review of the mockumentary dramedy “We should make films about love”

The flower of young Russian acting – Mark Eidelstein, Chingiz Garayev, Alexandra Kiseleva, Maria Matsel and Illarion Marov – are heading to Varanasi, the oldest Indian city, to star in the new film by Roman Mikhailov. Elena Metla’s hand-held camera begins to record the adventures of the guys already at the airport and will not let go until the very end. Mikhailov personally meets his favorite actors, takes them to the filming location, telling along the way that he spent two years writing the script for the future film, and promises a mind-blowing cinematic experience to all those present. The director is not disingenuous at all: the heroes really await a full range of adventures – from emotional roller coasters to near-religious enlightenment. True, the film for which Mikhailov prepared so much will never be made.

Mark Eidelstein in a still from the film “We Should Make Films About Love”

Roman Mikhailov went through an amazing journey from a mathematician to a film director through asceticism and personal meditative practices, traveled through Christian and Hindu sects and, it seems, at some point he dug a hole in space and time, through which a qualitatively different dimension is visible. Since then, with enviable regularity, Mikhailov has allowed everyone to approach his personal camera obscura, and no one leaves offended. “We must make films about love” continues the tradition of previous films by the main metamodernist of Russia: it expands the boundaries of the visible, immersing viewers in an ephemeral narrative in a manner characteristic only of Mikhailov – easily, kindly and completely unnoticed by the viewer.

Maria Matsel in a still from the film “We must make films about love”

The choice of a pseudo-documentary format seems to be a logical development of Mikhailov’s ideas. In one of the scenes, he, like a guru in an ashram, tells the actors that film is not a space of imagination, like literature, therefore, when creating a film, the authors are forced to create special trap holes in it for the viewer to fall through. The characters listen to the master in fascination, nod and themselves fall into the traps set by the director. Mark loses his head over a beauty he accidentally meets in an alley (Daria Bryukhanova) and is torn between the main role in the film and the great love in his life. Masha, having shaved her head for the role, writes a hilarious apology for the theater in which she serves, admitting that she remains in a certain community for an unknown period. A little later this prank will also get out of control. Chingiz gets the part of a trickster and the main comedian of the team, and Alina (Alina Nasibullina) – a bit of an angry voice of reason. The director himself again takes on the role of the father. But if in “Let’s Go with You to Macau” Mikhailov literally played a parent subject to passions, then in “We must make films about love” he is a figurative, spiritual father, bringing the wisdom of cinema to his named children.

Photos from the filming of the film “We must make films about love”

Varanasi itself is an important character in the film. The city of the dead, where pilgrims from all over India flock to wash their bodies in the sacred Ganges, cannot but have its own consciousness. The eternal haze of funeral pyres, in which bodies have been burned from time immemorial, makes even digital images soft and grainy, and the baggage of millennia sets the peculiar mood of the entire story. According to legend, Varanasi was founded by Shiva, the god of both destruction and creation, and this is exactly the approach Roman Mikhailov applies to cinema.

“We must make films about love” destroys the presets set at the beginning, breaks the usual narrative and builds something new on the fragments, seemingly guided by the rule of three unities, which goes back to Aristotle himself. Place, time and action in Mikhailov’s latest film work for history like nowhere else, but thanks to the dreamlike nature of each of the components, their synthesis gives birth to a fairy tale. And the apparent simplicity of the plot hides a huge layer of meanings: sometimes ridiculous and funny, sometimes frightening, and sometimes stunningly straightforward. This is how Mikhailov sees life and transfers it to the screen with extreme precision.

“We must make films about love” can rightfully be called the director’s most understandable and open film to the audience. But at the same time, Roman Mikhailov made a serious evolutionary leap, creating a large, complex and thoughtful movie in a romantic wrapper. Deceptively simple and lightweight, like ashes settling on the banks of the Ganges, and, like the same ashes, endowed with an incredible weight of meaning.

Text:
Vladimir Rostovsky