23 January 2014

The year is 1988 and the time of stagnation is ending, while Perestroika is just starting. Though the characters in this film remain stagnant, still. They live in a small town where there is nothing to do with oneself except work and get by. The main character, Vera, is experimenting with more liberal views while her parents are still in the mindset of stagnation. Despite her rude and rebellious nature, Vera still cares very much for her family. Her mother,a go with the flow, keep the status quo kind of lady and her father a drunk. One parent represents the time period’s desire to keep everything normal while the other represents the boredom that results and its consequences.

Vera is clearly bored and ready for change. To entertain herself, she messes with the hearts of the local boys and experiments with her sexuality and even drugs and cigarettes. At one point, Sergei asks her what her goals and dreams are and what her past was. She has no answer to her future and only has promiscuous stories about her past. To her, there is nothing sad about it. She is simply entertaining herself. After all, what else is there to do? She does mention that all there is to value is communism. Weather she was being cynical is uncertain.

Then, we have Sergei. He just seems to be going along for the ride that is Vera’s life. What his interests are is even a more difficult question to decipher. We know he dislikes Vera’s parents. He dislikes alcoholism and is a student. Perhaps he wants more with his life. However, when he is stabbed by Vera’s father, he returns to her in the end of the movie. When she asks why, he simply says that he was scared. He is probably scared to pursue his real desires. Scared of the new era that is Perestroika.

In this movie, we see young people ready for change, going out of their minds for change. Yet, they just do not know how to take on this new mindset. So, they end up just settling back into their old patterns. Like some dust that has been kicked up, it just settles down, once more.

Unlike Nastia, a character in the film Adam’s Rib, Vera seems to be dependent on men. True, she is strong, yet she still relies on men. Her father has remained in her life, her brother, too. She tries to commit suicide when she thinks that it is over with Sergei. This film is interesting because it portrays men as caretakers of women. Not just financially but emotionally. Vera’s father seems to love her more than the mother does. Then, her brother, too, comes from Moscow just to look after her and try to help her. Then, Sergei automatically asks for her marriage so as to maintain her dignity when her brother questions it. Yet as much as these men have loved and taken care of Vera, they all have the same major flaw: they seem to be empty on the inside. The father, an alcoholic, is an obvious one. Then, there is Sergei with seemingly no emotions. Finally, her brother really is not there to stick around. He seems to come visit to escape his problems at home.

And so, if anybody is the rib of Adam, it should be Vera. She, this lively and wild girl, fills the emptiness in these men’s lives. She does not just whore herself physically but emotionally, as well.

Though as we watch the film, we do not see her as a whore. We can relate to her restless youth. With this film, I believe that the director was trying to propagate Perestroika. He is saying, let us get change going. The people are losing faith in their way of life, in this government. Just like vera, the country did not seem to know what they wanted, at this point in time. This indecisive attitude is clearly dangerous for a country, just as it was for our Vera. Vera and Sergei, with no clear goals for their future, suffer from their restlessness. The director did not want his country to suffer the same fate.