Publication date:  11 September 2002

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In the Ukrainian cinema space, Kira Muratova is both a symbolic and ambivalent figure. Being formally a Ukrainian citizen, she addresses her films to post-Soviet cinemagoers; at the same time, it is impossible to imagine her films without relation to the city where the film director has lived for forty years. Ukraine is fortunate in having both Odessa and its famous citizen. In fact, the fruitful presence of Muratova ensures existence of independent auteur cinema in the country.

In the last decade each new film of Kira Muratova, whether it was The Sentimental Policeman or Petty Passions, Three Stories or Second Class Citizens, attracted close attention of cinephiles and mass media and sparked heated disputes. Her latest picture Chekhov's Motives was not an exception. This black-and-white tragicomedy, based on two fairly different works of Chekhov, his play Tatyana Repina and his story Difficult People, virtually caused a split at the 24th Moscow International Film Festival. Some didn't understand and accept the film; others were delighted. Structurally sophisticated indeed, Chekhov's Motives is an example of thought-out cinematographic and script absurdity. There is a crowded family, in which everyone quarrels continuously and sharply; there is a grand church wedding scene, which transforms into a carnival of insanity and queer characters...Muratova never pampers filmgoers. Opponents of the film (interestingly enough, all foreigners at the festival were among them) prevailed on the grand jury. As a result, the only award Muratova got at the 24th MIFF was The Golden Elephant from the Guild of Cinema Critics. Our conversation followed the award ceremony.

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RJ: Was this prize a big surprise to you?

KM: Not in the least. Why? They gave me a pretty trinket.

RJ: Are you indifferent to such things?

KM: No one is indifferent to gifts. It can't be otherwise. If it could, I would have left it there and go. But I'm taking it with me.

RJ: Let's talk about your new film...

KM: I'm still so much in the process of making it that the process of talking hasn't yet started. I can't decide how to describe this movie, since I'm still inside it. I can only say that I envy you because I haven't seen the film. To me a film is a finished copy. I watched the rough tape, which was later edited and re-recorded. As for the picture you saw - I mean the full-fledged one, shown by means of high-quality equipment, with good sound - I haven't seen it. And I don't know when I will see it. It won't be soon, I suppose.

RJ: Well, since the process of talking hasn't yet started, could you answer a question from the domain of literary criticism: what do you understand by Chekhov's motives?

KM: Your manner of asking questions is so sophisticated that I'm afraid my answers won't fit them. One shouldn't understand Chekhov's Motives too literally. It isn't a screen version. This title just seemed to us nice and accurate. It's up to you to search for more intricate meanings, to understand it from the standpoint of literary criticism. I'm no good at that.

RJ: Why do you like Chekhov?

KM: You know, I couldn't stand Chekhov for a long time. In my early years I adored him. Later I cast him away after I came to love Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. I had a distaste for his humor and manner. And I must say that I still do, in a way. When I reread his humoresques today, I understand that they are brilliant, wonderful and stunning. But as I reach the middle of the book, I begin feeling some inexplicable irritation and disgust and stop reading.

RJ: So what happened?

KM: One day, for some unknown reason, I took his complete works. I thought I'd better read his plays, perhaps they are more interesting. I really liked them but, as far as scenarios are concerned, I didn't want to do anything with them. And then suddenly I came across the play titled Tatyana Repina, which I hadn't read before. It was short and consisted of one act only - a very strange piece, absolutely untheatrical. But it struck me, first, because I hadn't read it and, secondly, with its intensity, naivety and, at the same time, with the extraordinary beauty of the church wedding scene that is described there. It was then that I started writing, adding some things from Chekhov's earlier works and transforming all that into something different.

RJ: How did you manage to create an integral scenario out of the texts that were quite different, as far as I understand?

KM: Well, how do you think scenarios are written? Those who are interested in this process should better read the play and make comparisons instead of asking me. I wouldn't be able to tell you now which extracts of the script were written by Chekhov and which of them we wrote ourselves. It often happens like that. Separated parts melt into something living so that I'm no longer sure about the origin of each piece. Perhaps you'll be able to tell if you read Tatyana Repina. I don't need that any more. I've done my work, and that's all.

RJ: And still, what was the point of colliding the two absolutely different plotlines, those of Tatyana Repina and Difficult people?

KM: The point is in establishing simple moral values. This is a film about family. About love. You know, to me it's very important that members of this family love each other, although they are quite different people, who move in different directions and often quarrel.

RJ: There is a remarkable episode in your film in which a boy falls asleep in the midst of a family row. I had an impression that it was unplanned.

KM: We were lucky. From the very start we dreamt of a boy whom we could simply tell, "Now sleep" - and he would immediately fall asleep or at least pretend to be sleeping. At the same time we wanted him to be very small. We came to a deadlock and finally gave up. And then suddenly, when we were shooting a scene, an actress who played his mother whispered to us, "Look!" We started filming him at once and I told the actors to continue the dialogue. Meanwhile the boy was sleeping peacefully. It was a smile of fortune.

RJ: Do you often get such pieces of good luck?

KM: Not like that one of course. We shoot many things with candid or semi-candid camera, but that was a unique case.

RJ: Why did you decide to make a black-and-white film?

KM: It just happened so that colors on the screen started to affront my eye. I felt an urge to resort again to black and white palette. If you want to know the truth, here it is. If you want me to invent something more complicated, I can try.

RJ: The film seems very poetic. How would you characterize its atmosphere?

KM: Your question is absolutely incorrect and illegitimate. It's up to you or anyone who speaks or writes to characterize the atmosphere of the film. I had no intention to convey any mood by means of my film. Perhaps it communicates my mood and the mood of those who worked with me... I can't define verbally the thing you call atmosphere. It would be too simple. I don't like to do such things.

RJ: You are often described as a film director for a restricted audience...

KM: That's a pity.

RJ: Who are those who watch your films?

KM: They are engineers, scientists, students, pioneers... It would be great if the whole of humanity liked me, if I could please it in every possible way. But what is most important to me is to please myself. That's it.

RJ: Is it easier for you to work now than it was in the Soviet times?

KM: There can be absolutely no comparison between then and now. In the Soviet times I felt I was an ideological slave. Now I feel I'm free. It changed so simply after perestroika. Everything turned on its head. What was black became white. Before that they kept saying I was anomalous. After that they told me to take a blank sheet of paper and start working. I feel good because I can say what I want. As for the present dependence on money, it is more natural and explicable than ideological dependence was. You tell me my films are for a restricted audience. That means that some people don't like me, that the returns are small, and consequently, I don't get money for my new films. But it's only natural. I can understand that. It means that I'm unable to make a film for everyone. It's just beyond my abilities. But in the Soviet times everything was altogether different, inane and senseless.

RJ: How do you find actors for your films?

KM: It takes much time and effort. I am a very laborious film director. The preparatory stage is usually very, very long. I look for right people, compare them, try them, get inspired by some of them. If I like anyone very much and want to shoot him, I insert an episode for him into the script. I go to a lot of trouble, as far as actors are concerned. And not only me but everyone who works with me. This is my method.

RJ: Actors from the comic troupe Maski Show constantly appear in your recent films. Why do you like them?

KM: We all live in Odessa. And when such talented people are near at hand, you have a wish to draw them in, get them somehow involved. So I started involving them, first into Second Class Citizens, then, to a greater extent, into my latest film... They are indeed very talented, witty and wonderful. I haven't yet filmed them all, some refused. Hopefully, next year they will agree when they have seen this movie.

RJ: No one seems to work so much with non-professional actors as you. And the quality of this work is amazing.

KM: You know, the distinction between professionals and non-professionals is quite arbitrary. Some people are born actors. The point is just in finding them. As I see it, the moment a gifted person starts getting pleasure from acting he becomes a professional. There are narrowly gifted people, though, who can play only this and not that, whereas a professional actor can play everything, some things better, and some things worse. That is the only difference. Sometimes I even try to knock down the level of professionalism if it's too high, simplify it, arouse something more simple, more human in it, blend the non-actor with the actor. It can be both exciting and irritating...

RJ: It wasn't by chance that it was Natalia Makarova and not Maya Plisetskaya who danced in your Dying Swan episode, was it?

KM: Maya Plisetskaya has nothing to do with it. Once I just saw a TV program about Makarova and was immensely impressed. When something sticks into your memory, it suddenly emerges one day and matches your vision. And the coincidence was all the more amazing, since the actress Nina Ruslanova, who plays the mother of the family, looked like Makarova.

RJ: Makeup artists did an excellent job in your latest films. You make up your women better and better.

KM: Well, yes, we make up Natasha Buzko...

RJ: And why do you not make up your eyes?

KM: It doesn't suit me.

RJ: Have you ever tried?

KM: Of course yes. I acted in Brief Encounters. What suits me is tone cream but it disturbs me. Film directors are very definite people.

RJ: What is the most difficult stage in filmmaking?

KM: It's the preparatory stage - looking for actors, selecting the scenery. You always hesitate and search, fearing that you might run out of time. It's a very strenuous period. Filming and editing is what I like most, whereas sound works are not so exciting, since they are secondary, for most part. You make your best, even gain something, but your major concern is not to lose anything.

RJ: The wedding scene in your film lasts as long as it does in church, in real time...

KM: Such was our task - to follow the canon as strictly as possible.

RJ: All major circumstances were reproduced but at the same time everything seems to conflict with the feelings of those who gathered in the church...

KM: That is sort of very important. It isn't a contradiction, since anyone who comes to a church can feel differently...

RJ: Was it hard to achieve such an effect?

KM: Oh yes, it was. I wanted to make my version of the wedding ceremony chronologically correct and at the same time recompose some things, rearrange them in the course of editing, shift dramatic accents in some places. And so I start shifting something and discover that it overlaps with an already filmed wedding episode. That was the first problem. The second one concerned filming in church, although we had received a blessing from Metropolitan Agatangel. He suggested that we shoot in a particular church with a wonderful old priest, who had been serving there since dissident times. But while we were in the church with such a huge crowd, we willy-nilly constantly violated the local rules of conduct. We had to talk loudly, turn our backs to the altar, and so on. This place was absolutely beyond our power. We always were afraid that they would drive us out. And besides, you know, there are these churchwomen, churchwardens. And in that church there also was such a woman, very authoritative and oppressing, and she constantly rebuked and reproached us. You say you have a Metropolitan's blessing? Well, what of it? She just didn't want us in her church. We tried to find time when she was out to shoot the loud episodes. In a word, it was a continuous everyday torment.

RJ: What other festivals wanted to get hold of your film?

KM: This is a Russian-Ukrainian film. As far as I know, Ukraine sent one cassette to Venice, and it was accepted there. So it was at the MIFF, as you know. I didn't take part in this process. But I am very happy that I came to Moscow. I've never participated in a MIFF contest. And besides (you may find it strange, but such things happen sometimes), I like this phrase: Moscow International Film Festival. Honest. It is very simple, and it wakes some nostalgic emotions in me. I feel something cordial in it. And then, it's my first coming.

RJ: What is the cinema language of Kira Muratova?

KM: You'd better see my films...

RJ: As an artist, can you assess what you have done in recent years?

KM: No, I can't, and you'd hardly find anyone who would be able to answer such a question. To do that, I'd need one more, smaller head that would sit on top of my own, big one and analyze it. A sort of analytical outgrowth. The head I have is unable to analyze itself.

RJ: Well, could you then answer a simple question of the kind you like? What is your greatest wish?

KM: To film, to film, and to film.

Translated from Russian by Olga Yurchenko

• This interview in Russian

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