Soviets Plus Electricity (2002) - full transcript
I abandoned a lot of hearts back there.
I got word
that all my queens were lost.
So what, I went to Magadan.
We're even!
There I saw the Bay of Nogaiisk
and the dirt roads.
I didn't go there
out of the blue!
V. Vysotsky
SOVIETS PLUS ELECTRICITY
A cinetrip by Nicolas Rey
REEL #3: Yakutsk, Magadan.
When things get dicey
although it's far and expensive,
I can go see a friend in Magadan.
It's okay!
You have not seen the Bay of Nogaiisk,
you fool!
I didn't go there
out of the blue.
Tomorrow is September 13th.
A month after Friday the 13th,
when I was in Chernobyl.
Maybe it was
to put an end to romanticism
that I decided to leave
for the end of the world.
The incredible thing
is that I convinced people to help me,
and I should thank them, incidentally.
In the end, I didn't have much to do.
Just get myself here,
just be in one place,
and say I want to go to another one,
and off I went.
Without even having
to decide
when to leave.
It just happened.
And I don't want to complain,
but I'm still a little surprised.
If I hadn't stalled for time,
I'd already be on my way.
10:30.
Volodia went to get changed
after checking the tires
and, as it's the season,
loading the potatoes
that are also
part of our payload,
and taking care
of minor technical details.
Then I was immediately put on spud duty
for the soup.
The morning soup, at 8 a.m.
Potatoes, carrots,
a little... a half tin of meat
thrown in.
That's all.
Some tea.
The oil heater.
Volodia went bare-chested
to wash up in the river.
2 p.m. We've been on the road
since this morning.
Since this morning's soup.
We stopped once
to visit a friend of Volodia's,
Kolya,
who lives
in an isolated shed.
Two or three cows,
a horse or two,
and the river downhill
supplying its daily ration of fish.
The world's cleanest river, as he put it.
He's 59 years old.
And 37 of them he spent "sitting"
as they say in Russian
and as he
frankly admits.
The last 10 years
not far away from here
in a prison near Yakutsk.
He doesn't want to go anywhere
anymore. Now he's staying put.
He's had a girlfriend for some time
and a five-month-old daughter.
But his girlfriend wants to leave here.
So he will keep the child
and in two years' time, when she's two
he will travel,
go see his homeland,
Western Ukraine, near the border,
just behind the Carpathians.
Funny,
that's also where Volodia comes from.
All the way across.
They went from one end...
from one extreme to the other.
"But," he said,
"Volodia is a city dweller."
He himself comes from the mountains.
He's a real "Mujik".
Maybe one day
I'll come back to film more of him.
Quite a character.
And he told us
that people he knew had left yesterday...
Acquaintances
that were going toward Magadan.
Maybe we would catch up with them.
At the rate we're going, I doubt it.
But we know what their truck looks like.
We know
where they could have stopped.
We'll see.
We just stopped in a village
but since Volodia isn't very...
How should I put it?
...isn't very talkative,
I don't know why we're here.
He asked directions to this house.
I don't think this village
is where that truck could be.
Unless it left,
because it's a yellow truck
and there's no yellow truck around.
There's a blue one,
but no yellow ones.
It's pretty here.
I forgot what the name was.
"Yukutche" or something like that.
I remember discussions
around the table at Christmas.
How we used to quarrel about politics.
Now, we're a gang of consumers.
They're in the house.
I'm waiting outside.
I like it better that way.
Especially since I know
that it takes special authorization
to come here in the boondocks.
Probably because
of the large number of gold mines
in the area.
I'm only gathering pebbles.
I'm avoiding the yellow ones.
1 9 1 6:
On the whole,
capitalism is growing
far more rapidly than before,
but this growth is not only
becoming more and more uneven,
We'll be arriving at Tomtor.
- its unevenness also manifests itself
in the decay of the countries
which are richest in capital.
We'll go deliver the fuel.
Volodia said he has a friend there.
His friend's wife is a "businesswoman"
and she goes to Magadan
from time to time.
Maybe that is
how I'll go down
the other side of the mountain.
Then we'll be about half-way
between Yakutsk and Magadan.
At the point of no return, so to speak.
Volodia told me earlier
that today is Friday.
I was shocked.
That means...
I should really look at a calendar...
one of these days.
I took it upon myself
to ask Volodia to play the Vysotsky tape
he had played the first day.
Whereas I used to let him play
whatever he wanted.
No sooner had I put the tape in
did he notice
a problem with one of the wheels.
A flat tire.
Not only that,
oil was leaking from the engine.
We've been stopped for five hours.
Had to fix everything.
It looks like
we'll be spending the night here
because it's already 11 p.m.
A trucker's life.
Well, it's now 6 o'clock.
Volodia finally came back.
We had soup together. But I didn't eat.
And then
he drove me
back to Tomtor,
where I am now,
in the hotel.
The four-room hotel
in Tomtor.
Four rooms and not four stars...
The receptionist isn't in.
There's a sort of substitute.
Not a very friendly guy.
No sign of...
that van which is leaving tomorrow
for Ust-Nera.
The guy says someone here
is leaving tomorrow for Ust-Nera.
I should wait for the lady
in charge of reception.
I asked him
if there was a store nearby.
Because we ate my last tin of sardines
with Volodia just before.
Just before I threw up.
And now my supply bag
has never been emptier.
When Volodia was here,
the guy would talk to me
but since he left,
he's been staring at the TV set
with his head in his hands.
He refused to answer
when I talked to him
and asked him where there was a shop.
A quick glance and bang!
Back to watching TV.
As we say in French:
"Talk...
Talk to my ass,
my head is not doing so well."
Whereas it's my head that hurts
but it's him...
But eventually,
the silly program he was watching
came to an end.
Some local variety show.
So I went out into the vestibule...
the typical Siberian vestibule
and I heard him
leave the reception booth.
He probably thought
I had gone to look for the shop by myself.
So I came back in
and in the corridor
he had no choice but to talk to me.
First he said there were no stores.
There was one in the center of Tomtor,
but not around here.
And anyway it was closed on Saturdays.
Then, after a little chat,
asking me where I came from and so on,
he told me there was one
"maybe a little further down the road".
So I went
"maybe a little further down the road".
And it was closed.
So I dread asking him
if there's a restaurant.
In this place!
All's well that ends well.
In order to move
the bed the "diejurnaia"
had prepared for me
into a room
that she hadn't lost the key to
we asked this young fellow for help
and he turned out to be that driver
we met this morning.
The one who was sleeping
hidden under his blanket in room #4.
I wouldn't have recognized him
but since he wasn't surprised
when I asked him
if he could take me to Kanditcha,
I knew it was him.
He told me
we were leaving early in the morning.
I asked him what time
but he didn't answer.
I asked if he could wake me up
and he said yes.
But he didn't seem very happy about it.
So I set my alarm clock for 5 a.m.
And since
I went to bed at 7 p.m.,
it wasn't hard to get up.
I noticed that he was still asleep.
So I went back to bed myself.
Around 5:45 I heard some noise:
a car was coming.
I got up.
And in the shower, I waited.
Whereas in France,
you have to wait for the cold water
between the shower head and the heater
to run off in order to enjoy
the comfort of heated water,
here,
being the first person in town
to take a hot shower,
you have to wait
for hot water to come from the plant.
Just as it was finally reasonably warm
the driver knocked on the door
yelling: "Let's go!"
So I jumped into my dirty trousers
and here we are in that UAZ van
driving to the sound
first of Julio Iglesias
and now to some more local music.
After three days
in an overloaded truck
I feel as if I were in a rocket
doing 50 km/h
on the trail going down
or rather going up the Indigarka valley.
950 km to Magadan
according to the milestones.
Dinner time.
I probably gave
Volodia or someone else
my fork.
No problem,
only I don't have another one.
It's going to be tricky
eating Chinese noodles
with my fingers.
Anyway, we'll manage.
I asked the "diejurnaia"
if there was anyone in the hotel
going to Magadan.
As usual, first she said she didn't know
but then she said:
"Oh yeah, the policeman next door to you.
He asked me to wake him up at 7 a.m.
He's going to Magadan tomorrow."
I don't feel
like traveling with a policeman.
An old instinct.
Can't help it.
I'd rather stay here
tomorrow morning and film.
I hope I can find
someone driving to Susuman
a hundred kilometers down the road.
I learned the names
of the villages on the way. It's easy:
"Bolshevik",
"Kholodny" which means "cold"
and gives an idea
of the climate here.
The third one is harder: "Neksikan".
Like "Mexican",
only "Neksikan".
I guess I'll have to thumb it after all.
Ah! Tea's ready.
Maybe you can hear it in the background.
Time to eat.
Oh! My sardines and ham
come from Saint Petersburg!
Although we're ten times closer
to the Pacific than to the Baltic Sea.
I suppose it's possible
there are no sardines
in the Sea of Okhotsk.
But pigs should grow around here.
I even know where: in room 202B.
Here's what happened:
on my way to the bathroom
I ran into those policemen.
Of course...
And naturally
they started asking me where I'm from...
If I was thirsty...
So I pulled out
the old bad liver excuse.
I didn't feel like drinking.
But it was okay.
We had a little chat.
Actually, we might meet again tomorrow
because they're also taking
the 3 p.m. bus from Susuman.
They're hitch-hiking to Susuman as well.
Only it's easier for them to stop a car.
So they said.
Oh well.
They sang a little song for me.
I didn't record it.
Too bad.
I didn't have the tape recorder with me.
I was born around the time
when Khruschev was deposed
and I became old enough to vote
when Gorbachev came into power.
- So tomorrow
I'll take a few shots and
then go catch that bus in Susuman.
I guess
I'm part of the Brezhnev generation.
Here, even the ravens are silent.
It stopped!
It was the garbage truck.
It's great because
he took the shortcut to the road
avoiding the police checkpoint
taking me straight to the bridge.
Now I just have to wait.
Oh! My pants are full of dung!
Not too good for hitch-hiking.
My first time ever
in this time zone.
My first time ever
in this time zone.
1 920:
And I feel kind of alone...
- Marxist theory has proved,
and this is confirmed by the experience
of all European revolutionary movements,
that the private owner, the smallholder,
who, under capitalism,
very frequently suffers
a most acute and rapid
deterioration in his conditions of life,
and even ruin,
easily goes to revolutionary extremes,
but is incapable of perseverance,
discipline and steadfastness.
1 920:
The petit-bourgeois driven crazy
- Oh! A green car coming up...
by the horrors of capitalism is,
like anarchism, a phenomenon
typical of capitalism.
- No, blue. And a blue truck.
The instability of such revolutionism,
its barrenness,
This is my blue period.
Here I am trying to look sharp.
its tendency to turn into submission,
apathy, phantasms,
or even a wild infatuation
with one bourgeois fad or another,
all this is common knowledge.
Blue, though light blue.
There are only six cars
going in circles in this place.
There's...
the garbage truck.
There's...
the water pipe repair truck.
There's the police.
There's a jeep marked "Telegraf"...
no idea what it's doing.
There's a mysterious small blue van
and a Toyota with tinted windows.
As for the other possibilities:
I dismissed the coal truck,
the delivery truck dismissed me,
and the other businessmen...
No thanks.
Magadan, Magadan.
7 a.m.
The sun isn't up yet.
It's kind of cold.
Long time since I've seen a real city.
And traffic lights.
Though they're only
blinking orange
at this hour.
Soldiers are on duty
in front of the bus station.
"Magadan Hotel", "Magadan Restaurant",
"Magadan" bus station,
"Magadan" bus.
Maybe I'll call France
and tell them I'm finally here.
It's 8 p.m. back there.
Yesterday.
So...
I was looking for the post office
to see if it was open, and make my call.
I was rounding the corner
of Lenin Street...
Ah!
I have to interrupt this live broadcast!
So I have to tell you this story
while the immersion heater
remedies
the lack of hot water.
They gave me a bucket
and an immersion heater
to get washed.
I guess I must
have looked like someone
who's been doing
a little too much traveling.
So I was looking for the post office
so I could make my phone call
and as I was turning
the corner of Lenin Street...
There he was.
But he didn't give a damn.
He was looking the other way.
Into the morning fog.
Just then,
a squad of policemen
escorting a drunk woman
came out of the building
across from the "Magadan Hotel",
behind the bus station
that turned out to be...
that turned out...
Behind the building
opposite the "Magadan Hotel",
near the Lenin monument,
behind the bus station,
that turned out
to be the police headquarters.
Oh well.
I have to admit I was not unnoticeable
with my three bags
and my mug looking as if...
How should I put it?
Well. Anyway.
Anyway, they arrested me of course,
and they asked me where I came from...
My passport, my visa...
They started thinking
I had been on Russian soil for two years
because I had a visa
from two years ago.
And when I explained that I came by bus,
that I hadn't flown in from Paris,
they had a hard time believing me.
That I had come
by road from Yakutsk...
So I ended up in the back of their car
for a little
routine check.
Only instead of taking me in
to headquarters, where we were,
they started joking around
and saying they would take me
for a short tour of the city.
And we landed
somewhere in the industrial harbor.
And there...
There, they stopped the car,
got out,
took out a bottle of vodka
that had already been tapped into,
as I had noticed.
And they asked me if I was in for a drink.
So I tried the classic bad liver trick.
The funny thing is
that I learned the word for liver,
"petchen",
because I bought a tin
of cod liver.
I thought it was cod
but it was cod liver.
That's how I learned the word for liver.
A very useful word,
proving that there's a very fine line
between cod-liver oil
and preventing alcoholism.
So, at that point
they got out of the car...
Strangely, they grabbed a machine gun,
one of them
started putting on a pair of gloves...
Gloves for doing the dishes,
yellow rubber gloves...
The bottle of vodka...
There was a brief dubious moment.
Then it seems they were called
over the radio to go somewhere else
and we drove like mad across town.
As soon as they got there,
they were called to headquarters.
A screeching U-turn
and back to headquarters.
There, in the headquarters,
I met their boss
and things worked out.
He was very nice.
I just need to have my visa registered.
So he called
the Director of the Visa Office for me,
where I had to go.
Then they actually took me there
to get it registered.
But the office was still closed,
it was too early.
So they took me to the hotel,
the "Magadan Hotel",
across the street
from where they had nabbed me,
and they turned me in to the "diejurnaia".
So now I'm in my room
with a view
of Magadan.
I can see another hotel.
Maybe they have hot water.
Probably not,
because it's usually supplied
to the whole neighborhood or city.
So that was my introduction
to Magadan.
And the funny thing is,
when I explained
I had come in short steps,
"po etapam" as I said in Russian,
they told me
that the term was specific
to deportees.
"Po etapam" is the way they were
transferred from one prison to another
all the way to Siberia.
So I said: "So, here I am."
I forgot to say something.
When they took me
to the industrial harbor
they said:
"See, this is the beautiful bay
facing the city."
And I couldn't help replying:
"Sure: the Bay of Nagaievo."
So they looked at me and went:
"I thought it was your first time here."
So I said: "It is,
but there's a famous song by Vysotsky:
You haven't seen
the Bay of Nogaiisk, etc."
So they said: "Okay. Fine. Whatever."
And so it was
that after a bathroom scene,
which was burlesque yet comforting,
and sporting his least soiled shirt,
he stepped out
into the brisk sea air.
This film was shot
in August and September 1999.
Martine Cornet read the excerpts from:
"Imperialism,
The Highest Stage of Capitalism"
and "Left-Wing Communism:
an Infantile Disorder"
by Lenin, written in 1916 in Zurich,
and in April 1920,
back in Russia.
"Soviets Plus Electricity" was self-produced
and the work print was made
with the technical means
of L'Abominable,
a cooperative film lab in Paris.
Thanks to the support
from the French Ministry of Culture
an optical sound print
could be made by the Cinédia laboratory.
Translation by P. Chodorov / N. Rey
Subtitling by SUBS Hamburg
I got word
that all my queens were lost.
So what, I went to Magadan.
We're even!
There I saw the Bay of Nogaiisk
and the dirt roads.
I didn't go there
out of the blue!
V. Vysotsky
SOVIETS PLUS ELECTRICITY
A cinetrip by Nicolas Rey
REEL #3: Yakutsk, Magadan.
When things get dicey
although it's far and expensive,
I can go see a friend in Magadan.
It's okay!
You have not seen the Bay of Nogaiisk,
you fool!
I didn't go there
out of the blue.
Tomorrow is September 13th.
A month after Friday the 13th,
when I was in Chernobyl.
Maybe it was
to put an end to romanticism
that I decided to leave
for the end of the world.
The incredible thing
is that I convinced people to help me,
and I should thank them, incidentally.
In the end, I didn't have much to do.
Just get myself here,
just be in one place,
and say I want to go to another one,
and off I went.
Without even having
to decide
when to leave.
It just happened.
And I don't want to complain,
but I'm still a little surprised.
If I hadn't stalled for time,
I'd already be on my way.
10:30.
Volodia went to get changed
after checking the tires
and, as it's the season,
loading the potatoes
that are also
part of our payload,
and taking care
of minor technical details.
Then I was immediately put on spud duty
for the soup.
The morning soup, at 8 a.m.
Potatoes, carrots,
a little... a half tin of meat
thrown in.
That's all.
Some tea.
The oil heater.
Volodia went bare-chested
to wash up in the river.
2 p.m. We've been on the road
since this morning.
Since this morning's soup.
We stopped once
to visit a friend of Volodia's,
Kolya,
who lives
in an isolated shed.
Two or three cows,
a horse or two,
and the river downhill
supplying its daily ration of fish.
The world's cleanest river, as he put it.
He's 59 years old.
And 37 of them he spent "sitting"
as they say in Russian
and as he
frankly admits.
The last 10 years
not far away from here
in a prison near Yakutsk.
He doesn't want to go anywhere
anymore. Now he's staying put.
He's had a girlfriend for some time
and a five-month-old daughter.
But his girlfriend wants to leave here.
So he will keep the child
and in two years' time, when she's two
he will travel,
go see his homeland,
Western Ukraine, near the border,
just behind the Carpathians.
Funny,
that's also where Volodia comes from.
All the way across.
They went from one end...
from one extreme to the other.
"But," he said,
"Volodia is a city dweller."
He himself comes from the mountains.
He's a real "Mujik".
Maybe one day
I'll come back to film more of him.
Quite a character.
And he told us
that people he knew had left yesterday...
Acquaintances
that were going toward Magadan.
Maybe we would catch up with them.
At the rate we're going, I doubt it.
But we know what their truck looks like.
We know
where they could have stopped.
We'll see.
We just stopped in a village
but since Volodia isn't very...
How should I put it?
...isn't very talkative,
I don't know why we're here.
He asked directions to this house.
I don't think this village
is where that truck could be.
Unless it left,
because it's a yellow truck
and there's no yellow truck around.
There's a blue one,
but no yellow ones.
It's pretty here.
I forgot what the name was.
"Yukutche" or something like that.
I remember discussions
around the table at Christmas.
How we used to quarrel about politics.
Now, we're a gang of consumers.
They're in the house.
I'm waiting outside.
I like it better that way.
Especially since I know
that it takes special authorization
to come here in the boondocks.
Probably because
of the large number of gold mines
in the area.
I'm only gathering pebbles.
I'm avoiding the yellow ones.
1 9 1 6:
On the whole,
capitalism is growing
far more rapidly than before,
but this growth is not only
becoming more and more uneven,
We'll be arriving at Tomtor.
- its unevenness also manifests itself
in the decay of the countries
which are richest in capital.
We'll go deliver the fuel.
Volodia said he has a friend there.
His friend's wife is a "businesswoman"
and she goes to Magadan
from time to time.
Maybe that is
how I'll go down
the other side of the mountain.
Then we'll be about half-way
between Yakutsk and Magadan.
At the point of no return, so to speak.
Volodia told me earlier
that today is Friday.
I was shocked.
That means...
I should really look at a calendar...
one of these days.
I took it upon myself
to ask Volodia to play the Vysotsky tape
he had played the first day.
Whereas I used to let him play
whatever he wanted.
No sooner had I put the tape in
did he notice
a problem with one of the wheels.
A flat tire.
Not only that,
oil was leaking from the engine.
We've been stopped for five hours.
Had to fix everything.
It looks like
we'll be spending the night here
because it's already 11 p.m.
A trucker's life.
Well, it's now 6 o'clock.
Volodia finally came back.
We had soup together. But I didn't eat.
And then
he drove me
back to Tomtor,
where I am now,
in the hotel.
The four-room hotel
in Tomtor.
Four rooms and not four stars...
The receptionist isn't in.
There's a sort of substitute.
Not a very friendly guy.
No sign of...
that van which is leaving tomorrow
for Ust-Nera.
The guy says someone here
is leaving tomorrow for Ust-Nera.
I should wait for the lady
in charge of reception.
I asked him
if there was a store nearby.
Because we ate my last tin of sardines
with Volodia just before.
Just before I threw up.
And now my supply bag
has never been emptier.
When Volodia was here,
the guy would talk to me
but since he left,
he's been staring at the TV set
with his head in his hands.
He refused to answer
when I talked to him
and asked him where there was a shop.
A quick glance and bang!
Back to watching TV.
As we say in French:
"Talk...
Talk to my ass,
my head is not doing so well."
Whereas it's my head that hurts
but it's him...
But eventually,
the silly program he was watching
came to an end.
Some local variety show.
So I went out into the vestibule...
the typical Siberian vestibule
and I heard him
leave the reception booth.
He probably thought
I had gone to look for the shop by myself.
So I came back in
and in the corridor
he had no choice but to talk to me.
First he said there were no stores.
There was one in the center of Tomtor,
but not around here.
And anyway it was closed on Saturdays.
Then, after a little chat,
asking me where I came from and so on,
he told me there was one
"maybe a little further down the road".
So I went
"maybe a little further down the road".
And it was closed.
So I dread asking him
if there's a restaurant.
In this place!
All's well that ends well.
In order to move
the bed the "diejurnaia"
had prepared for me
into a room
that she hadn't lost the key to
we asked this young fellow for help
and he turned out to be that driver
we met this morning.
The one who was sleeping
hidden under his blanket in room #4.
I wouldn't have recognized him
but since he wasn't surprised
when I asked him
if he could take me to Kanditcha,
I knew it was him.
He told me
we were leaving early in the morning.
I asked him what time
but he didn't answer.
I asked if he could wake me up
and he said yes.
But he didn't seem very happy about it.
So I set my alarm clock for 5 a.m.
And since
I went to bed at 7 p.m.,
it wasn't hard to get up.
I noticed that he was still asleep.
So I went back to bed myself.
Around 5:45 I heard some noise:
a car was coming.
I got up.
And in the shower, I waited.
Whereas in France,
you have to wait for the cold water
between the shower head and the heater
to run off in order to enjoy
the comfort of heated water,
here,
being the first person in town
to take a hot shower,
you have to wait
for hot water to come from the plant.
Just as it was finally reasonably warm
the driver knocked on the door
yelling: "Let's go!"
So I jumped into my dirty trousers
and here we are in that UAZ van
driving to the sound
first of Julio Iglesias
and now to some more local music.
After three days
in an overloaded truck
I feel as if I were in a rocket
doing 50 km/h
on the trail going down
or rather going up the Indigarka valley.
950 km to Magadan
according to the milestones.
Dinner time.
I probably gave
Volodia or someone else
my fork.
No problem,
only I don't have another one.
It's going to be tricky
eating Chinese noodles
with my fingers.
Anyway, we'll manage.
I asked the "diejurnaia"
if there was anyone in the hotel
going to Magadan.
As usual, first she said she didn't know
but then she said:
"Oh yeah, the policeman next door to you.
He asked me to wake him up at 7 a.m.
He's going to Magadan tomorrow."
I don't feel
like traveling with a policeman.
An old instinct.
Can't help it.
I'd rather stay here
tomorrow morning and film.
I hope I can find
someone driving to Susuman
a hundred kilometers down the road.
I learned the names
of the villages on the way. It's easy:
"Bolshevik",
"Kholodny" which means "cold"
and gives an idea
of the climate here.
The third one is harder: "Neksikan".
Like "Mexican",
only "Neksikan".
I guess I'll have to thumb it after all.
Ah! Tea's ready.
Maybe you can hear it in the background.
Time to eat.
Oh! My sardines and ham
come from Saint Petersburg!
Although we're ten times closer
to the Pacific than to the Baltic Sea.
I suppose it's possible
there are no sardines
in the Sea of Okhotsk.
But pigs should grow around here.
I even know where: in room 202B.
Here's what happened:
on my way to the bathroom
I ran into those policemen.
Of course...
And naturally
they started asking me where I'm from...
If I was thirsty...
So I pulled out
the old bad liver excuse.
I didn't feel like drinking.
But it was okay.
We had a little chat.
Actually, we might meet again tomorrow
because they're also taking
the 3 p.m. bus from Susuman.
They're hitch-hiking to Susuman as well.
Only it's easier for them to stop a car.
So they said.
Oh well.
They sang a little song for me.
I didn't record it.
Too bad.
I didn't have the tape recorder with me.
I was born around the time
when Khruschev was deposed
and I became old enough to vote
when Gorbachev came into power.
- So tomorrow
I'll take a few shots and
then go catch that bus in Susuman.
I guess
I'm part of the Brezhnev generation.
Here, even the ravens are silent.
It stopped!
It was the garbage truck.
It's great because
he took the shortcut to the road
avoiding the police checkpoint
taking me straight to the bridge.
Now I just have to wait.
Oh! My pants are full of dung!
Not too good for hitch-hiking.
My first time ever
in this time zone.
My first time ever
in this time zone.
1 920:
And I feel kind of alone...
- Marxist theory has proved,
and this is confirmed by the experience
of all European revolutionary movements,
that the private owner, the smallholder,
who, under capitalism,
very frequently suffers
a most acute and rapid
deterioration in his conditions of life,
and even ruin,
easily goes to revolutionary extremes,
but is incapable of perseverance,
discipline and steadfastness.
1 920:
The petit-bourgeois driven crazy
- Oh! A green car coming up...
by the horrors of capitalism is,
like anarchism, a phenomenon
typical of capitalism.
- No, blue. And a blue truck.
The instability of such revolutionism,
its barrenness,
This is my blue period.
Here I am trying to look sharp.
its tendency to turn into submission,
apathy, phantasms,
or even a wild infatuation
with one bourgeois fad or another,
all this is common knowledge.
Blue, though light blue.
There are only six cars
going in circles in this place.
There's...
the garbage truck.
There's...
the water pipe repair truck.
There's the police.
There's a jeep marked "Telegraf"...
no idea what it's doing.
There's a mysterious small blue van
and a Toyota with tinted windows.
As for the other possibilities:
I dismissed the coal truck,
the delivery truck dismissed me,
and the other businessmen...
No thanks.
Magadan, Magadan.
7 a.m.
The sun isn't up yet.
It's kind of cold.
Long time since I've seen a real city.
And traffic lights.
Though they're only
blinking orange
at this hour.
Soldiers are on duty
in front of the bus station.
"Magadan Hotel", "Magadan Restaurant",
"Magadan" bus station,
"Magadan" bus.
Maybe I'll call France
and tell them I'm finally here.
It's 8 p.m. back there.
Yesterday.
So...
I was looking for the post office
to see if it was open, and make my call.
I was rounding the corner
of Lenin Street...
Ah!
I have to interrupt this live broadcast!
So I have to tell you this story
while the immersion heater
remedies
the lack of hot water.
They gave me a bucket
and an immersion heater
to get washed.
I guess I must
have looked like someone
who's been doing
a little too much traveling.
So I was looking for the post office
so I could make my phone call
and as I was turning
the corner of Lenin Street...
There he was.
But he didn't give a damn.
He was looking the other way.
Into the morning fog.
Just then,
a squad of policemen
escorting a drunk woman
came out of the building
across from the "Magadan Hotel",
behind the bus station
that turned out to be...
that turned out...
Behind the building
opposite the "Magadan Hotel",
near the Lenin monument,
behind the bus station,
that turned out
to be the police headquarters.
Oh well.
I have to admit I was not unnoticeable
with my three bags
and my mug looking as if...
How should I put it?
Well. Anyway.
Anyway, they arrested me of course,
and they asked me where I came from...
My passport, my visa...
They started thinking
I had been on Russian soil for two years
because I had a visa
from two years ago.
And when I explained that I came by bus,
that I hadn't flown in from Paris,
they had a hard time believing me.
That I had come
by road from Yakutsk...
So I ended up in the back of their car
for a little
routine check.
Only instead of taking me in
to headquarters, where we were,
they started joking around
and saying they would take me
for a short tour of the city.
And we landed
somewhere in the industrial harbor.
And there...
There, they stopped the car,
got out,
took out a bottle of vodka
that had already been tapped into,
as I had noticed.
And they asked me if I was in for a drink.
So I tried the classic bad liver trick.
The funny thing is
that I learned the word for liver,
"petchen",
because I bought a tin
of cod liver.
I thought it was cod
but it was cod liver.
That's how I learned the word for liver.
A very useful word,
proving that there's a very fine line
between cod-liver oil
and preventing alcoholism.
So, at that point
they got out of the car...
Strangely, they grabbed a machine gun,
one of them
started putting on a pair of gloves...
Gloves for doing the dishes,
yellow rubber gloves...
The bottle of vodka...
There was a brief dubious moment.
Then it seems they were called
over the radio to go somewhere else
and we drove like mad across town.
As soon as they got there,
they were called to headquarters.
A screeching U-turn
and back to headquarters.
There, in the headquarters,
I met their boss
and things worked out.
He was very nice.
I just need to have my visa registered.
So he called
the Director of the Visa Office for me,
where I had to go.
Then they actually took me there
to get it registered.
But the office was still closed,
it was too early.
So they took me to the hotel,
the "Magadan Hotel",
across the street
from where they had nabbed me,
and they turned me in to the "diejurnaia".
So now I'm in my room
with a view
of Magadan.
I can see another hotel.
Maybe they have hot water.
Probably not,
because it's usually supplied
to the whole neighborhood or city.
So that was my introduction
to Magadan.
And the funny thing is,
when I explained
I had come in short steps,
"po etapam" as I said in Russian,
they told me
that the term was specific
to deportees.
"Po etapam" is the way they were
transferred from one prison to another
all the way to Siberia.
So I said: "So, here I am."
I forgot to say something.
When they took me
to the industrial harbor
they said:
"See, this is the beautiful bay
facing the city."
And I couldn't help replying:
"Sure: the Bay of Nagaievo."
So they looked at me and went:
"I thought it was your first time here."
So I said: "It is,
but there's a famous song by Vysotsky:
You haven't seen
the Bay of Nogaiisk, etc."
So they said: "Okay. Fine. Whatever."
And so it was
that after a bathroom scene,
which was burlesque yet comforting,
and sporting his least soiled shirt,
he stepped out
into the brisk sea air.
This film was shot
in August and September 1999.
Martine Cornet read the excerpts from:
"Imperialism,
The Highest Stage of Capitalism"
and "Left-Wing Communism:
an Infantile Disorder"
by Lenin, written in 1916 in Zurich,
and in April 1920,
back in Russia.
"Soviets Plus Electricity" was self-produced
and the work print was made
with the technical means
of L'Abominable,
a cooperative film lab in Paris.
Thanks to the support
from the French Ministry of Culture
an optical sound print
could be made by the Cinédia laboratory.
Translation by P. Chodorov / N. Rey
Subtitling by SUBS Hamburg