Name: Russia from My Window
Genre: Documentary
Rating: 8.4

If as if Buster Keaton was Russian and made documentaries.

What an amazing film from such a simple resources. The director has filmed the view of the St Petersburg city street from his window and the changing environment, but with a particular focus on the actual road (as in in the literal tarmac) outside his window. Essentially is a year in the life of this street and the various characters who walk up and down it, and the workers who are consistently required to repair and clean it.

If this sounds boring, well take it from me, if approached in the right mood in mindset, it's not.

 At times the film looks like it's going to lapse into American Beauty-esque "plastic bag" nonsense (as the director films leaves, dust, snow and rain blowing up and down the street in what are, it has to be said, visually poetic moments) but it soon becomes an ode to the oddities of human interaction and the dogged hard work of ordinary working people, juxtaposed with a humorous commentary on bureaucratic incompetence, civic short-termism, and Russians' general disregard for even the most basic health and safety procedures - to say more would be to give away spoilers. However what the director is really interested in is people. The film is full of sweet little vignettes of filmed character interactions in the street between various characters, or just observed passers by. Sometimes the juxtapositions between the the environment and the people walking around it seemed too good to be true but given that it was filmed over a year hundreds of hours of material must have been sifted for these nuggets.

The film is occasionally a little bit too pleased with the idea of being a sort of observational documentary comedy, the occasional silent movie style sped-up motion, intrusive jangle-piano and other music cues are a little overbearing at times, the film is at its best when it simply seems to observe. Look out for the director's cameo about an hour in.

Russian cinema is distinguished by its epic scale, philosophical depth, and innovative visual language. It often explores history, ideology, and the human psyche, with a tradition of psychological realism and artistic experimentation. Russian cinema contributed revolutionary theories of editing and later a spiritual approach to film language. It remains known for combining formal experimentation with profound explorations of endurance and belief.

Nikolay Grinko, Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy, and Anatoliy Solonitsyn in Stalker (1979)

The documentary is a form of non-fiction storytelling that aims to present factual information, insights, and perspectives on real-world subjects, events, issues, or people. Documentaries can cover a wide range of topics, including history, science, culture, social issues, nature, biographies, and more.

Dziga Vertov in Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

A surreal observational view of daily of St Petersburg life. This is a fascinating look at the abstract quality of everyday events that often passing unnoticed in front of our eyes.

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Russia from My Window

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