25 July 09 - PAPER SOLDIERS - Aleksei German Ml. - 2008 - Film Fest #12
Low point of the film fest. Shouldn’t a film about the Russian space program have some space program scenes in it? Beautiful, but terribly dull, this film wants to be Tarkovsky so very badly.
Summed up perfectly by an extreme WS near the end of the film, where you can just make out a rocket taking off, way way in the distance. I shouted inwardly, “Hey! Take me over there! With the rocket! Cool space stuff! Over there!” Instead, the camera tracked in closer in the foreground where two women were crying over the dead body of the film’s hero. The doctor. Then the film carried on for another reel about the relationship between the doctor’s wife and mistress. Perhaps I’m a slave to western narrative structure, but watching this left me lost and bored.
