Films of a man who should have been free

Boris Barnet makes films that defy viewing, for the simple reason that he's almost completely uninterested in narration. For both Okraina and By the Blues of Seas, the first reaction has been one of admiration and curiosity, with little emotion, whereas the second viewing in both cases has been a major event. I suspect that his narrative (non-) technique might be the source of that initial confusion, as well as the source of the subsequent endearment.

What is striking when seeing Okraina again is how little he cares about classical narrative structure. He doesn't even rebel against it (à la L'Avventura), he just works as if every scene were the next's equal, as if every moment deserved to make as much sense as the previous (and of course, in his hands, they do) without necessarily leading to the next, except maybe following a logic that lies in small details as much as in narrative events per se. That might make his films slightly harder to get a grip on (simply put, they don't fit any other model of narrative), but it also makes every moment a quasi-epiphany.

This refusal to priviledge any event can make for the most free inventions/surprises in thirties cinema. The scene when the soldiers leave is already remarkable for its refusal to dwell in any length on the father's sorrow, showing him only as often as trains departing or crowds rushing by, but when Barnet cuts back to him for the last time, it is to show him leaving the frame, only to reveal Manka standing beside him, still looking in the direction the soldiers left to. Manka, until now not part of the scene, and yet, as the constant beacon of pre-politicized humanist tenderness, always at the heart of the film...