Firstly, this film was a gorgeous object. The way shots were set up and filmed deserve praise. Perhaps its nothing new to explore the grotesqueness of the babushka's wrinkled, hollow faces, or the eating etiquette (or lack there of) of peasants in close quarters on a train. I kept thinking someone must have just been watching a Fellini movie marathon-- or even some Sergio Leone spaghetti western before filming these scenes. However, behind every image that seemed repulsive or bleak or even hackneyed, I could not stop watching or being in awe that I was seeing such beauty. The sound-- not just the music and the singing and wailing of the characters, but the sound scape of each scene-- trains, drills, boots marching in thick mud, insect chirps-- had me watching the movie with the volume way up. The story was initially engaging, and as many of the reviewers here state, it seemed to unravel from a tightly set-up premise into some sort of meditation-- which was fine with me. Granted, I was confused at times, wondering where Marina was going after watching her trudge through the decaying Russian countryside for fifteen on-screen minutes, or what revelation would come out of Zoya's wake scene or the drunken feast scene. It was challenging to watch it all in one sitting, solely, i think, because most movies have trained us--definitely me- to look for action-reaction, immediate gratification in their storytelling. I had to view this two hour movie in three increments. It was well worth it. I'm not sure what everything means: is Marina one of the four "Doubles", one of the diseased ones that her drinking partner in the bar described? What is the significance of the dogs verses the machines? What changes so that Marat begins selling ground beef (thats incidentally nine years old)? I don't know, and really, does it matter? I kept thinking of "Amores Perros" as I watched "4": the dog motif, the intertwined stories, the life-altering connections to strangers, the revelatory windows on a culture which both these movies are. But "4" seems rougher, less slick and more of a feat to have completed. The voyeur in me was very excited to see two versions of the female body. The sisters naked in the sauna contrasted so deeply with the old crones' drunken striptease and breast-play, not only for the obvious reason that younger breasts and flesh are more aesthetically pleasing than the expired, sagging skin of aged peasant ladies without moisturizer, but also because, even with their taut beauty, the younger women seem to find no pleasure whatsoever in their bodies-- one selling hers even-- while at least the babushkas find humor and even delight in what is under all those layers of raggedy clothes. Bravo to the women who agreed to film those scenes!
Review of 4
