Betrayal (Izmena) (Kirill Serebrennikov, 2012): Russia

Reviewed by Christopher Stull. Viewed at the Metropolitan 4, Santa Barbara Film Festival 2013.

“Hooooo boy.” I squirmed around in the bland metal chair, trying not to go ballistic. “Can’t I just tell you it sucked and get this over with?” I pleaded. The man across the boring steel table shook his head and pulled out a pad and pen. “Great,” I sighed “So where do you want me to start?” “You’re a critic. Just review it.” “Its not that simple,” I jangled the cuffs at my wrists. “I gotta start from the very beginning. And I mean VERY.” “Just start, dammit.” “Ok.”

“So I first tried to watch this film the first night it was supposed to playing. I get in line and I’m ready. About 5 minutes after it was supposed to start one of the volunteers comes out and says the projector is having trouble with the film and they will reschedule the movie. I should have taken it as a sign, but I came back to watch the film anyway.

“The tagline for this Russian drama read ‘A man and a woman, two casual acquaintances, learn that their respective spouses are having an affair with each other. This discovery drives them to do things they didn’t dare to do before.’ It sounds like a great setup, and with the right cast and crew it could have been great. Hell, that could be said of any movie. And honestly I was looking forward to it. Oh I was so wrong.

“First off, the tagline lies within the first 7 words. They are not casual acquaintances, because the movie begins with the leading woman She (Franziska Petri), a doctor, calling in a bunch of 30-something-year-old men for random check ups. The movie only shows She performing a checkup on the leading man, He (Dejan Lilic). I don’t know if you caught that, but the main character’s names are She and He. Not once are they mentioned by name in the movie and even on IMDb thats what they are called. Anyway, She starts talking to He about how her husband is cheating on her, kind of inappropriate for a doctor, but She takes it a step further and states that He’s wife is who her husband is cheating with. Now He says earlier that this is his first checkup ever, and they clearly have never met. So she was just pulling these men into her office, hooking them up to a heart monitor, and telling them their wives have been cheating on them. And there is absolutely zero character development. The only saving grace is that He doesn’t want to believe her despite his heart rate going up, indicating that She might be right.

“They leave the building, He questioning how She could know these things, and She gets into a van/bus and leaves. He walks away from the van/bus stop and a few seconds later a van crashes into the stop. He rushes back and tries to help out, realizing he could have died had he not moved. Now this is the only part of the film I like because it is all one take and it works. Most of this film is long, one shot scenes, and it really shouldn’t have been. It gets pretty annoying after a while. Anyway, back to the film.”

The man looked up from his notes. “You are really long-winded, aren’t ya?” “Oh yeah, and I’m just warming up.” I breathed.

“Now I’m not get bogged down on huge story details, cause then we would be here for days. He goes home and tells his wife how he almost dies, trying to find out if She was right. It seems like he believes She because She shows He how she stalked their spouses to a hotel many times. This is also one of the last times you will hear any music in this movie. Most of the film is scary quiet. At some point He and She decide it would be a great idea if they themselves had an affair. That doesn’t happen. She starts crying as soon as He comes close to her. So they just wait to catch their cheating spouses in the room just above. Low and behold they are proven right. Then it abruptly cuts to a maid finishing cleaning in another room. The maid walks out to the balcony, looks down and sees the two cheaters dead on the ground, mid-coitus. The movie then turns into watching She go insane/murder mystery, where the police investigator makes He kiss her, She eat dirt and hair, and He tell his son his mother is dead. After the really hilarious kiss, He follows She on a walk through a forrest and says he wants to start seeing her.”

“Woah woah woah, he what?” The man interjected. I lifted an eyebrow at him. “You aren’t actually getting into this are you?” “…no,” he said sheepishly. “Ehem, continue.”

“She says no and just runs off through the woods, finds a bag of clothes in a clearing, changes into them, and walks calmly out to a road where a guy is waiting for her and they drive off. Now at this point I was about to just leave but the couple sitting next to me were laughing so hard that I decided to stay. These two were actually Russian and they were both as perplexed as me. Apparently, without telling anyone, the story had jumped ahead 5 or 6 years and both characters had remarried. They by chance meet at a hotel on vacation and they start their own affair. She’s husband becomes suspicious and He kills himself because he didn’t want to keep lying to his wife. The-freaking-End.”

The man just sat there. I spread my hands and bowed my head. “Now can you please un-cuff me? I swear I won’t try to kill myself again, this movie is not worth it to get that upset over.” He put his notebook away and stared at me. “Is there anything else?” he asked. “The whole movie is such an incoherent mess that the projectors themselves literally try and vomit it out. How’s that for a summery?” “Good enough, you’re free to go.”