Beanpole Review

Whew, this was a struggle to get through, not that it was bad, it is kind of a slow burn about two women that is quite emotionally deep at times. The story takes its name from the character Iya played by Viktoria Miroshnichenko who is a tall sort of lanky girl, which the community they live in refer to her as a beanpole due to her stature. Let me set the scene for you, it is set just post World War II in Russian, oh yeah its a Russian language film that is about 130 minutes (that might have had an effect on my getting through this), Iya works in a hospital that treats soldiers that have lost limbs or the ability to fully move in one case. She has a small boy that lives with her in a small room in a shared building, aka, has to take baths in a community bathing room. Just after a tragic event with the boy, we meet Masha (Vasilisa Perelygina) the boys real mother who has just returned from serving in the Army. Iya and Masha served in an anti-aircraft unit where they met and formed a strong friendship, Iya was discharged for medical reasons and still suffers from freezing up unexpectedly at times a result akin to a form of PTSD. Coming back and finding that her son died under her friends care, Masha, feels that her friend basically owes her a child and sets that plan into motion. This brings the two girls into a whirlwind of emotions that brings the audience into the mix, they at times are now closer than ever, while at the same time the reason they are becoming closer is creating friction pushing them away. I mentioned that it took me a while to get through this, actually is was a full afternoon, one of the reasons is it does unfold and move slowly. It is a heavy movie that does not loosen up and I resulted to having to press pause step away for a little bit then move forward a little bit and take another break. This is the first film for both leading actresses and they are what is golden about the movie, the emotions they are able to portray and work through the movie for new actresses is quite extraordinary. Directed by Kantemir Balagou, he is able to effectively transport audiences back to Leningrad in 1945, there for me was just some pacing issues and some off choices on shot setups, again though this is a Russian made film obviously they are gonna be shooting films different than films made stateside, was this a movie for me no, though I do appreciate it as an International Film and the craft work that went into making it. C.