Insights Brother (deadline May 24, 12 pm noon)

You are asked to think about Brother (1997) through the overload of issues that we discussed in class and also in connection with other issues that came up with you even if we didn't touch upon them. Write your forum post (up to 300 words) by 12 pm noon on May 24 in response to this message with reference to ONE of the following  two assignments:


1) Choose a scene from the movie and write how the ‘Russian’ emotional and moral subject appears in this scene, what are his qualities, his feelings, what is his typical course of action, and how these are presented as different or parallel to ‘Other’ emotional cultural subjects;


OR


2) Present a phenomenon or a theme that appears in the film and maybe we didn't talk about it in the lesson that particularly surprised you. Perhaps it wasn't clear or structured on a cultural level, maybe it evoked an emotional response in you or made you think about the Israeli situation and its own emotional and moral subjects.

The task is optional for BGU and EU (for HSE the task is required as part of the Perusall grade).

My attention was drawn to the moment when Sveta decided not to inform anyone about the shooting in the tram and continued to communicate with the person who participated in the violent incident. In my opinion, this episode demonstrates the tendency of Russians to avoid bureaucratic institutions when solving problems, which is a typical behavioral pattern in Russia during the 90s. It reflects the general distrust of governmental institutions, leading people to prefer solving things on their own, even if it means becoming involved in criminal activities.

Another significant moment that caught my attention at the beginning of the film occurs when Danila unexpectedly enters the movie shooting space, provoking immediate aggression from the filmmakers and leading to a subsequent fight between the guard and him. This situation can be described using the Russian proverb "сила есть – ума не надо," which means that the guard attacked Danila even though he had not done anything physically harmful to them. However, Danila seems to find a way to release his "after-war" energy, automatically resorting to the instinct of self-defense without reflecting on the consequences. This serves as an example of hidden aggression that can suddenly explode after years of following commands unconsciously, as Danila was taught in the army. His jacket, still wearing military clothing with Russian flag signs on the shoulder, further emphasizes his background and active reference to the Chechen war.
In my opinion, the choice of the Nautilus Pompilius song as a soundtrack for this episode, which includes the phrase "Мы все потеряли что-то на этой безумной войне" (We have all lost something in this insane war), implies that people have lost their mutual understanding of each other, that would be traced during the whole movie.

I think that one of interesting scenes of the film 'Brother' is the scene of Danila Bagrov's meeting with his mother. It drew my attention because it is put at the beginnig to make a watcher's impression of the main character more consistent. I observe the scene where Danila's mother shows him his childhood photos as a typical Russian scene - not because it could not happen in any other country. But because it seems that it is so usual to hear in Russia the phrase: "Such a good boy was, how he could become such a bad person" ("Таким хорошим мальчиком был, как он мог вырасти в такого негодяя"). It seems that in Russia it is typical to determine someone's personality through the relations with the parents. This scene is set in a typical Russian atmosphere when mother feeds his boy and remembers the past to make him leave all his bad habits. It also appeals to me how his mother says about the army and, as a result, of the war : "It was better to stay in army. Here you would be sooner killed." ("Уж лучше в армии остался, тут тебя, дурака, скорее убьют"). It is strange how his mother distringuishes the army as the state structure and the reality which surrounds her. I think that this phrase reveals her treatment to the state, her trust in it - what surrounds her seems not connected with the state but with the dishonest people when the state even in such tough time stays the reliable structure. This scene also indicates the traditional view on families - it does not matter for the main character's mother whether Danila communicates with his brother, but she thinks his brother is a good person and would not hurt Danila, only help, because it is a relative blood ("Эта кровь твоя").

It seemed to me quite an interesting moment to analyze the situation in the tram, when two people of "Caucasian" nationality refused to pay for travel until the main character forced them to do under the threat of using weapons. On the one hand, at the beginning of the scene, they look smug, confident that they will go unpunished for violating the rules of fare. Only the fear of death made them pay. I can suggest that such a situation could have happened only in the 90s, in modern Russia no one would so openly refuse to pay for a ticket. Also, this scene shows a generalized stereotypical portrait of Caucasians, who are interested in every girl. Refusal and inattention from the girl rather amuses them and on the contrary plays out interest. They say words after the girl with almost no accent, but as soon as the conductor asked them, they start pretending like that they don't know Russian well, but the smile doesn't come off their face, the whole situation amuses them. On the other hand, the main character Danila - a Russian - is shown as fearless man, who is ready to help others without taking anything in return. He is cold, focused and serious, his main priority is justice. However, the conductor seems to present a different image, opposite to the image of Danila. He feels fear, confusion. Although, from a legal point of view, he has reason to ask for payment, since he is a conductor, but instead of showing determination, we hear the repetition of the same phrase ("Pay the fare, please"// "Оплатите проезд, пожалуйста"). The conductor, although Russian, is represented as helpless. This scene, in my opinion, shows the versatility and complexity of illustrating the national aspect in the film, when personal qualities are more important

One of the moments that caught my attention is the relation of the characters to the "old man" (к деду), who is the neighbour of the German man Goffman and who lives in the kommunalka where Danila comes to when he was wounded. This scenes in the communal apartment seem like a representation of communal life in St. Petersburg and reminded me of the book by Ilya Utekhin "Essays on Communal Life" ("Очерки коммунального быта"). So we can see that this apartment consists at least of a woman of middle age, of an old man who is also a drunk bothering other neighbours and a German man Goffman who is shown as the most reasonable, organized and unproblematic (except for the fact that he tries to heal Danila who has a gunshot wound at home without any medical help). What caught my attention is how people relate to the old man (к деду), they say "старый", "совсем мозги поплыли", "и деду возьми что-нибудь, чтобы не гундел". They perceive him by his main feature - the fact that he is a drunk and all their emotions are about that. If he does smth or even if he does not - this is because he is drunk. According to Utekhin, it was common to have at least one drunk in the communal apartment and these people were the most bothering to other neighbours. As we can see, the same happens in this kommunalka, because the woman can't open the door without him letting her in, he also appears in the scenes with wounded Danila as Goffman addresses to the woman. But no one speaks to him seriously taking him as a person and even though his drunkenness may bother others, this condition of the old man is comfortable for them, because most likely after drinking a lot he will just fall asleep and they won't have to deal with him at all. So they use vodka to make him silent and less problematic, having no desires any more and no voice in their community - "чтобы не гундел". These scenes seem to me very "Russian" and very emotionally coloured, because words are useless in communication with the drunks and the only thing people have left is to feel and express their emotions or suppress them (which is also expressing in different way). What is more, this old man is old enough to be the veteran and to participate in WWII, but now he lives this "bare life" and expressed his identity as a veteran (but this is only my guess I'm not sure) only by threatening Goffman. This again is a very Russian 90s case together drunkenness, kommunalka and co-living with all the following emotions, the state of the country, when its citizens living in the centre of St. Petersburg, Leningrad, a beautiful city overwhelmed by heritage both soviet revolutional and imperial, but very neglected and destroyed, conduct such a way of life like this old man.

I would like to focus on Danila's characterization, as marked by his ambiguity. Both a product of the writing and Bodrov's acting, Danya is an almost inscrutable person; perhaps, more so for a foreigner watching the film. Spontaneous acts of vigilantism (knocking out a thug extorting the German, making the hooligans pay their fine, intimidating Sveta's husband) and his own justification to the German (he says something along the lines of "why are you staring at me? I did good, I helped some people") seem to indicate a very quiet righteousness - reactive, unsuspected (just as the violence with which it is exerted), but pretty much detached and somewhat antisocial. Indeed, his whole arc story and demeanor is as out-of-place but, simultaneously, ordinary, that the whole film looks like it is just following the everyday of the unapparent sociopath; of the childlike killer - innocently attractive, charismatic, curious. Inadvertently dangerous: We see his most relatable side, when he geeks at Nautilus, when he goes partying - he certainly seems and behaves his age; but also, we see a killer growing insensitive to his violence that, as when he chats with the hostage director, it does not even register to him as odd.
It is with this ambiguity that one can toy by thinking, to what extent does Danya represent the same "abnormal normality" of the other characters? To what is this same neutralization (in the sense of Matza and Sykes') is a reflection of the both viewer and character(s)? I cannot speak for the Russian spectator, but it is not hard to think of instances in my own cultural context where violence is not deemed disruptive, especially when extralegal, committed by other characters, way too "normal-looking" for comfort.

It seems to me that in our discussion at the seminar we did not pay enough attention to one important and even mainstream emotional regime of Russians. I mean the emotional instability and mood change of the Russians, which can be seen in the scene where Danila and two criminals break into the apartment of another criminal for reprisals. Taking into account the brutality of the scene, Danila's reactions to the accompanying elements of the external environment may seem unexpected. While on a mission, Danila does not plunge into the mode of brutality, which is represented in its purest form by the other two crimes, but remains sensitive to other things, which leaves Danila in a transitional state between other emotional modes. In the midst of a brutal scene, a director enters the apartment who made the wrong door, he gets into this brutal environment, which is opposed to the situation in the apartment on the floor above, where a party of creative people is taking place. Danila, unlike his colleagues on the assignment, cannot separate his ego and fit it exclusively into the atmosphere of a "criminal apartment", and rushes with his mind into a "musical apartment". When Butusov enters the criminal apartment by mistake, Danila does not hesitate to go to the musical apartment, the situation of which is directly opposite. There he happily watches his idols, as if he had not just used violence in a criminal apartment. Thus, Danila does not become exclusively a participant in criminal situation, but remembers his desires, and their fulfillment is mixed with the unsuitable environment of the criminal task. Danila's mood changes from one apartment to another almost instantly, but he is never completely in the emotional mode of a criminal apartment. This is also evident from the interaction with the director locked in there and scared to death. When Danila returns from the music apartment and sees that his criminal colleagues have dealt with the owner of the apartment and the man they were waiting for, he is angry at the remark of criminals that he supposedly decided to run away (a reasonable assumption of a person who is completely immersed in the "criminal regime"), but the fact is that Danila was never completely in a criminal apartment, but reacted to the surrounding factors based on his free and contradictory personality. Danila seems to be everywhere and nowhere, so he is very flexible in the transition from one regime to another. This can be summarized by referring to a quote by the English writer Maurice Baring about the character of Russian people: "Contradictory qualities do not just get along in Russian — often their manifestations replace each other very quickly, alternating instantly. There is something convulsive in this; the Russian is rapidly moving from one mood to another: from despair to unrestrained fun, from apathy to energetic activity, from humility to rebellion, from indignation to submission."