OSTROV (ISLAND)

Russia, 2006, 112 minutes, Colour.
Pyotre Mamonov.
Directed by Pavel Lungin.

Island is a very impressive film, the closing film for the Venice film festival in 2006.

The film was directed by Pavel Lungin, noted for much more boisterous films like Taxi Blues and The Wedding. This film is the exact opposite.

The opening is set in World War Two, a difficult moral decision for a mate on a ship faced with the Nazis. He decides to save himself rather than a comrade. The film then moves a quarter of a century later where the man has retired to a Russian Orthodox monastery and lives an ascetical life. He is also an eccentric compared with the other members of the community. He has developed a reputation around the countryside of being a holy man, even a healer.

The film is fascinating in its presentation of life in the monastery, the role of the man who is an eccentric and something of a hermit, the interactions of the other monks and their lives.

The surprise of the film is when the man that he thought had been killed arrives and asks his intercession for his daughter who is ill. What follows is the possibility of reconciliation and forgiveness.

This film is an interesting presentation of religion, church, spirituality emerging from what once was the centre of the Soviet empire.

1.The quality of the film? Impact? For Russian audiences? Worldwide? Russian Orthodox? Spirituality?

2.The title, the focus on the visuals of the island, isolated and bare, winter, the water surrounding the island, the rocks, the snow, the pools? A convincing and realistic atmosphere?

3.The monastery, its isolation, the view from the outside, the different buildings, the interiors, the chapel, the superior’s room, Anatoly’s hut? The tower?

4.The musical score, religious chant, the piano accompaniment? Anatoly and his reciting the different psalms throughout the film?

5.The opening, rowing, the boat and bailing the water, on the island, prostrate, praying for forgiveness? The introduction of the explicit Christian language? Russian Orthodox spirituality? Themes of sin and forgiveness?

6.1942, Russia at war, the Nazis, the stoker, his work in the boat, the captain at the bridge, the approach of the Nazi boat? Their hiding? The Germans, ruthless and cruel, shooting into the coke, the stoker pleading, his age, his fear, his becoming desperate? Saying he could not understand the language? Showing them where the captain was and digging him out? The contrast with the behaviour of the captain, calm, silent, getting the cigarette? Their ordering the stoker to shoot the captain? His fear, pulling the trigger, the captain falling overboard? His own collapse – then his joy at surviving, defying the Germans? The explosion?

7.His being washed up on the island, found by the monks, carried in? Thirty-four years passing? The atmosphere of 1976? The audience and the clues to identifying Anatoly as the stoker? The passing of the years, the gaunt figure, his age, beard? The monks not knowing what had happened to him? His eccentricities, being seen as a prankster? People seeing him as a holy man, the pilgrims coming for healing? His behaviour, his hard work, the hut, the tower, the coal? His going to the chapel to pray?

8.In himself, his age, his sense of sin, the oppression of guilt, his prayers, the rituals, going to the church, facing the other way, reciting the psalms? His icon and his praying? His prostration on the ground? The ascetical spirituality of his life? His work?

9.The people coming to see him, his telling them that Anatoly was cranky and asleep? The desperate girl and her abortion, his speaking sternly to her, encouraging her to have the baby, to have life, the comfort, saying that he had killed someone? The mother with the boy, crippled, his rituals, keeping the boy in the monastery and curing him? His ability to know the future? The possessed girl, taking her to the island in the boat, her refusal to go, his kneeling on the ground, laying her on the ground, prayer, the devil going out of her, her being healed? His knowledge of his own death?

10.Job, the strong man at the monastery, irritated by Anatoly, rebuking him? The visits, the fascination? Concerned about the way Anatoly faced the wrong way in the chapel? His being asked about Cain and Abel, his refusal to answer – and the later answer about jealousy? His change, Anatoly asking him whether he would mourn him? The fire and it not being Anatoly’s fault? The coffin, his looking inside, his sandpapering it, bringing it to the hut? Desperation, wanting to put soot all over it again? Anatoly sending the incense as a sign of his death? His caring, grieving, carrying the coffin?

11.Filaret, the superior, inviting Anatoly to come to his hut, wanting to care for him? The egg, the yolk, the restoration of the icons? His interactions with Job? The fire in his hut, his decision to ask Anatoly to stay with him, the explanation of the comfortable boots, the mattress gained on pilgrimage, Anatoly locking the door, creating the smoke, wanting to get rid of all the devils, Filaret choking, the boots and the mattress in the fire? Anatoly’s letting Filaret out? Throwing the mattress into the water? The lessons about asceticism, detachment? Facing God? Filaret watching the boat at the end?

12.The admiral and his daughter, in the train, their discussions, her illness? The background story, her husband dying, the four and a half years’ insanity? Anatoly and his response, the admiral wary about devils? Letting Anatoly go in the boat with the girl? The ritual of the exorcism? The bond between the two, her bird calls on the boat and his response and laughing? Restoring her? Talking with her? The discussions with the admiral, reassuring him that the Communist Party would not know? Anatoly, his realisation who the admiral was, that he had not died? His confessing to the admiral? Telling the story? The admiral telling his story, forgiving Anatoly, the reconciliation? The screenplay making the recognition explicit? Showing the patterns of providence?

13.Anatoly ready to die, Job, the message? The preparation for the coffin, his getting in? Job carrying the cross on his back, the boat and taking the coffin in the boat?

14.The background of the Soviet Union, World War Two experiences, the aftermath, monasteries surviving during the communist era, the life of the monastery and prayer, people coming, pilgrims, wanting healings and miracles, faith and hopes, prayer?

15.The Russian Orthodox perspective of the film, prayer, chant, icons, the iconography, the sign of the cross? The spirituality tradition?

16.Themes of sin, the burden of sin, atonement, forgiveness, reconciliation? Anatoly seeing himself as God’s unworthy instrument for healing? Doubts and troubles? Not fearing to die but fearing to meet God?

17.The director’s comments about people’s need to reflect more on sin, guilt, conscience and eternity?