Silent Souls (2010) - full transcript

The day before yesterday
at a pet market in Kostroma...

...I saw buntings.

I don't think I'd ever
seen them before.

They are strange birds, plain.

But something from the past,
from my childhood or my dreams...

...flashed and beckoned me...

...when the old man selling them
said in a flat voice,

"Buntings".

Buntings.
300 rubles for the pair.

I live in Neya.

It's one of those towns that
no one remembers today.



It stands on the Neya river...

...lost somewhere between
the woods of Vologda and Vyatka.

The Neya, Unzha, Poksha, Vokhtoma,
the Viga, Mera, Vaya, Sogozha...

Beautiful names left
behind by the Merja...

...a Finnish tribe that dissolved
into the Slavs some 400 years ago.

The orphaned villages, a few rites,
rivers with forgotten names.

That's all that's left from them,

although many people here still
think of themselves as Merjans.

These northern outskirts
always hold on to it longer.

Our people are a bit strange,
their faces are inexpressive.

There are no passions boiling,

although sudden affections
and divorces are not uncommon.

There is promiscuity,

but for a Merjan it's ancient -
like an ethnic rite or a custom.



Ask me why?

No one remembers anymore.

I don't remember when
or why it started,

but I wanted to know,
to understand who we are.

Why are we like this
and not like something else?

My father was a local poet.

He wrote under the pseudonym
Vesa Sergeyev.

Maybe that's why I began collecting
snatches of songs, names, words.

Some I needed to look for and
some were always right next to me.

I just hadn't written before, so
at first it was coming out badly.

But the biggest thing was that
I didn't know what to write about...

...although my father would often
tell me that if your soul hurts...

...write about the things
you see around you.

My name is Aist. It's an uncommon
name. Obviously Merjan.

I'm just over 40.
I have no family.

I work at the Neya paper mill.

Thank you.

Excuse me for a second.

Miron is calling for you.

The director's calling.

It's working.

Uh-huh. Very well. Turn it off.

Hello.

Hi.

May I?

Hello, Aist Vsevolodovich.

Hello, Miron Alekseyevich.

It's from shadberry.

It's good.

My wife Tanya died.
Last night.

I'm going to the rope factory
in Gorbatov to sign a contract.

Call me back tomorrow evening.

Do you want another drink?

No, thank you.

I'm not taking her to the morgue.

I don't want to show her
to anybody.

I'd prefer to do everything
just with you.

I don't want to be alone.

Let's go right now.

Please.

Well, alright.

And then I remembered
about my buntings.

I might not be home for three
days. Who's going to feed them?

Anyway I had some vague feeling
I should take them with us.

Miron Alekseyevich didn't mind.

We adorned her like a bride.

People here always dress
the deceased women that way.

It's the same way the girlfriends
decorate the happy bride.

In the morning, before the
wedding, they wash her,

wipe her dry, and prepare
multicolored threads.

The bride lies or sits down while
her girlfriends crowd around her.

They tickle her, make jokes
and lots of noise.

Then they tie the threads
into her pubic hair.

That's how tomorrow's wife
will go to her husband.

And at night he will take
the threads from her hair,

tie them into a knot
and hang them on an alder tree.

We were leaving our beloved Neya.

Long ago I read that a nation
is alive as long as...

...it remembers its language
and keeps its traditions.

This rite is the last thing
that connects a Merjan with life.

What will be left
if it will be forgotten?

We were leaving our beloved Neya.
We didn't know then it was forever.

I married her when she was 19.
I was already close to 40.

She lived in Vokhma.

She was very shy.

She was embarrassed that she
didn't know how to use make-up...

...or how to wear
interesting clothes.

But Tanya was so close to me.

She totally obeyed me.

I would tell her, "Take off your
dress. Open up this way,

try it like this, stand right
here, move your hips."

All three of Tanya's holes
were working.

And it was me who unsealed them.

But everything always happened
only by my initiative.

We call this kind of talk "smoke".

It's a custom to tell about
the one you love...

...as long as the body
is still on the earth.

You say things you'd
never tell a stranger...

...while your beloved
was still alive.

But over the dead you're allowed...

...because it makes your face
brighter...

...and turns your grief
into tenderness.

- Good day. Where are you from?
- From Neya.

- Where are you going?
- To Mescherskaya Porosl.

- And what are you carrying?
- A veretenitsa.

- And what kind of birds are they?
- Buntings.

We call our beloved
women veretenitsa.

Of course the lieutenant
knows that.

Besides, it's not hard
to see what we're carrying.

Many people here still
remember that they are Merjan.

So those are buntings you have?
I've never seen them before.

But I always loved that word.

Buntinkina is Tanya's maiden name.

When we were young I always
called her Buntinkina or Bunting.

Tanya loved birds very much,

but couldn't stand
seeing them in cages.

I was thinking about getting her
a heron so it could stroll freely.

Another 20. 90 big ax handles.
200 small birch ax handles.

20 beech ax handles.
160 shovel handles.

None of the beech.
We'll take the rest.

Help us out, please.

Aist Vsevolodovich,

do you mind if I keep "smoking"?

Do you remember when
we celebrated my 50th?

I drank some wine
and I wanted Tanya so badly.

I looked at her
and she understood me,

but her eyes told me that it
was better not to right then.

I got so upset that
my stomach started to hurt.

Miron continued to tell me
how much he loved his Tanya,

but he really didn't have to. The
whole town knew about his passion...

...how they hid in the local hotel,
how he washed her with vodka.

There were rumors that
Tanya didn't love him,

but Miron said nothing about it.

Dear Miron Alekseyevich!
This song is for you.

It is "The Smell of Summer"
with lyrics by Vesa Sergeyev.

I went to the pharmacy
Bought some soapwort I'd found,

And some dried swamp viburnum,
That I bought by the pound.

I found some cudweed,
And also some thyme.

A heap of smooth corn silk,
And knotgrass so fine.

Toadflax with cowberry,
And young poplar leaf,

Some mint, some tansy,
and sage I believe.

Dandelion root
And juniper berries,

More than one hundred packs
I bought in my hurry.

I brought it all home
And boiled it well.

I wanted so badly
That fine summer smell.

Tanya worked at
the same paper mill.

We liked each other.

I photographed her once
and something flashed between us.

Something sparked
and hopelessly sped away.

Hello!

- Show me the hedgehog.
- The one with the band?

Yes. The blue one.

It blinks.

Here you go. Thirty rubles.

Press its belly.

Is it broken? Let me exchange it.

No. It's exactly what I need.

I won't have to break it myself.

We entered Meschyorskaya Porosl.

It's the Merjan name
for the town of Gorbatov.

Its emblem has
a blooming apple tree.

It's a nice town on the Oka River.

And why here?

The honeymoon.

We didn't want to go too far.
Besides it was expensive.

Tanya fell in love with Oka
when she was still in school.

We rented a house here after our
wedding. Just for a week.

The honeymoon in
Meschyorskaya Porosl...

We committed Tanya to the water.

People here always do that,
it's a rule.

Our cemeteries are half-empty,
mostly newcomers lay there.

But water is the dream
of every Merjan.

Drowning means to suffocate from
joy, tenderness and yearning.

If we find someone drowned
we don't burn them.

We tie on a weight and give
them back to the water.

The water replaces their body
with a new flexible one.

Death from water
is immortality for a Merjan.

Oh, Neya River.
We know your fish by name.

Anya and Lyosha,
Pasha and Kira.

Oh, Neya River.
Oh, Neya River.

Sleeping under the ice is
Tatyana the pearl oyster.

Seryozha the perch
isn't sleeping...

My father dreamed of drowning
and living next to the shore.

He was a queer fish,
that self-taught Merjan poet.

People laughed at him. Sometimes
they paid attention to his words.

Sometimes they beat him up.

His naive poems were printed
in "The Neya Lights".

The paper sold well. It was cheap
and useful for domestic chores.

But my father believed that
people needed his poems.

Once we made a hole in the ice and
sank his most treasured possession.

He was a queer fish,
that self-taught Merjan poet.

A Mexican toy
That my Cuban friend found

Looks like a boot
And with water makes sound.

At the place of the heel
Is a round open space,

At the toe of the boot
Is a sad young girl's face.

My friend wrote a letter
And gave me advice:

Add water, then rock her
And stare at her eyes

I poured in some water
And gave it a rock.

The girl started moaning
My chair squeaked in shock.

And from out those huge eyes,
From invisible holes...

My mother died during childbirth
when I was in seventh grade.

After that my father changed
a lot. He stopped behaving oddly.

He didn't "smoke" at the funeral.

Afterwards he would often
call the river's name.

He would swim in cold weather
with pain in his heart.

He would walk drunk on
the ice that was still thin.

We committed my mom and my
still-born sister Nina to the water.

My father dreamed of drowning, but
the Merjan don't drown themselves.

It's impolite to rush to heaven,
passing by the others.

The river chooses people herself.
The water is the highest judge.

Look at the hair on my little feet.
I will do the same with you.

The two of us are sandpipers
Wearing slippers of blue.

We'll put packs on our backs
Stuffed full of timothy hay

Aist, bring the can.
Aist!

And perhaps now we'll die
Dancing this Turkish Halay.

I wasn't there when
my father died.

He had a bad death.
He drank contaminated alcohol.

But I knew that
he died from sorrow.

On the way back to Neya we got
lost. We ended up in Molochai.

This town has a very sad
and tender meaning for us.

It's like Paris for the Europeans.

It's a shame it
doesn't exist anymore.

It dissolved into the outskirts
of another big, modern...

...and living town.

- Hi!
- Hi!

Do you want us?

We want you a lot.

It's so good that you exist.

The girls' names were Julia
and Rima. They were okay.

They laughed when we introduced
ourselves as Miron and Aist.

Your wife died?

Yes. Recently.

Rim!

Rim, wait!

We were very thankful
to Julia and Rima.

Because a live woman's body is also
a river that carries grief away.

It's only a shame that
you can't drown in it.

Turn it on.

- Here?
- The little triangle.

I knew that Tanya liked you.
She was sad.

She would sit quietly looking
somewhere into the distance.

I wasn't angry at her.
I loved her a lot.

We couldn't have children.
It was very hard for her.

I don't remember what
or how I answered him.

My thoughts and memories swept
over me and carried me away.

Only later I asked if he believed
he'd meet his Tatyana again...

?something ripped in him,
something broke down.

His expression changed
and he stopped the car.

I felt sorry for him, for my
odd father, for my mum, for Tanya.

Our names will be forgotten too,

just like the Merjans have
forgotten their sacred words.

A Merjan doesn't have gods,
only love for one another.

All that Miron had left now
was his love for Tanya.

And he had left to believe was
that he'll reunite with her...

...when it's his time to become ash
and be committed to the water.

The belief in this half-forgotten
rite was perhaps as naive...

...as my desire to restore
our lost culture.

If something is doomed to
disappear, then so be it.

Then so be it.

Then so be it.

I should have let her go...

I should have let her go,
Aist Vsevolodovich.

We were going back home.

It was empty and cold, although
this November happened to be warm.

Miron was silent, it didn't make
any sense to "smoke" any more.

We had to make a detour.

We found ourselves back around
the same place we left Tanya.

We had returned as if an invisible
force wouldn't let us leave here.

Miron looked like he didn't notice.

He cheered up strangely,
and I too felt a load off my mind.

I felt sad and pure.

But the sadness didn't press on
me. It enveloped me like a mother.

Your birds are
probably very smart.

Let's ask them for something.

Immortality?

Yes, I suppose.

Do you hear us?

They hear.

When we drove up on
the Kineshemsky Bridge,

Miron whispered,
"My Tanyusha is gone."

The buntings grew quiet.

Actually too quiet.

We fell from the bridge into the
Volga, the great Merjan river.

The buntings helped us, darting
to kiss the driver's eyes.

Miron Alekseyevich immediately
went looking for Tatyana.

As for me, I found my father's
silted typewriter...

and typed this book
on sides of dead fish.

And the water will carry
Merja's secrets away.

Which ones and to where?

Everyone will find out for
himself when the time comes.

Only love has no end.

Only love has no end.

DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY MY PARENTS