The Second Circle

I look for narrative in movies. What is it about the camera angles, or the dialog, or the progression of the story that adds to the narrative? I want to understand how the authors uses his tools, whether they be a camera and actors, or words to construct a narrative. I think that is why I didn't care of the movie, The Bourne Ultimatum, it lacked a sufficient narrative. Maybe it was the fact that I didn't see the first two in the trilogy, but I thought the story progressed little and felt that a high-pace substituted for a plot.

I just finished the movie The Second Circle (1990) by Aleksandr Sokurov. Yes, I to discuss movies here. The story takes place after the death of a man's father to cancer and his subsequent preparations of his funeral. There are many questions this brings up.

Why does the movie rely on so many long shots? I feel that the scenes convey more despair when they linger on long, quiet shots of the squarer that he and his father endured. What kind of relationship did the father and son have? That is probably the plot of the story. The son struggles through the entire story to bury his father. He cannot bear to cremate the man nor bear the site of his lifeless body. A shot of the son opening his father's eyes does not convey a sense of joy or relief. There is mostly silence in the movie, and we a left to hear the sounds of the son walking in his poor shack, fighting with others over his father's remains.

What was the fighting with the undertaker about when preparing his father's body for his coffin? I noticed that the son was very delicate and caring about his father as he gave him the shoes off his own feet. The undertaker was overly abusive to the son; verbally and physically. Why wash the father's body in the snow? That was another long shot; a man washing a dead man's body in the cold snow. It gave a chilling effect to see that the man had to soap or water, and that they had to restore to flushing the dead remains with snow.

I didn't see much direct contact between the son and father. While his father's remains were being prepared, he looked away. Was it disbelief? Did he open his father's eyes to make sure he was really gone? The constant snow, the lack of any other family and dark colors allowed for a sustained belief of isolation and darkness. The long shots of the body told the father was not going to awake ever again. His death is as perminent was the long winters; of his poverty.