In Filip Remunda’s documentary “Happiness to All,” the Czech filmmaker portrays a characteristically off-kilter protagonist – and one who tasks invincibility someway tinged with doom. The movie made its world premiere this week on the Ji.hlava Movie Competition within the Czech Rep., the place it gained the best Central and Eastern European documentary award.
Vitaly, a former nuclear physicist and document holder in excessive cold-exposure coaching, makes his dwelling as a building employee on the fringes of Siberia, barely eking out a dwelling. Whereas his mother and father, nonetheless distinguished scientists, reminisce in regards to the glory of the Soviet regime they helped construct, Vitaly finds his ardour for Mom Russia on a special frequency.
Though additionally an avowed patriot himself, who spends his time rebuilding the foundations of rotting homes, Vitaly focuses on his video weblog espousing his house restore abilities and the evils of capitalism. However the energetic, foul-mouthed galoot appears primarily targeted on drilling by ice for a swim as usually as potential.
And as Remunda’s crew follows him over eight years, Vitaly’s begins to return to an awakening of kinds, souring on the system that defunded Educational City, the Novosibirsk settlement constructed to deal with scientists below the previous regime, whereas eager for a extra simply Russia.
Marching on Could Day with the Communist Occasion bigwigs and their followers sooner or later, Vitaly decides he’s had sufficient and admits “these persons are stuffed with shit.”
“His story is typical,” says Remunda, “however his conduct may be very uncommon as a result of he’s a really sincere individual and he isn’t hiding something, mainly. He jogged my memory of some characters from Czech literature like Josef Svejk, in order that by his openness, I can truly see issues which might be usually hidden. I favored very a lot that I’d see an unmasked nation, Russia, by the eyes of somebody who’s cheering for his president and nation and saying Russia is the freest nation on the earth.”
Vitaly additionally has some ideas on the world of actual property. “To an actual man,” he says, “a home is only a place to sleep. These dudes whose home is their entire life, their ‘private house’ and shit, they’re not individuals, simply cut-out cardboard figures. They don’t need to be pioneers, to create or uncover issues, all that issues to them is what they personal, how a lot they pay to some fucking moneybag in mortgage, how huge is their fucking flat.”
Regardless of (or due to?) Vitaly’s many colourful rants, he ultimately lands himself a bride, Olga, hauling her into the icy water for a marine-based ceremony. Possibly not surprisingly, we don’t see a lot of her afterwards – although she additionally admits admiringly, her beau reminds her of Aquaman.
Remunda says he and his editor realized they’d a personality robust sufficient to base a movie on after starting to observe him when he gained notoriety for swimming below a bridge that Putin was opening close to his house.
Remunda, the Czech director and producer identified for his confrontational satirical docs on social points, is co-founder of the Institute of Documentary Movie in Prague and the indie manufacturing firm Hypermarket Movie. He’s additionally co-author of the Czech Tv collection “Czech Journal” and, as half of a directing duo with Vit Klusak, has made a gradual stream of movies for 20 years being feted a the twenty eighth Ji.hlava fest: “Czech Dream,” “Czech Peace,” “The Good Driver Smetana” and “As soon as Upon a Time in Poland.”
Becoming properly into the ironic strategy celebrated by Michael Moore, who has promoted Remunda and Klusak’s work, Vitaly’s story gives a uncommon perception into the mindset of the hundreds of thousands of Russians who stay as patriotic as ever whereas watching their world disintegrate.
“Happiness to All”
Courtesy of Ji.hlava
Because the ice swimming champ places it, “I’m not afraid of a coup; I’m wanting ahead to it. Any change will likely be for the higher, as a result of it could possibly’t get any worse.”
Capturing the flavour of Vitaly’s speech, which Remunda describes as a mix of Russian gangster slang and “the language of poets,” was key, the director says.
The ring of laughter within the cinema corridor of Jihlava’s personal Soviet-era marvel, the DKO tradition heart, signaled that that the “Happiness” crew obtained it proper.
In the meantime with all his actions, Vitaly illustrates clearly the issues and dysfunction extraordinary Russians face, from poverty to shortage to flooded streets and damaged down housing.
“My objective was to grasp this paradox,” Remunda says. “Why any person like Vitaly helps the nation and regime when the nation has no social safety system supplied to him as he lives past the border of poverty, roughly. And nonetheless he sees that ‘that is the most effective for me.’”
“So I used to be making an attempt to get nearer to him and perceive this paradox. He’s about the identical age as me and lived roughly 5,500 kilometers away and since we dwell in numerous nations our political views are dramatically completely different.”
And as for whether or not the filmmakers attain that understanding? “I hope so, sure. And I hope that now we have that within the movie.”
Vitaly, in fact, won’t ever see his employee paradise, as the ultimate act of “Happiness” reveals conclusively.
“He was actually keen to vary society for the higher,” Remunda says. “He was not the kind of one who is passive. He was energetic. So we needed to imprint that onto his story – he truly was calling for change.”
“The movie is tragic, in fact, as a result of it tells the story of somebody who helps a regime liable for the battle in Ukraine – there’s human tragedy in it. However most likely if you end up speaking so brazenly and you’re sincere, it provokes different individuals to assume.”
Maybe most mockingly of all, Vitaly, together with his Ukrainian final identify Panasyuk, is more likely to have had kin dwelling below fireplace, due to his nice hero, Putin.
