They say that discoveries and creative insights are found at the crossroads of science and art, science and literature, and literature and music — at the junction of things that outwardly cannot be linked. What, for example, is the connection between coffee and sweet pepper or cream and pomegranate seeds?
This is the question asked by the heroine of Oleksandr Zhovna’s novel
Experiment , which the filmmaker Roman Balaian later used as the script for his film Nich svitla (Bright Night). The answer is: you won’t know until you try it. Zhovna, who lives in Novomyrhorod, in Kirovohrad oblast, is a disabilities specialist at a local children’s residence as well as a writer, collector, film director, script writer, and actor.
As a result of Zhovna’s questioning approach to life, he and Balaian have made four films together: Music Score on a Tombstone, Bright Night (screened recently during The Days of Ukrainian Cinema in France, Second Hand , and a full-length picture entitled
A Small Life , which will be premiered soon.
WHERE THERE IS NO GLOSS
Zhovna does not have to travel far in search of striking contrasts. For many years he has worked as a teacher at Novomyrhorod’s special boarding school for children with Down syndrome and other intellectual handicaps. Residents live there until they reach the cut-off age of 25.
The lives of the residents of this institution could move even a stone to tears, especially the extreme helplessness and naivety of the 137 children and the selfless dedication of 42 teachers, who are perfectly aware of the grim prospects of their charges. There is an even number of males and females, and most have been disowned by their parents. Outwardly, the children (all the residents, who are between the ages of 7 and 25, are referred to as children) are good-natured, peaceful, and well-behaved. But that’s just at first glance.
“These children are not just intellectually handicapped; almost each one has a variety of diseases, such as heart problems, epilepsy, and psychological disorders. Some suffer from aggression and schizophrenia. But they are our children, so when our children recover from an attack, they open their eyes to see staff members hovering over them and holding their hands. Today a child may be aggressive, cursing and kicking. Tomorrow s/he will be clinging to you and calling you Mommy,” said deputy principal Svitlana Pukhlii.
These are just brushstrokes to the overall picture of the tragic lives of these handicapped children. In his stories and novels Zhovna often writes about psychological abnormalities, depicting some of the heartrending aspects of individuals who are denied things that most normal people take for granted. “As hard as you try, you can never imagine what the life of a blind deaf-mute is like!” is a line from one of his stories. Some of his other works depict illicit sexual relations, madness, and suicide.
Not everything in his work is “painted from nature.” There is a lot of fantasy as well. What makes Zhovna’s prose distinctive is the dramatic leitmotif of death, even if there is no physical death. This is a subject he knows only too well, having seen what happens to his patients after they are discharged from the institution. Once they reach 25 years of age, they are reassigned to old age homes or psychoneurological hospitals.
“I’m interested in people who are different from those whom we call ‘normal.’ Disorders of the cerebral cortex unleash subcortical responses, and then things happen that we normal people never experience. We maintain constant control, while patients have little or no control whatsoever. They live according to their emotions and in this sense they are sincere. Unfortunately, they can’t understand what I write in my books,” explained the writer and filmmaker.
Representatives of the Foxtrot Group of Companies, which supported the launch of Zhovna’s book Her Body Smelled of Winter Apples , said that the special boarding school “graduates” often escape from their psychiatric hospitals and return to Novomyrhorod because this is their home. Often these runaways become local hobos. “They are Zhovna’s friends,” said Foxtrot’s Liudmyla Lozova.
CATHARSIS
Creativity is a kind of birth marking a new branch in one’s spiritual life. Balaian, who made some changes to Zhovna’s script, adds the “melo” to drama, according to Zhovna.
Catharsis, as spiritual purification or liberation, is the goal of Zhovna’s cinematographic sufferings. Although his intellectually handicapped charges can reach a state of catharsis when they ride in Zhovna’s Mercedes, healthy people usually experience catharsis through tears. “I want to see viewers crying while they watch A Small Life . The film is about a boy named Pylypok, who paints an image of St. Panteleimon on a small board, believing that this saint will cure a sick girl on whom he has a huge crush. At the end of the film the girl is cured of her illness, but the boy dies. The icon in question is owned by Zhovna.
“I used to love collecting icons. One time I was given an icon of St. Panteleimon by Natalia Kalashnikova, an Old Believer from Novomyrhorod. It was immediately apparent that it had not been created by a professional icon-painter; there was a childish touch to it. That was how I conceived the plot for my film,” Zhovna explained.
According to Serhii Horbenko, a 20-year-old resident of the boarding school, Zhovna conducts art classes, where the children do crafts. The walls of the assembly hall are hung with very beautiful and carefully made appliques, embroideries, and drawings. For all we know, Pylypok may be based on a real-life boy.
Zhovna’s film A Small Life won a prize for the best socially useful script at a competition organized by Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism. According to the terms and conditions of the competition, the ministry was supposed to fund the film. But when it came time to do the winter shoot, no funds were forthcoming. That was when Foxtrot came to the filming crew’s rescue — again.
Zhovna loves the writings of Anton Chekhov and readily calls himself a “person that gets excited about things.” Besides writing and making films, he collects postage stamps, icons, and antique car models. He has succeeded in winning Foxtrot’s business support for another important social project called “Small Life — Big Heart” — a reference to the children whom he teaches. The project’s goal is to organize creative competitions for the residents of the boarding school and help them set up their lives after they leave. Zhovna is grateful both to his business friends for their immense support and to the children in his charge. He used to dream of moving to Kyiv, but now he would not even consider such an opportunity because his pupils rely on him to be there.
