Neil Young’s Film Lounge – Granny
GRANNY
6/10
Babusja : Russia 2003 : Lidia BOBROVA : 97 mins
In a house by a lake, vital Tosja long-sufferingly manages her daughters household. When her daughter becomes ill years later, her son-in-law Ivan forces the old woman to give her house to her grandchildren, and he carts her off to her sister Annas. Anna has to deal with her drunkard of a son Vitya, though her daughter Liza is a successful journalist in Moscow. The sisters recall their past, living in harmony with each other and their neighbours. Then Anna breaks her hip and has to go to hospital
(from official Troms 2004 Film Festival programme)
Seventy-something Nina Shubinas restrained, touching performance as stoic granny Tosja is the main reason to see this socially-conscious tearjerker (a less effective representative of that genre than Polands Edi). Modern Russia, were shown, is headed for spiritual bankruptcy even as it contemplates a 21st century of material wealth for the fortunate few. Among those left behind in the dog-eat-dog rush for capitalist riches are the non-productive likes of Tosja a lifelong toiler who even helped dig trenches at Stalingrad, and whose descendants were injured and killed on the more recent battlefields of Afghanistan and Chechnya.
For Tosjas generation, family bonds, rural folk traditions and strong community spirit are taken for granted but, as she discovers, things have changed. Shes left metaphorically and literally out in the cold as, one by one, her ingrate relatives (caricatures of selfish venality, for the most part) turn her away. Bobrova certainly doesn’t stint on sentiment the climax features a mute girl who, exposed to Tosjas kindness, miraculously (though somewhat predictably) recovers the power of speech. But Bobrovas central, unspoken conceit that Tosja represents nothing less than Mother Russia herself (or rather Grand-mother Russia) is strong enough to compensate for the films manipulatively melodramatic aspects, stagey scenes and the some cardboardy thesping from the supporting cast.
3rd February, 2004
(seen 16th January : Kulturhuset Troms Troms International Film Festival)
click here for a full list of reviewed films from the Troms International Film Festival 2004
by Neil Young
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