"Salamanca" as an attempt to look into the future and remember the past

MOSCOW. In the Central House of Artists the rental of the film “Salamanca” about the Mexican Mennonite community has ended.

“Salamanca” aroused many associations with the parable Haneke “White Ribbon” about the life of a rural community, forever split by mysterious and terrible events. The first full meter of Alexandra Kulak and Ruslan Fedotov turned out to be so convincing and mature that it was selected for the program of three festivals in Switzerland and the Netherlands. The language and style of this tape so do not fit into the canons that are familiar to Russian cinema, that even the experienced Vitaly Mansky had doubts about its domestic origin. Visual innovation is just one of Salamanca’s strengths. The heroes of the tape are the Mennonites who settled in Mexico and completely preserved the way of their ancestors. One of the movements of Protestantism arose during the Reformation in the Netherlands. The laws followed by these people have remained virtually unchanged for centuries. Many things remained behind their lives, without which most of our contemporaries cannot imagine themselves. This primarily concerns electricity and the benefits associated with it.

The Mennonite community in Russia, which arrived here at the invitation of Catherine II, once totaled tens of thousands of members. Talented farmers, hardworking and competent people turned any space around them into a blooming garden, carefully treating and arranging every patch of land. Generic literacy, the study of languages and geometry, even for applied purposes - for successful farming. The history of Mennonites is the story of perpetual migrants whose pacifist beliefs did not allow them to linger in one place for a long time. Any attempt to call up men from this community for military service ended in emigration. The mass exodus of Mennonites from Russia is associated with the decision to deport them during the First World War, which involved confiscation of property, as well as repression in the Stalin era.

A semi-game-semi-documentary film gives the viewer a chance to get acquainted with the life of a community isolated from the outside world. And to understand what it is - a measured, frozen and predetermined life forever, assuming uniformity and rejection of many earthly pleasures with the punishability of criticism and dissent. And try on all this for yourself: is it good, is it convenient, is it long enough.

Elena Tanakova © Gallerix.ru