Eclectic waking dreams of Rustam Hamdamov and his "Bag without a bottom"

MOSCOW. Rustam Khamdamov’s film “A Bag Without a Bottom” won 39 MIFF prizes.

The inclusion of the long-awaited picture of Rustam Khamdamov in the competition of the 39th Moscow International Film Festival is an extraordinary event. As well as the special jury prize she received and the award from film critics. It’s like a strange bird that has gone astray on the way to the Garden of Eden, found itself in an unusual surroundings. Awarding the Triumph Prize in 1996 was perceived as an exception to the rule. The director did not expect any awards in the present and future for his creations. Inner freedom eliminates the need to adapt, allowing you to do what you want.

But you have to pay for independence in full. The ban and destruction of finished films, long downtime, lack of money for shooting. Salvage painting is a portal to the world where a talented artist does not need to prove the right to work. The presence of Khamdamov’s works in the collections of the Hermitage, the Tretyakov Gallery, famous museums abroad, and numerous private collections is the best confirmation of this. Work on the “Abyssal Sack” woven from the plot threads of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke’s short story “In More Than” with references to fairy tale No. 295 of “1001 Nights” lasted more than 5 years. Actors passed away, operators changed, there were no producers ready for risk and foggy rental prospects. Exquisite paper curtains for packing oiled parts, Czech brooches in kokoshniks, rags from Mosfilm’s storerooms left over from the Eisenstein “Ivan the Terrible”. The place of filming is similar to the props - a palace that is being destroyed with all its splendor, in the industrial zone of St. Petersburg.

And in the frame - a visual series of amazing beauty, close to the heart of Hamdam’s aesthetics of black and white silent cinema. Svetlana Nemolyaeva, who blended into her ideally, opened in the new way as a maid of honor, a narrator who carried the Grand Duke into the bizarre labyrinths of a terrible tale. With the murdered prince, mushroom people, the princess raped and working miracles with the help of urine therapy by an ancient sorceress. A bottomless bag in which everyone is free to see something of their own and enjoy it. Or do not understand anything and be disappointed. Because the flat reality and the intelligibility of the plot are more interesting. It’s just that the time has not come, closer to the “pig cartilage”, and not to metaphors and “electric waking dreams”.

Elena Tanakova © Gallerix.ru