Bohdan Stupka was awarded the Golden Eagle (a prize presented by the National Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences of Russia) for the best male cameo in Oleg Pogodin’s Dom (Home). However, Stupka’s appearance inevitably brings his character to the foreground. Besides, his role in Home is in fact one of the major ones.
Stupka has already got two Golden Eagles: in 2004 he went to Moscow to accept the award for playing General Serov in Pavel Chukhrai’s Driver for Vera, and in 2010 for Taras Bulba in Vladimir Bortko’s eponymous film.
We are still under the impression from Stupka’s triumph in Moscow last November, when he and Oleg Tabakov received a prestigious Idol award in the nomination “For Sublime Service to the Art.” Two months have hardly passed – and voila, another international victory.
The premiere of Home in Kyiv took place in early 2011, on the eve of now famous Bohdan Stupka’s Anniversary Concert No.70 at Ivan Franko Theater. A month later, in early November, Stupka gathered full houses in Moscow.
The film tells a story of the big Shamanov family that lives in a house in the middle of the steppe. Their life is far from peaceful and is astir with conflict. The foreboding of evil is inspired by the first scene in the film, when the Shamanov brothers, Sergei (Vladimir Yepifantsev) and Andrei (Ivan Dobronravov), kill a male wolf and then fear the revenge of the female. However, another problem comes like a bolt from the blue, brought by one of the family: the eldest Shamanov son, Viktor (Sergei Garmash) comes back home after years of absence. He had served a term in prison, become a notorious criminal leader, and made a lot of enemies. He knows that there are killers hunting after him, yet he does not even suspect that they are so close.
Home in the film is rather an allegory than the place of action. It failed to become the stronghold of all the four generations of the Shamanovs who live there. On the contrary, it is the place where their lives and fates crash. Perhaps Home itself is not to blame for this: its owners had accumulated too bad karma, starting with the oldest Shamanov, a 100-year-old man, whose birthday anniversary is attended by numerous descendants. Decades ago he shot kulaks (farmers) in a ravine not far from the place where his house was later built (that is why the ravine was named after him).
There are some really shattering scenes in the film. The eldest brother Viktor mercilessly beats up the younger, Sergei, because the latter asked if he might join his criminal business. It might appear that the big brother wanted to teach a good lesson to the younger. But the fight is too cruel for being just a brotherly thrashing. Both are so blinded with rage that they don’t even notice the she-wolf, whom they had been hunting. The wolf quietly eats the meat, which was left as bait, and completely ignores the seething humans. Indeed, they inspire nothing but aversion, just as the fight of two other brothers from the elder generation, Grigorii Shamanov (Stupka) and Aleksei Shamanov (Pyotr Zaichenko), former local party boss. This could seem to be a duel of two implacable ideologies, but in fact it is a duel between despair and lie. The atmosphere at Home suggests the words said by renowned Russian philosopher Semyon Frank: “And amidst this commotion and idiocy, how few signs there are of spiritual comprehension of life, and of yearning for true spiritual revival!”
In this context, Stupka creates an extremely complex, psychologically versatile, and powerful image. As the head of the family and a present-day patriarch, he rules with a heavy hand. In the moments of wrath his eyes are terrible, they burn his own son. And at the same time, deep inside, at the bottom of his heart Stupka’s character has preserved a stubborn kindness and a hope to live at least by laws of justice, if not by the Biblical commandments.
Your heart misses a beat as you hear the elder Shamanov question his son, who did a prison term for murder. In formulating his question he is second to none, not even the authors of referendum questions, so he finally gets the answer he was hoping for: “So, you couldn’t have done otherwise, could you?” “No,” replies the son. “Oh, I’ve always known that,” sighs the father with relief, and his common sense melts down from an enormous desire to acquit his son in his own eyes. The father turns a blind eye to the son’s dirty money, because it helped keep Home strong, and it keeps the whole big Family.
Indeed, there are hardly emotions Stupka could not act, because there is nowhere to take such emotions from. He takes them from other people’s lives, from space, from his own tormented soul.
Where does the drama of Home-like society lie? In my opinion, in the absence of God in the souls of its inhabitants. Under the conditions of absent (or omnipresent?) state power as well, this had disastrous effects on human psyche. In his genotype, Stupka’s character has preserved the primeval integrity of the farmer, who had survived for ages in his own Home and in his own big family. Moreover, he had been the foundation of state power. However, a long-lasting pairing of godlessness with the kolkhoz, and later, capitalist conscience did give rise to all sorts of monsters. Stupka interprets all this by means of his character’s soul and subconsciousness.
Thus, we see the absence of God in the soul. Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev introduced the notion of “godforsakeness” into the philosophy of everyday life. This notion is very much applicable to the characters in Home. Once the camera focused on an icon, literally smothered in rubbish. That was a very important moment, crucial for the understanding of the film. Does it inspire hope in the viewer? Or the contrary? It depends on the viewer.
I had a talk with Stupka about this. I even remember the date, November 19, when he arrived in Moscow, and I had just seen the movie. Of course, the actor had not learned his lines from Berdyaev or Frank, but on the whole he agreed with my reasoning. He especially liked the precise and profound term “godforsaken.” I have known Stupka for more than a quarter of a century, and yet I can’t stop admiring his endless yearning for new knowledge and his amazing erudition.
Stupka led me to think about which of the Shamanovs were eventually able to survive. It turns out that only those who did not set hopes on Lord or the others’ help were strong enough to break free from the Godless, spiritually deprived Home: the younger son Andrei runs away, and the son-in-law Igor (Gleb Podgorodinsky) attempts to hang himself. He is the only one in the whole household who will at least look at the icon. Maybe this was what saved him? A gangster’s bullet snapped the rope he was already hanging from, while other bullets claimed the lives of almost the entire family.
Despite the hackneyed theme of criminal lawlessness, there is no comparing Home to endless cheap, vapid movies and entire TV series about the “roaring 1990s.” This riveting film takes the viewer to the very core of the problem, it shows the causal relations between all events and deeds, and to a great extent it does so due to Stupka’s talented acting.
As he was receiving Stupka’s Golden Eagle, director Oleg Pogodin called him a “cosmic artist.” Well, this is true to a tee. I will add from myself: not only has Stupka got a God-given talent, but he is also one awesome, God-inspired actor.
Volodymyr Melnychenko holds a doctoral degree in history and works as director general of the Ukrainian National Cultural Center in Moscow
