn't talk about it. He finds her attractive, but she doesn't. But he doesn't give up. He looks after Timur, teaches him to harvest potatoes with horse and plow, and takes him on a fishing trip where fish soup is cooked over an open fire. He shows him his former school, now a large, derelict wooden house. His trip to the dilapidated school reminds him of his school days in the times of the Soviet Union with the optimism and the many unfulfilled promises of a better life.

Then he experiences Irina as uncomfortable and repulsive. As an employee of the fisheries authority, she learns that a neighbor is catching fish with a net. That is forbidden. The militia summons them mercilessly and inappropriately. The policeman also wants to dissuade. Then she takes the report into her own hands and confiscates the catch, which contains only a few fish, as evidence for the authorities. The neighbor faces heavy fines that he cannot pay. Lyosha reminds Irina that occasionally a general from the nearby Russian spaceport Plesetsk comes over in a helicopter and catches fish on a large scale with nets. She saw him with the binoculars. Why didn't she report it?

Lately Lyosha often wakes up in the middle of the night and sees a Persian cat in his room. Sometimes it even lies on his stomach. He doesn't know what that is supposed to mean.

One morning he wants to take the boat to the post office again. Then he notices that his engine has been stolen, just ripped out. It's a catastrophe for him. How is he supposed to do his job as a postman? He borrows a boat from his neighbor to report the theft to the militia station. But they have their own worries about repairing their vehicles and are not interested in his problem.

So he goes to the next big city. Since Timur is hanging around alone and he begs him very much, he takes him with him. His sister lives there in a small new apartment at the freight yard. But she has no money to help him buy a new engine. In the main post one takes no notice of one's problem, which is also one of the main post. Bureaucratically aloof, an employee tells him that he should fill out an application. But that can take time. He also tries to ask the general at the Plesetsk spaceport , whom he knows from his visits to illegal fishing, for help. But it is inaccessible to him. So he must return home without having achieved anything. Previously, he had resisted the temptation to drink alcohol again in his distress. It stays with an ice cream that he eats with Timur. Timur shows him how his paper cat dances. So he also has a cat. At home, Irina is very angry because she was looking for Timur. But Lyosha gives her an ointment for her often painful back. He can even apply it to her himself. Hope sprouts in him where he is so close to Irina that a perspective opens up for him after all. But Irina clears him off and sends him home.

The next day the villagers celebrate. They dance, are exuberant. The village is alive, it's not dying. Lyosha plays the accordion. But Irina with Timur leave the village. They go to the bus stop. Irina is overjoyed. She found work in Arkhangelsk . She's just hated in the village. Then Timur realizes that he has forgotten his paper cat. He looks in his pocket, unpacks everything. Irina turns around and goes back. Not to get Timur's cat, but Lyosha. She needs him. Let him sell the house for her. She gives him papers. She even kisses him on the mouth for that. Then she pulls Timur into the bus, who prefers to stay with Lyosha.

Lyosha comes home. Then he meets Vitia, the roll. He's looking for alcohol. Envious, because Vitia, the sailor is celebrating, he expresses the suspicion that he had stolen the engine and sold it. Where else would he have the money to celebrate? Lyosha goes there and gets violent. Somewhere he knows when he's on the ground that he's not right.

Then he throws everything down, leaves the village head over heels and drives to his sister in town. In the night when the living room lamp wobbles due to the vibrations of the nearby freight station and he can no longer see the Persian cat, he knows that he doesn't belong here. He comes back to the village early in the morning by ferry. There he finds Jura, who cannot sleep because of high blood pressure and wants to check on his nets, which are laid out again after Irina is gone. He does not understand that although everything is there, people remain so stressed, probably alluding to Lyoscha's outburst yesterday. Lyosha sits down next to him. They smoke and the Persian cat is sitting next to Lyosha again. What should be? Oh, Lyosha will get along with Vitia, the sailor, again. You've known each other for a long time. Behind both of them, unnoticed by them, a space missile rises and takes off into space. In contrast, it shows what the individual villagers are doing, how they sleep in simplicity, often in poverty. This world of space missiles and the general takes no notice of them. The film closes with a Shakespeare quote from " The Storm ": "Where is the music? In the air? On earth? - It no longer plays."

reception

Daland Segler says: “ Andrej Konchalovsky delivers a masterful late work here. How he creates images of bucolic harmony when the camera captures the wooden houses across the tall grass, how he switches between detailed shots of flora and fauna and long shots, how he records the slow-motion rhythm of life in northern Russia, but above all: how he does it People follows, that shows him as a confident narrator. Konchalovski works with lay people, the real residents of a district on the lake shore. "

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eastern European film at a high level. April 27, 2015, accessed July 13, 2020 .