USSR,
1988, 90 min
Shown in 1989
CREDITS
- dir
-
Georgi Gavrilov
- scr
-
Georgi Gavrilov, Yu Kotliar
- cam
-
A. Koulik, G. Larine
- editor
-
I. Tsekavaia, V. Nekiforova
- source
-
Goskino
- premiere
-
U.S. Premiere
-
COMMENTS
Georgi Gavrilov in person.
OTHER
Set in the underground drug culture that has evolved among alienated Soviet youth, Georgi Gavrilov’s Confession explores the life of a 23-year-old Moscow heroin addict at several intervals over a two-year period. As its title hints, this film is a highly personal, quasi-religious examination of the Russian soul seen through the eyes of a casualty willing to let us witness his fall. The son of a WWII hero, Aleksei Choubnikov searches for meaning in the mystical traditions of religion. He carries the burden of his addiction as if it were his country’s lost soul, through detox clinics, family break-ups, official harassment and public ridicule. The verité scenes juxtaposed with Aleksei’s commentaries about himself and the social problems of drugs in Soviet show him as a tragic outcast baring his soul to devastating effect. Gavrilov’s most astounding footage, shot undercover inside a psychiatric hospital, could have been culled from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest out-takes. Another scene of a drug raid could easily play alongside Geraldo Rivera’s tabloid TV drug stories. Nevertheless, the director’s candor and compassion are remarkable, considering that until two years ago there was no official recognition of a drug problem in USSR.
—George Csicsery
FACTOID #162
The Stand-In (1985), Nina Takes a Lover (1994), Dream for an Insomniac (1996), Dream with the Fishes (1997), Teknolust (2002) and Dopamine(2003) were not only screened at Festival but were also shot in San Francisco.
