Little Vera is very different from the other movies we have watched. I didn't seem to center around the war or the Soviet regime as much as everything else we have watched did.
I noticed that the city where the family lives is very industrialized. Every time we are shown the skyline it is always full of pollution and identical apartments. I also can't recall a time in the movie where we see a shot that is just of nature - even when the family goes to the beach to get away for the day, their truck is in the background. The apartment Vera's family lives in is very small, much like the apartment Katya and Alexandra live in in Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears.
Just like in many other films we have watched, alcohol seems to be a big part of Vera's life. The family always drinks alcohol with dinner, mostly vodka, and Vera is left to care for her father when he has too much to drink.
I felt bad for Vera when Victor told her the only reason their father wanted a daughter was so he could get a bigger apartment. She was already in the middle of a meltdown, so I don't think her father should have told her that. But he does go to find her at the end of the scene before the family leaves, and we see him comforting her, which shows that he truly does love her.
4 comments:
"Little Vera is very different from the other movies we have watched. I didn't seem to center around the war or the Soviet regime as much as everything else we have watched did."
Though note that we are often reminded of the USSR, often in a somewhat snide and cynical fashion. For example, consider when Vera and Sergei are on the beach together; he asks her what she thinks is the most important thing in life, and she responds "Communism." Also, Vera throughout the movie loves to garble and play with expressions that would have been said with a very straight face not too many years before.
Nice observations on nature...or the lack thereof. You're very right--it's always tarnished in some way by a smokestack, a truck, a train, etc.
You're right that we've seen alcohol and drunks before. But have they been presented in the raw fashion we see here?
In my opinion, Vera's father was kind of had a 'Jekyll and Hyde' personality. He seemed to be a great father to her when he was not drinking. However, once he got drunk he seemed like he turned into a completely different person. I thought that your comments on the lack of nature were very insightful. There really were not any beautiful shots of the countryside that have been present in previous movies that we have watched.
I agree with your take on nature in this film- not much of it. Besides the scene on the beach, I noticed the other shots filmed along the water looked disgusting and polluted. I was just waiting to see blinky (the three eyed fish from the Simpsons) pop up somewhere :]
Which makes it all the more frightful when we see people (Andrei at one point and then the father and Viktor at another) actually bathing in the water!
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