One of the most highly awaited new Ukrainian films is the work of renowned script writer and film director Aleksandr Mindadze, Innocent Saturday, which addresses the Chornobyl disaster. The world premiere of the film took place in February at the International Berlin Film Festival. After the premiere the director spoke to a press conference.
When did you begin working on Innocent Saturday?
“I came up with the script long ago, in 2005. Writing it was hard, and it took me a long time; I have been involved in this project for three years in succession. The shooting took place last summer.”
Where were you when the catastrophe occurred?
“On April 26, 1986, I was taking part in the shooting of the film Pliumbum, or Dangerous Game together with Vadim Abdrashitov and the famous cameraman Georgy Rerberg on a roof of a Minsk house. And on April 27 we drank wine, which was a means of ‘decontamination.’ We were in good mood. We did not want to go anywhere, maybe because we understood that our life was not worth a thing.”
Why this topic?
“This is the hardest question. Indisputably, this topic is sensitive both for Europe, and us. And it is not about the fact that a person’s life is valued very highly in Europe, but also the fact that Chornobyl will always stay with us, ever present in our mentality. In a sense it reflects our everlasting dialectics: the genetically developed attitude to danger, understanding that this is an edgy situation, when you know that you may die, but, paradoxically, life at this very moment starts blossoming with the brightest colors and becomes more and more attractive.”
Where did the shooting take place?
“In Svitlodarsk, Donetsk oblast, and Enerhodar, Zaporizhia oblast. These cities remind me of Prypiat, which was thriving before the disaster; they are more civilized as they were built near big plants. However, we had to deal with ads, which did not exist in 1986, for sure.”
What was the attitude of the local authorities to your work?
“Our relations were great. Surely, this is also due to the work of the people who worked on establishing those relations. It is quite logical that we can always use everything that regards non-official life in a positive manner: an individual remains an individual, even if he’s taking the office of the head of a plant or heating station that should be disguised as a nuclear plant. I mean that the power of private agreements in Russia and Ukraine is very strong. Again, this is our tradition. But I think it can be very helpful, for moviemaking in particular, because if you listen to the stories about how many films (including famous ones) were shot, you understand that they were made for almost nothing notably thanks to these private agreements.”
The film’s characters drink loads of alcohol. Don’t you have a feeling that you support the opinion of Russians as drunkards?
“It seems to me you saw a different kind of film. In my film people drink because it would be strange if they spoke about the cosmos that very minute. They may be drinking out of simple reason — for ‘decontamination.’ Second, this film has optimism and life-asserting elements, which of course are present not in idiotic, but rather artistic ways. At least the characters don’t get spoiled; they don’t escape, like people fled from the sinking Titanic. This is how it can be seen, not just as trivial drinking.”
Music is another way to escape troubles. The musical pieces in your films are well thought out and fit the times.
“The purpose of soundtracks is to produce the effect you felt: it enchanted the heroes and, as I have understood from your question, it also enchanted the audience, bringing it to this scene, with its heroes.”
You also used other means — an emphasis on close-up scenes.
“This was a conscious decision, to stay in a certain closed space, very close to the faces and people, in order to feel that those people were made of flesh.”
The films you direct are stories about the aftermaths of catastrophes: Soaring shows what happens after a plane crash, Innocent Saturday – after an explosion on a nuclear power plant. Why is it so?
“I am not a catastrophist. I take interest not in the accidents, but people in these conditions.”
In your opinion, if the same thing happened in Germany, would the reaction be the same?
“Of course, not. In Germany people take a greater care of their health and they value their lives, though of course there have been cataclysms when many people died. This is our genetically created mentality: we are living close to danger and death all the time. Europeans would simply flee. They would not care about some girl, let alone her heels, passport, or a drum playing. There is a huge difference between us in this sense. This film is very much about us, it is pretty understandable for any person who’s either living in the former USSR, or knows this area well. And of course for those who perceive universal problems in art.”
Do you have any specific plans concerning your next film?
“Of course, I do, I would go insane unless I did not have any. But I don’t want to talk about them at the moment because of superstitions and my inner hesitation.”
