A ROOM AND A HALF

Russia, 2008, 130 minutes, Coloour.
Grigoriy Dityatkovskiy.
Directed by Andrey Khrzharnovskiy.

Whether you have heard of or read the poems of Nobel Literature Prize winner, Joseph Brodsky, is not essential to being fascinated by this imaginative Russian film. The makers suggest that it is not related to actual characters even though it serves as part portrait and a touch of biography. It is mainly a creative interpretation of the meaning of his life.

Brodsky, who died in 1996 at the age of 55, was born during World War II in Leningrad, a city which suffered greatly during the war, much of it being destroyed and large numbers of the population dying. The Brodskys were Jewish Russians.

The biographical aspects of the story show the father returning from official work in China in 1948, the young boy's strong bonds with both his parents but the hardships that increased as the Soviet years went on. He is something of a philosopher and poet and is at times awkward with his peers. That changes somewhat in the 1960s as he is tantalised, as were so many of the young adults of the time, with the post-Stalinist (comparative) freedoms. (There is a scene where a teacher comes almost hysterically into a class and announces the death of Stalin and everyone falls to the floor in grief). Ultimately, Brodsky had to leave Russia and settled in the US, where he became a professor and was naturalised.

However, the poetic notion of this film is that he did return to the now St Petersburg, re-assessing his life and ideas and meeting his dead parents. He says that memory is like a film, scenes flowing (not necessarily in chronological order) and being edited. This is a film of memories, both of what was and what might have been.

The director is a noted Russian animator and documentary maker and there are many animated sequences (especially with a cat who was a family favourite). This is his first feature film (made in his late 60s). Lovers of classical Russian films will delight in his vision, artistry, his visuals, his portrait of St Petersburg (from the elegant city of Brodsky's childhood to the beautiful modern city which does now serve as an incongruous backdrop to contemporary shops and takeaways and casual dress that Stalin would never have approved of.

There are some poignant sequences of phone calls from prosperous America to dingy Leningrad where Brodsky's parents interpret their son's calls as his being ill and deprived of food. There is this yearning in Brodsky for his homeland – he never did return in fact – and for his parents. The parents are the strongest characters in the film, conveying with great feeling what it was like to live through those years - and be thwarted by officialdom in their attempts to get permission to go to the US to visit their son. They are memorably portrayed by Sergei Yursky and (especially) Alisa Frejlindkh. Grigoriy Dityatkovskiy is Brodsky.

Contemplative cinema is still alive – as is the spirit and style of Tarkvosky.