John Klein

2/16/2004

RU 386, Prof. Gillespie

Review of Adam’s Rib

~Nastiya, to Victor in Adam’s Rib

The vast majority of American movies don’t go for subtlety. The philosophy for many seems to say that if you can’t say it outright and be simple about it, it isn’t worth putting on film. Thankfully, Russian cinema does not cave in to this philosophy quite so easily; for proof, look to the black-and-white opening sequence of Adam’s Rib. Throughout this montage of simple shots, including that of a sailor and a woman, presumably married, and of that woman shortly thereafter having an affair, we realize that we are witnessing the unstoppable passage of time and the very growth of Russia itself. This theme echoes throughout Adam’s Rib, a stunningly subtle and beautifully made film about three generations of women inhabiting one three-room apartment in Moscow. Speaking to gender roles and issues of privacy throughout its brief 77-minute narrative, the film uses the romantic endeavors of Nina and her two daughters (through two separate marriages), Lidia and Nastiya, to allegorically represent different generations of Russian culture in the 20^th century.

Over the course of three days, each a little more tense than the next, we watch teenager Nastiya (Mariya Golubkina) cope with her boyfriend and the fact that she is pregnant, older Lidia (Svetlana Ryabova) as she has an affair with her married boss Andrei, mother Nina (Inna Churikova) being wooed by the modest and admirable Evgeny, and the bedridden grandmother (Yelena Bogdanova), the same woman represented in the opening flashback. A rather ambiguous ending and a near lack of plot in any conventional form may turn many people off, but the brilliant, humorous and complex performances of the four leading ladies breathe an amazing amount of life into the movie. Nina’s powerful monologue to her mother, Nastiya’s mature declaration that she wants to have her baby, Lidia’s realization that her affair is doing much more harm than she ever realized…all these moments and more give a certain resonance to the film that all audiences can appreciate. The men are caricatures for the most part, with only Evgeny showcasing any real depth, but this is a superfluous complaint; this movie belongs to the women, and rightly so.

However, the best aspect of Adam’s Rib and also the deepest, as seen in the opening flashback, lies in the cinematography. Talented director Vyacheslav Krishtofovich understands very well how to illustrate the notion of lost privacy and character emotions through imagery and his use of various motifs throughout the film. Multiple long takes scan the apartment and capture each of the three younger women moving about, giving not only a sense of claustrophobia in the framings within framings of the characters but also conveying a sense of the characters having no privacy at all; they are trapped within the frame, confined to the small quarters they are allotted. Their whole lives revolve around helping their grandmother survive and keeping the family afloat day by day. This motif is especially evident in Nina’s commands to Nastiya to move the TV and later on, in a dramatic role reversal, when Nastiya gives the same commands to Nina.

Other thematically significant image motifs, such as the point-of-views shots of the grandmother in her room staring at the ceiling or the exquisite use of close-ups on each of the four women midway through the movie and throughout, further serve to illustrate how linked the four women are and how dependent they are on each other. Their lack of privacy barely factors into the equation; they rely on each other for support and to live, regardless of Lidia’s comment at the end that they "can’t rely on anyone." The climactic dinner scene expresses this openness in its most honest form, depicting the reactions of each individual character to the final revelations without blinking an eye. Nastiya’s above comment to her father Victor, however sarcastic, is a true vision of glasnost and, in the end, a symbolically hopeful look to what the future for Russia holds.

Adam’s Rib isn’t perfect. A few actions feel unmotivated without knowledge of the symbolism involved, the low lighting strains the eyes at times, and the ambiguous ending almost feels too ambiguous even for a Russian film. Regardless, the film grips you, and demands to be seen more than once, if not for its complex themes then for the way each character etches out a little corner of your heart.