FARUKH RUZIMATOV and DIANA VISHNEVA in "THE MEEK ONE" (2001) Dir. Yevgeny Rostovsky "BEFORE HER SUICIDE"

Music by Yevgeny Rostovsky

Choreography Vladimir Romanovsky

Duet before the suicide

"She ... drew back in great alarm"

"She grew more and more afraid."


"And I fully understood my despair"

"...ecstasy was surging up in my head..."

DIANA VISHNEVA "THE MEEK ONE" (2001) Dir. Yevgeny Rostovsky "...she was soft-hearted and gentle..."

"THE MEEK ONE" (2001)

Director Yevgeny Rostovsky

film based on the Dostoevsky's story

Ballet by Yevgeny Rostovsky

Choreography Vladimir Romanovsky

DIANA VISHNEVA

"...she was soft-hearted and gentle..."

"THE MEEK ONE" (2001) Dir. Yevgeny Rostovsky AN INVISIBLE AUTHOR: THE "REAL PRESENCE"

AN INVISIBLE AUTHOR: THE "REAL PRESENCE"

THE AUTHOR - Yevgeny Rostovsky

“The Meek One”(2001), film, based on the Dostoevsky’s story, starts with the voice-over dialog of the Pawnbroker, the main character and the Author. It seems that they walk by the house, in which they both lived. Actually, they lived in the same apartment, but in different time. The present and the 19th c. past are fused in the movie into “real” cinematic time and space.

-Everything in this flat must be different...

The Author is literally invisible. He appeared on the screen for a second here and there so fast, that we are not sure what exactly we just observed.

We can’t quite catch how he looks like, because he slides through the frames, slightly ignored by the camera, and we are only allowed to have a glimpse of his hand, or his back, or some trivial things like the television remote control and the telephone, or glasses, reminding of him.

Attributes: the remote and the glasses

Probably, only by chance he happened to be next to the Pawnbroker in the theater buffet. Or maybe not.

Confession and the mock Eucharist

There is an unexpected and almost solemn event of the Author breaking bread and giving wine (in this case reduced to the small pitcher of the common traditional Russian vodka) to the Pawnbroker, the unworthy disciple partaking in his supper. The "wicked devils" imitation of the
Sacraments, the Last Supper and the Eucharist is no more that a caricature of the sacred rites. What this travesty of the invocation of the Higher Power will bring, is definitely not from the Divine. In the spirit of the Eucharistic Discipline there is a heart felt self examination of the Pawnbroker, preceding his sincere confession in his sins. Here it is the Sacrament of Reconciliation, or Penance. Those are the obvious recognizable elements of the religious ritual. In some kind of the Unholy Communion, the mock Sacrament of the Table the Pawnbroker "celebrates" their union and the covenant of his promise of personal commitment.

The Author is totally indifferent as if he is deaf and mute. There is no communication . It's not even clear, if he is listening or could care enough to hear. But from now on he will be at the
very crucial moment of the plot, not an outsider, but the Author.

The Author disappears from the screen, but not from the lives of the characters.

He is the real Author of the story, not them. He creates their lives, unknowable, unseen force, almost invisible, but always present in spirit. This is his "gift" of Real Presence.

He manipulates the Pawnbroker. The sleeve.

He manipulates the Pawnbroker, who is no more, than the pawn in his game, to go ahead with the proposal.

The pawn. The sleeve.

"Playing chess with the Devil".

He sets the plot in motion by one push of a button on his remote control.

The Author sets the plot in motion. The sleeve.

He is only fully visible for a moment in these depths of the bowels of hell, his domain, the communal apartment where the hero came to propose. His color is red.

Evil in his domain. The circles of Hell.

Over the phone he gives the instructions. The sleeve.

Over the phone he gives the Pawnbroker the instructions to forbid his wife to leave the flat.

The fatal date: the sweater, the glasses, the remote.

And finally he was the one who had this fatal date with her, resulted in her illness and eventually suicide. He informed the Pawnbroker about her suicide that he witnessed.

He brought only death and destruction, an invisible, evil, deceptive and deadly, so small and insignificant, on the periphery of the screen and, it seems, of the main events. Following his remote the Pawnbroker brings his newly rekindled passion to his wife’s feet. The black and white TV where the events unfold lives no doubts about that. For her this was the last decisive catastrophic moment.

All the crucial decisions leading to wife's suicide and husband's despair were orchestrated by the Author for the reasons unknown to us. For he is the Author. He created two biographies as he pleased.

In the fantastic reality of the film he is the almighty Unseen Force, shaping lives behind the scenes, while the narrator like all of us starts his story with "I".

Pouring the wine.

This story is finished, but the new girl again comes into the same familiar setting. The Author is still here, pouring the wine.