DAU. The Empire (2020): Season 1, Episode 1 - DAU. The Empire. Novel One: Return of the Prodigal Son - full transcript
Give me the newspaper
- Well, come in
- Hi there
Hi. Careful not to catch
yourself on anything
It's a labyrinth you have here
I suppose it is
I’m glad to see you
Why did you come?
Ήρθα να ζητήσω δουλειά
Θέλω να σας μιλήσω ιδιαιτέρως για
κάποια ζητήμα που με απασχολούν
Τον τελευταίο καιρό.
Μπορώ να μιλήσω ελεύθερα εδώ
Oui… εδώ…
Μήπως έχει τίποτε το μάτι μου
This is Moscow, my friend
Have you been in Moscow long?
Have you been here for
a long time?
A week
I've long waited for your
return, because...
Have you heard?
What should I have heard?
I don't know anything
Vera, are you using
the cleaning liquid?
Where were you before?
The Garden City
Why aren't you smiling?
You know, I am
a rather joyful person
I don't see it
- May I smoke?
- Go ahead
- Should I feel free here?
- As you like
- Do you feel free here?
- No
Then how can I feel free here?
A sign of freedom
Dau, take a seat
- Would you like a cigarette?
- No
Are we distrubing you?
Can you hear me out?
I would be very grateful.
Here's the situation
- They came...
- I can. Not here
- I came here to work
- Should I take the girls out?
"Despised Traitors
Sell Their Motherland"
For digestion
I drink only hot water
with lemon. Want some?
To aid digestion
Go on, I'll try it
From my cup
- Yes, I can try it
- From my cup
It's not poisoned
Dau
What happened?
Recently, in Kharkov there started
some sort of medieval process
They arrested every fourth person
Before, when it was spoken about,
I didn't believe it could happen
- Here
- Thank you
The main thing is that
I just fled the city
I still can't forget what happened
These people came...
"People" you know?
That's a compliment to them
- Which "people"?
- All these "people"…
I have a favour to ask
Listen, why all
straight away and
so directly?
Because... there's a plague
It's medieval,
there's a pestilence
Do you know they've already
arrested every fourth person?
They didn't touch me.
I don't know why
Perhaps they were frightened
off by the red jacket
There was a kind of
incomprehensible force...
So I wasn't... killed
It wasn't about the slap.
It was about the relationship
Now, they're locked up
Soon, they'll be no more
And this technology,
"the killing of angels"
They've developed it well
And it works
They didn’t get to me, I don't
know why. They could have
Do you read books?
Various books?
Cheerful books?
In general, what are
we doing here? If...
- Here?
- Here, in general
We're making a country
A big country
A real one
A country of steel
And to make a country of steel,
must an angel be killed?
To make a country,
you must go like this
To make a country,
you must go...
NKVD, it's a force of nature,
a volcano
Like this. Light up
Can you?
I can
But it is...
It's better to kill an angel
than take away its wings
Who's the angel?
It's better to kill him,
than take away his wings
- "These". Who are these "these"?
- Yes
- The angel?
- Yes
To kill an angel,
an archangel
To make a country,
you must go like this
- It's a medieval method...
- Do you go to the cinema?
No
What about girls?
Any girlfriends?
Do you frequent girls?
And how will the angel
live without his wings?
If we do go like this?
- Listen, Dau...
- Better to die then
Well…
If you were me,
what would you do?
If I were you,
I'd come and see me
- Where?
- Here. In Moscow
I would come from Kharkov
to see me, if I were you
- To me
- Yes?
But you must agree
that it would be...
For the train, I packed
everything in one suitcase
I left half of the books there,
I just took what I needed
You must agree that
what we did was important
It's a work of genius
We had a dream,
and our aim was to realise it
It's just that I'm...
Of course, I do have great
respect for what you're doing
- What am I doing? Nothing
- Well, the Institute...
- I'm only just beginning
- But I know what you're doing
I began as a builder
I built those three hands
And I built those hands too
How are things with Misha here,
how is he working?
Misha? He's always wearing green.
He's doing very well
Come here, Mikhail.
Cheer up
- Last night...
- Anatoly Alexandrovich
Bring us some cognac
Last night
Can you see out the window?
There's a blizzard
A blizzard
There's a blizzard outside
A blizzard in the apartment.
A blizzard in the bedroom
I got up several times
Then went back to bed
At dawn I had a dream
I was in the laboratory
I was in the laboratory along with
some colleagues,
some of them I knew
some of whom I really love,
and value their talent and genius
It was somehow strange
One of them goes up to a window,
a big window, opens it
And stands on the windowsill.
Then, another one
younger than him,
also goes up to the window
I just cannot
understand anything
There's the blizzard, the wind,
the snow is swirling around
The one standing on
the windowsill jumps out
The other one gets on the
windowsill. Jumps out
I keep watching. I see them
falling, both of them
But they don't land on snow
or on the ground
They fall into water
They plunge into
the water, feet first
It's warm, hot even, but
the water is the colour of lead
They sink further into the water
I can see them sinking down,
then swimming under the water
They're swimming under the water,
coming up to the surface
I see them swimming, approaching
a tunnel. The tunnel is narrow
but wide enough to swim through,
to go through, to dive through
and emerge on the other side
One of them swims through
the other hits his head
on the lip of the tunnel
I see him clutching his
head under the water
He's moaning, looking at me
Water
It's always a premonition
of sickness
When you dream
of water, cold water
When people are swimming
in the water, under the water…
Dau
What's the matter?
Put it down and leave
- And shut that door
- Alright
May I?
Who do you love?
They're all bastards
How can you love anyone
in a world like this?
And you, do you love?
In a world like this?
- I do love
- In a world like this?
In a world like this, yes,
there are some I love
Dau, who sent you to me?
Did you come yourself or
did somebody send you?
They wouldn not choose me.
Anyone but me
Who have you come from?
I'm neither "a guardian angel"
nor a "cunning tempter"
Oh no?
Who have you come from?
Can I lie down here,
at your place?
Here you cannot lie down
but you are allowed to write
In my office, people write.
Over there, they lie down
and a bit further along, they sit
down, they're put in prison
But in my office, they write
Through there, they calculate
And down there,
they lie down for good
Here's a fountain pen,
here's some paper. Sit down.
Write a job application
You know that I never write
Here. I only think
Fuck you.
Write a job application
Once, a man
spent a long time striking matches,
but they wouldn't light
Finally, he managed to light
the last match in the box
And said, "That was a good match,
I should have kept it"
- Who is your second?
- Come here, gather round
- We'll have a game of Gorodki
- We will
- Accompanied by poetry
- Very effective
- So, will I...
- Will you read?
- I'll read first, then you
- Alright
- "Instructions"
- I'll say it loudly after you
"Allocate"
"500 pounds of Chinese gunpowder"
"200 pounds of refined
potassium nitrate"
"And 700 pounds of
alchemical sulphur"
"for the production
of rocket fuel"
"With this fuel,
stuff up the ass"
- "of Comrade Beria"
- Yes, him too
"Of comrade Beria"
"And launch him into
eternal space"
"Glory to the Soviet Scientists"
Glory to the Soviet Scientists
The canon will fire from
up there, right?
Go ahead, friends
- You're my second
- Very well
Allow me to introduce to you...
I'll go for this one
Let's go
Right. "Allocate 500 pounds"
"of Chinese gunpowder."
Well done
- Misha
- Go get it, move quickly
Congratulations on your
wonderful result
I'm listening
"200 pounds of potassium nitrate"
There's been a deficit of
potassium nitrate so far
200 pounds of refined
potassium nitrate
We've just got "potassium nitrate",
but yes, let's refine it
- Bravo
- Well I never
That's some powerful potassium
Now, "700 pounds
of sulphur", Dau
I'm having no luck
- Another one
- Yes, go on
There you go… Nevertheless
- Dau. Come here
- "For the production of rocket fuel"
I have no luck
It's not a revolution.
It's not a coup d'etat
It's an invasion of some
people by some others
And everything submits
to the laws of this invasion
A state within a state
I have no luck, you see?
- We haven’t finished the reading
- Read it
We've already had "700 pounds
of alchemical sulphur"
"for the production
of rocket fuel"
"With this fuel"
"stuff up the ass"
I think you stuffed it up
- I'll stuff it up now
- Congratulations
Good boy
- Very difficult
- Hard, isn't it?
I should have razed it to the ground.
It's hard when something's left
We'll raze the whole
world to the ground
People are running about over there
Can I try this?
- Calmness, accuracy
- And precision
This is impossible, it's unbelievable.
It takes aggression
My essay...
...as a fourth-grade student
at School Number 53...
There, a good pyramid
...in the city of Tula
"Comrade Lenin little yearned
to lose sleep over Comrade Stalin"
"as Comrade Stalin cast a bust,
a steel bust of Comrade Lenin"
"Once Comrade Stalin cast his bust,
his steel bust of Comrade Lenin"
"he strapped a steel bra
across the steel bust he'd cast"
"And within the
unbreakable embrace"
"of the brassiere's
two hemispheres"
"he squeezed all the proletarian
achievements of Comrade Lenin"
"Thus Comrade Stalin
cast those mainstays"
"that we still use and praise
right to these days"
Why aren't you laughing?
It's not funny
Let's go
"Secrets of the Madrid Court"
There's the progress
of mankind, look
Right? Dwarves
And here...
What a transformation,
a metamorphosis, just look
Can I cross the line?
Here, our heads are scaled up
Or are only the demigods
allowed to cross it?
Here, we already look
like modern man
Here, dwarves again
What are you working on here?
I like this very much
You're such a romantic
Some kind of revolution within
a revolution, towards a revolution
- How do you cover your backs here?
- Dau
I've told you already,
there was no revolution
People just called it that
- Can revolution exist at all?
- Yes
Yes, it was an explosion,
a revolution, a coup d'etat
But essentially, at its core
It was an invasion
by a people called...
Of course, the new
establishment...
Let me finish. A people
called the “proletariat”
The invasion by this people,
called the “proletariat”
It was a barbarian invasion
Then the barbarians do what they
want with the other people
What they did with
the previous ones
And when you talk about
physicists, your friends...
There's a poet who says
What a pity the barbarians never came
and are nowhere to be found
Because barbarians would have
been a very good solution
A barbarian invasion is always
a good solution for civilization
A very good solution
If each person could kill a bit
of their inner authority figure
Not just so as to kill and become
a criminal, but so as to be free
Then they could bring about
a revolution, in a global sense
But while the ignorant masses
still can't remove that restriciton
which is within each person,
there can be no global revolution
These masses are
the body of the people
The body of the people
called "the proletariat"
What is "the people"?
"The people" is a phantom
It's what's behind that wall,
and behind that wall
I can't see it.
It doesn't exist
I strongly suspect that things
we can't see don't exist
Have you never thought that
we are given a stage set
on which to act out a play?
We talk about Shanghai, say.
We know the city exists
But have you been there?
I'm not sure Shanghai exists
It's non-existent, we always talk
about what "the people" want
But "the people" is a stream
of billions of people
Each with their own drum
Each beats out their own rhythm
of their own inner Motherland
How can we establish
a single rhythm
from millions of drums
all being beaten differently?
This is what rulers do. They say,
"This is the body of people"
They take that line and
use it to do what they do
That's how it is
I'm very disillusioned,
do you understand?
- Misha, give us a fur coat
- What coat?
Give us a fur coat for Dau
- He could do with a...
- Bring a fur coat for Dau
That one's funny-looking
The people's strike
- Almost
- Dau, go again
If I get a hit then I'm right
- You're right, but not entirely
- Third attempt
Now, it will happen
Nothing will happen
- Can I try?
- Yes, let Misha try
- Shall we try the Greek way?
- We'll be here till spring at this rate
This is the Greek style
Nothing will happen
- Hard, isn't it?
- Can I ask you something
If I now engage...
Will I just hit it?
Can I try that?
This is unbelievable,
I can't get it together
It takes aggression
- Will you allow me?
- Yes
Yes, hit it
What is this? What is it?
- Hit it
- This is becoming fatal
I just really want to raze
them to the ground now
these frustratingly
intricate structures
This is beyond belief
- I don't get what's going on
- Rhythmically. It's impossible
I'll take my revenge now
- Upon whom?
- This is a vicious circle
My hands aren't working, its cold
A creature that eats people
is called a man-eater, right?
A creature that eats people
is called a man-pleaser
Or a man-teaser
And what do you call
one that eats angels?
- Let's think something up
- A stewardess
Kharkov is full of stewardesses
You board a plane, and the
stewardess is eating angels
"Our flight from Kharkov to
Moscow is ready for take-off"
The K-7 airplane
So beautiful...
Come here
"Detestable Traitors
Sell Their Motherland"
"Wipe the Despicable Traitors from
the Face of the Soviet Land"
"The People's Holy Hatred"
"Be Vigilant"
"A Monstrous Crime"
"Sworn Enemies of the People"
"Shoot the Main Traitors"
Is this "the people"?
Or the leaders?
They use the word "people"
They're implying something else.
It's just a toy to them
And when those from whom
you fled interrogated you
- Yes
- Was that "the people"?
- There was one bastard
- One?
- No, one of the Chekists
- One of the Chekists?
If you didn't do what he told you,
he'd slap you in front of everyone
- And who was he?
- Who? A Chekist thug
Just a thug?
With no sense of justice?
Such people have no sense of
justice, who are the Chekists?
- People
- Are they? I highly doubt it
They're people, just like you,
with their own sense of justice
They have two legs,
two arms and...
- And a dick
- And a dick
But that doesn't make them people
It doesn't make them people
What is it then?
Just one person who's
the devil incarnate?
Or is it "the people" who are
protecting themselves?
With their own views
Their own idea of life,
their own rules?
Their own ethnicity
What does it mean to have
your own ethnicity?
Nothing. There is no
"ehtnicity", no "people"
- What is there then?
- It's all just banners for fools
It's all a kind of morphine
"The people" is the morphine
of the people
Just as Marx said that religion is
the opiate of the people
Here, "the people" is
the morphine of the people
They're all bastards
- And Stalin is the arch-moron
- I don't agree
- He's the arch-moron
- Listen, Dau
That's not how I see it
It wasn't a revolution brought
about by a few people
And it wasn't a coup d'etat
by a lot of people
It was an invasion which came
from within the whole of Russia
It has engulfed everything.
You included
It's not just one person,
not just one
But just one person rules.
Who is it that rules?
One person rules.
Fuck him. Let him rule
Dau, put the overcoat on,
you'll catch a cold
Only one person rules, right?
Yes, one person rules,
and a few others with him
- And that comrade's a moron?
- Yes
But who carries out the orders?
Behind him there's
- a whole pyramid of...
- Assholes
A whole fucking
pyramid of the people
They'll build this pyramid
for you now
The things we read
in the newspaper
Is that what we had
the revolution for?
Is it the result of our idea?
And what difference is there
- A whole fucking pyramid
- between morons and idiots?
Just read the language
of this newspaper
Read it carefully,
look at the language
And this man has the power
to rule over others
Listen, yesterday I
came up with a good joke
- Let's recite it together
- Alright
What is scarier than helium?
The superfluidity of Beria
Beria's also a very good man,
very good, outstanding
- Let's say it together
- Alright
What is stronger than helium?
The superfluidity of Beria
"What is stronger than helium?"
"The superfluidity of Beria"
What is stronger than Beria?
The superfluidity of "Peria"
What is stronger than "Peria"?
The superfluidity of "Meria"
What is stronger than "Meria"?
- What is stronger than "Meria"?
- Let's go over there
The superfluidity of "Peria"
You see, this is all...
How can I put it?
How can I put it well?
It's all...
Everything that's built here
Was built... How can I put it?
It's...
You will be...
You know what?
You will be here
I was told this joke
In Leningrad, there was
a head of an institute who died
And people gathered
around his coffin
for the solemn funeral service
Two people were standing right
at the head of the coffin
One was a senior NKVD official
The other was a scientist.
They were standing by the coffin
And the official points at the
the dead body and says
"You'll take his place"
So, you'll take my place here
What is stronger than Nietzsche?
The beard of Krupitzsche
You know what they're doing?
They're just playing Gorodki
Like we do now
But they're shooting the
people over there
Imagine if we started
fighting back now...
- What are all these hands?
- Dau. There are 12 hands
In the experimental lab.
12 hands
- And over here?
- 3 hands
- It's the hand of a volcano
- It's slippery
It's very, very slippery here
Are these your scientists here?
It's slippery
Hi
Hello
NKVD
It's slippery
Dau
Are those my brains up there?
- The brains of scientists
- Of failed scientists?
- And what's this?
- It's a vagina. The 15th vagina
It belongs to me
The biggest one.
It's my office. That's it
There is no more slipperiness.
The road. A blizzard. Moscow
- And what is that?
- All of this slipperiness
it was me who built it
Yes
Hello, comrades
These street lights
are the Fatherland
That's the Fatherland,
over on the right
- On the left too?
- That's the Fatherland too
Dau, this is the sky
of the Fatherland
I was waiting for you,
yesterday
Where have you been?
Dau
Where have you been?
Dau, I waited for you for a year
Where have you been?
I sold you
For how much?
I just sold you
For nothing?
What's the difference?
I have a guilty conscience
You know that you'll end up in
a military tribunal, in a sanatorium?
I can't go on.
It's a world of shadows.
You took me in to the Institute,
got me out of prison
- You've done so much for me
- I didn't do anything
That didn't happen
I didn't get you out or take you in
I've acted like the
lowest of the low
I was dying, just like
all animals die
I didn't know I was an animal
But when you're dying like one
you realize you're similar
I sold you, I gave
evidence against you
Listen, Dau
I'm a museum piece
I can't be sold
- You didn't sell me
- I did
No, you sold yourself
I'm a museum piece
I'm a loyalist
- First, I'd like to repent...
- Please don't
I can't live like this,
don't you understand?
Don't live then
It's already too late
I waited for you for a year.
What were you doing?
- I was there
- There? Where?
It's somehow better here
I was there,
where people suffer
Do you like the park?
The park where we've met
I don't like anything now
Yes. I suffered
And I sold my friends
- In order to live
- How sentimental
Yes, very much so
This snivelling is no good at all
It's no good for a man to snivel
Yes, it's true. That's correct.
I understand it all
Look at me
It's no good at all
Although
A sanatorium
is no holiday resort
Neither you or I need it
I am not doing it for your sake
I know you're a noble person
and perhaps you don't need this
Some kind of horrible, bestial
self-preservation is triggered
- No, this isn't self-preservation
- And you're prepared
just in order to save your body...
- I sold you, do you understand?
- No, it's...
- This is simply qualitative...
- I gave evidence against you
I slandered you
Do you know what it's like?
You don't know
But I know now
It's a certain moment
when you turn into...
- Shut up. It didn't happen. Enough
- It did happen. It did
Listen to me for five minutes,
I just can't go on like this
And what if I won't accept
your repentance?
What if...
I don't need your repentance.
I don't need it. I don't
I don't need repentance.
What else do you want?
Fuck you
Do you understand?
- I can't work
- Don't work
But then who's going
to do physics?
- I consider myself unworthy
- NKVD officers don't do physics
- Well, that's clear
- Yes, they don't
- They do atrocious things
- I don't believe we're animals
I believe we can become animals.
But we are not animals
This plain can be perceived
as a place where you
either ascend or descend
We are now like shadows,
we're not parallel to the Earth
We are not vertical.
We're something in the middle
This is no good, it's all idle chat.
Leave it. You're not a damsel in distress
Remember what you said to me?
That power is a volcano
A volcano
If you light my cigarette
I'll forgive you
Let's go
That’s it
A volcano
Hey, young lady,
what's your name?
She can't hear. Young lady,
what's your name?
Here no one hears you,
that's why I chose this place
Young lady. What's your name?
Here no one hears you,
that's why I chose this place
Young man.
What's your name?
He can't hear
That's the Motherland for you
What's your name?
- He can't hear
- No one can hear you here
Let's go. Enough.
Come on
- They just go up and down
- Let's go, enough
Up and down
Can't you see that
no one can hear you here?
- Nobody
- Let's go, Dau, let's go
Nobody can hear you
Let's go
They're saying farewell
What are we going to do now?
I'll tell you
You know what?
Once, a pupil of mine
came to me
He was my favourite pupil
And he...
He wasn't one of us
He was a stranger,
not one of us
I called him to the window.
Just like you. Come here
- And I told him...
- You asked for lemons...
- Do you want tea?
- No, I don't
I told him: "Do you see
those people walking?"
He said, "Yes. I see them.
There they are, walking"
"They'll be walking there
for as long as I live"
"Always. Under my windows.
Back and forth"
"Do you want this for yourself?"
"Are you prepared
to have this every day?"
"For the cars to be there,
to come and go"
"And for the people to be there,
walking back and forth. Forever"
"If you want that - stay here"
He said: "I don't want that"
It was right here, in this office.
I really loved that pupil
And I said to him: "Go away"
He left. He became
a famous scientist
But it didn't happen here
That's clear
Did you hear something
about him since?
He...
- Have you seen him since?
- No, I haven't
Can I ask you something?
There is no...
What do you call it?
You can't dial. You can only
talk to God on this phone
You pick up and God answers?
There's no dial?
Shall I connect you?
- Inquire if he's taking calls
- Go on, try again
Hello? Is that Saint Peter?
- I was very upset today
- Why?
You remember that expression -
"a state within a state"?
It's not right
In my youth I was very
anxious when I was with women
I was somehow
afraid to touch them
I had no... I never...
I never took a woman
for what she really was
It was always through
some kind of semblance
I never saw her
the way she really was
and what I did see
was unreachable for me
Inaccessible
But that was because you've
seen yourself in those women.
That's my problem too.
I always see myself in women
Well, myself, but...
I project everything
I imagine onto her
And I try to make her equal
to what I want to see
To be equal to that image
I have created
That's a mistake. Or not?
What do you think?
What I think is that...
A woman wants to be seen
as someone she really is
She passionately desires that
She even wants to be seen
worse than she really is
And when you learn to see
her worse than she really is
she starts to unfold in your
hands, and she even likes it
She takes delight
from this treatment
And when I was young,
I didn't know that
Then when I found it out,
I was no longer young
I wasted my youth in vain
I let it pass me by
I had a strange
dream last night
I dreamt that...
twenty years ago
I was somewhere
I was waiting, stalking
the girl I used to love back then
We had a relationship,
but then we broke up
It was something like that
I walked about the streets,
in and out of cafes, stalking her
Hoping that she would
just notice me somewhere
and by chance we'd
meet again and talk
And in the dream
I was as young
as I was back then
but the time since
our last meeting
was of 20 years, as in real life
And something creepy
happened in this dream
My late grandmother came
to the cafe where I stayed
and together with her came
my mother and my brother
They said to me
"Dear, you have suffered
so long because of her"
"Let us have a word with her"
I tell them: "Absolutely not,
that would be terrible"
"It's illegal - I'm stalking her"
But they approached her
and started saying to her
"Why do you hurt our boy? Why
wouldn't you even look at him?"
She said: "But who is your boy?"
She has completely forgotten
"I am his late grandmother"
"Don't you remember me?
You even came to our place once"
And at that moment,
I was terrified
and I felt shame
And immeditately I opened
my eyes and woke up
There's a poem that says
that girls and women
are like broken vinyl records
And there's nothing wrong with it
The problem is that they
always play faulty tunes
You know what? I'm
going to say something
Something that's not correct
The power
shouldn't necessarily be tolerated
Perhaps we shouldn't
tolerate it at all
If it's really the power
we must love it
I disagree
But with that very particular
love, which is hatred
Now, I agree
It's a kind of yearning
for hatred, you mean
If it's...
If you just respect the power
It knows that you only
respect it, and nothing more
That you're only tolerating it.
You have to love it
while others don't love it,
they just respect or tolerate it
You have to nurture within yourself
this repulsive ability
to love that power
Absolutely brilliant!
You know, they say love
is a destructive feeling
Maybe we should love that
power in order to destroy it
But if you don't love it,
there is nothing to destroy
True
If you don't love a woman,
how can you destroy her?
- You're indifferent to her
- Exactly
If you just tolerate her
your tolerance humiliates her
Of course
Humiliates her in a bad sense,
not a good one
Let's drink to that
And this is...
Our colleagues would
see it as a betrayal
to feel such an unexpected,
criminal love for that power
Our colleagues would
see it as a betrayal
However, the power would
have it's own suspicions
but it wouldn't be able to see
any cracks - there is just love
The most...
I think that the most
courageous act a person can do
and I can't see anything
more courageous than this
I've never seen anything
more courageous than this
and it's also something
entirely illegal and incorrect...
It's to penetrate into the very
heart of that power
with one single aim
Terrorism
- I agree
- But that's the hardest path
To blow it all up
right from its very heart
But how to get into
the heart of that power?
That's why I have
always travelled
not along the body's periphery,
but straight into its heart
And the corresponding
blows have been dealt
Blows that correspond to
what I have wanted in life
To defend "a different logic"
Plato, who did he write
"The Republic" for?
Did Plato live in the same
world as we do?
Because, if you
read "The Republic"...
What happened to us, here?
Why have people
become such idiots?
Why do we have to
drag it all along?
Lagging 300 years
behind everyone else
He wrote “The Republic"
and it's some kind
of manifesto
It's a manifesto that suggested
a gentle way of approaching the
social religions of its time
But what happened to us, here?
What approach could work
with the idiots everywhere now?
What do you think?
I really hate that power
I think about Plato...
Funny little toy
Listen, look.
We'll do this now
Perhaps it's that history
takes a turn backwards?
- We'll do this now
- What has actually happened to us?
Go on, set it off
It makes good music
- It's pierced me
- It got a vein, I hope?
- It's a ballerina, isn't it?
- A ballerina
And here.
We took it over here
"A little architect of
one's own happiness"
Does it resemble you and me?
The legs are longer than ours
"The Republic"
Why are you not
at all cold? I'm freezing
You're a southerner,
why you are not cold?
- You've got good cognac
- "The Republic"
But you're not drinking
You know what? We
need a little bit more...
How do creative ideas come to you?
Do you note how and when they come?
- In dreams
- In dreams?
Mine come at the washbasin
when I'm brushing my teeth
While I was waiting
for you I wrote this
"The Creator decided to create power,
and He created co-power instead"
- Shall I write something for you?
- Go on then
It's an ancient
inscription which says
"All toys have the right
to break down"
"Tα πάντα ρει."
Everything changes. It's Heraclitus
There's the ashtray
Socrates was
an ironic philosopher
A very mocking,
joking philosopher
He asserted things through negation
His path
was the path of mockingly
asserting things
and enjoying negation
He took pleasure in negation
He took particular pleasure
in negation and mockery
And in order to get to...
The truth is always hiding
And, in order for the truth
to reveal itself, somehow
We have to create quite
a bit of distance from it
- And hide
- Yes
Yes, we have to keep,
to keep going away from it
It's a constant
game of negation
Those who unite with one another...
Those who unite together in order
to proceed forward coordinately
they establish a state
They can't not establish a state
The state is a kind of violence
It's some absolute violence
of the few over the many
Of the strong over
the subjugated. That's clear
And then that state
assumes its proper place
It gradually gains in stability
in order to transform
that stability into motion
And then it destroys
its own stability...
These thoughts are rubbish,
I know they are, but...
I can't imagine a society,
I can't imagine any society at all
without the power of the state
It would crumble. It would
destroy itself and collapse
I understand that an individual
will never agree
with the use of force
Neither you, nor I,
nor anyone else
- Will never agree to violence
- Will never agree, ever
But they'll agree with
the coordinated efforts
Can I read something to you?
And tell you about my ideas?
"The Stone Guest"
by Pushkin. "Leporello"
"O statua gentilissima.
Del gran' Commendatore"
Four dots. "Ah, Padrone.
Don Giovanni"
"Scene 1. Don Juan and Leporello"
This is what I find interesting
- Don Juan: "Let us wait for the night here"
- "Let us await the night here"
"Await the night here.
Ah, at last"
"We've reached the gates of Madrid,
soon I'll tread familiar streets"
"My moustache hidden by my cloak,
my eyebrows by my hat"
“My moustache hidden by my coat,
my eyebrows by my hat"
"You think they won't recognise me?"
Separate line
"You shall hate me then"
Listen, Dau, this character
of the Commendatore
Who does he represent?
Whose representative is he?
- The church? Religion? The state?
- The patriarchy
The patriarchy
Is he a father?
Or a private individual?
Or is it that there's an idea
that's focused within him?
- It's a whole range of things
- It's an idea of what?
Take Donna Anna
Does she love the Commendatore?
As a father? Or not?
- She cries because she loves him
- Is she pretending?
- Who the hell knows?
- You have to answer that
- If you're reading it out
- It's a declaration of love
for the man who killed her ideal,
who killed her father
There's a dual reality to it
That's why I'm asking
- No murder, no love
- No drama
There's no drama
So first, a love object
has to be killed?
- Yes
- An object of love and devotion
Of loyalty and worship
- A totem
- Yes
- Yes
- A god must be killed
In order to...
In order to start
loving another god
The drama starts
only when he is killed
That's true, isn't it?
- So the Commendatore is killed...
- Just a second
"It doesn't matter if I'm recognised"
For our beloved drama
because without the Commendatore
there would be no drama
Without the murder
We move into a different logic.
He shakes the statue's hand
He even invites
the statue for dinner
That would be impossible.
The dramatic development...
Right, it's impossible.
But who is this Commendatore?
Is he a private individual?
A father?
A representative of patriarchy,
as you said? A patriarch
Or some kind of archaic figure?
- Who is he?
- He's all of that
He's an archetype
The Commendatore's murder is just
a prologue to a long story
To a big story about
copulation with sin
It's not even a prologue.
It's the first act
The prologue is when
Leporello wants to...
It's the first act
In the big story...
What is it that really drives
people on this earth?
Sin or Good?
Good
But if there is no
resistance to sins...
Yes, how can we be
driven by Good?
Day can't be driven by day,
if there is no night?
That's clear. But here's
a tricky question for you
Why did Adam and Eve fall?
- Why did they fall?
- Yes
- I can't answer this question
- I'll answer you
If it hadn't happened
then neither you nor I would
have come to know the world
- On the one hand, yes
- Never
Because the only thing the Creator
forbade the people he created
was knowledge
- Knowledge of what?
- Of good and evil
- He forbade them that knowledge
- That's what I wanted to hear
- The knowledge of good and evil
- Good and evil, yes
So good and evil already
existed at that time?
You and I are being fucked
around by present-day religions
When they talk about the
Fall of Adam and Eve
as an act of copulation
No, they ate from
the Tree of Knowledge
Yes, the Tree of Knowledge
of Good and Evil
The act of copulation symbolises
the act of knowing good and evil
The whole of human history
started from that moment
If that act hadn't happened,
none of us would have existed, ever
- I have a different...
- It was the blessed...
How can I put it? It was the blessed
providence of the Creator
who had planted that tree
for the sake of tempting
those primeal humans he'd created
You know, I see it as...
- That's how I see it
- It's a field of contact
People could have continued to exist
in amorphous harmony
- With lizards?
- Knowing only that they know nothing
In ignorance
How can I put it? Through
an endless search for knowledge
Through the path of investigation.
That's what I find interesting
Because not knowing is wonderful
But only if it's an effect
of your own labour
Not knowing just
because you don't know
That's no good
So let's say, there's a monk who
believes and doesn't investigate
and someone else who might investigate
through living in this insane asylum
In order for him to
both know, and not know
Faith opens the gates
to the Tree of Life
But not to the Tree of
Knowledge of Good and Evil
In Eden, in Paradise,
two trees were planted
The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil
and the Tree of Life
Jesus became the Tree of Life
When we partake of Jesus's
flesh and blood, we believe
And through this faith we live
without this act of knowing
good and evil
And we don't need
to come to that knowledge
Faith in itself gives us
that knowledge
But it was necessary to
travel a long way
along the path of
knowing good and evil
for God to sacrifice his son
This sacrifice that
God made of his son
will continue on and on and on
And will not end, ever
He will always be sacrificed
He wasn't just sacrificed once,
he will always be sacrificed
This path toward the
knowledge of good and evil
will eventually
as a path that tends to a limit
as a path that eternally
tends to its limit
will eternally bring us
closer to this knowledge
of God as He is
At the moment humanity was
banished from Paradise
It didn't yet know that the door
was opened and then closed forever
But the Creator lent us this idea
for many thousands of years
Have you ever thought
about blowing up the Institute?
You've built a state
within a state
You hired me, and lots of others
And it all seems to have
come together, doesn't it?
But has it ever crossed your
mind to just blow it all up?
No. That's wrong
That is wrong
Others will blow it up
Donna Anna comes
to know good and evil
through her passion
for Don Juan
Until then she doesn't know it
Absolutely
She comes to know good
and evil in the flesh
along with Don Juan's body
And through his body,
she comes to know the Spirit
Absolutely
I think that if...
The purpose of life.
How can you...
How can you grasp
that idea of what the
purpose of life is?
It's creation
People have been given
the gift of creativity
But not everyone
uses that gift
Any creativity is wonderful
But not all of it is useful
You like creativity that's useless
The beautiful creativity
And I insist on useful creativity
The person who rejects creative
power and creativity
and the reproduction
of oneself
through the act of creation
that person rejects life itself
in all its existence,
they just reject it
Perhaps it's somehow...
I don't know if that's right
No, I know. It is right.
For me it's right
Perhaps it's right for others
too, right for everyone
Anyone who is not creative
is not beautiful, is not useful
I'm very excited by unfinished work
Theories that were left
unfinished on purpose
When the author was
ready to accomplish it
when he was just about to cross
the threshold of perfection
but he stopped there and
said: "I won't go further"
And left his puzzle for others to
solve. For those who could never
even catch up with
him on that level
On the one hand,
that's creativity
On the other, it's...
How can I put it?
The excitement of leaving
your life incomplete
You know, the Supreme Reason...
Imagine He is doing the job
of a traffic policeman
If He sees that
a car's going straight
and at a good speed
then He knocks
that car off its course
He knocks it off its course so that
it crashes... with its passenger inside
To leave the route unaccomplished
And the creativity, incomplete
So that it can have
subsequent incarnations
in the real lives
of other people
It's not that we do not
reach completion
it's that completion
is not granted to us
But in our case, more specifically
Suppose that all the theories
we're coming up with now
have to be implemented in some
kind of social reality tomorrow
From the point of view of
creativity, these theories
are undoubtedly fundamental
for the progress of humanity
But what if they are
put into practice?
If they are implemented in society?
- Will it be useful or not?
- Creativity which is inspired in society?
Yes, if our creativity
is inspired in society?
That's not useful
because if the whole society becomes
creative, it becomes restless
And a state with a restless
society will fall apart, blow up
and it won't survive
for very long
The aim of any state
is to strike at and
paralyse any creativity
It selects rulers who
have good enough minds
to govern those who
are under its control
and to paralyze their creativity
in every way possible
Creativity...
And that's when you get
certain loners who...
And in creativity, injections of
resistance are very important
When they meet
resistance, they might...
This is a terrifying
category for a state
Any state would attempt to paralyse
the creativity of the individual
Otherwise, it would never survive
Freedom is very
difficult for all of us
Fighting for freedom
is easier than having it
Freedom is immeasurable
Once there was a monk
who was asked...
"Tell me, are you fighting
with the Devil?"
The monk laughed and said
"In my youth, I fought with the Devil,
now I'm old and I fight with God"
Brilliantly said
"I'm fighting with God"
I don't have a...
I've never seen...
I've never considered
the configuration of power
according to the class attributes
- Or according to the class principle
- Yes, I agree
People aren't organised by class principles
Class isn't what
unites and directs them
But...
Look attentively: how people
are usually grouped together
They become very similar when
they're grouped together
Very similar
Not only because they form
one another to be similar
but initially they group
together on the basis of a principle
which is stronger
than a class basis
It does seem that they are
on the territory of class, but
there's a much stronger basis to it
Why do we always treat people
as some kind of objects
of the material world?
Why wouldn't we allow for the people
the same principles we allow for physics?
Because they make us suffer
It's our revenge
They make us suffer
The objects of the world
are making us suffer...
What is the affinity
between the decisions
of Don Juan and Faust?
Do they know each other?
Don Juan and Faust
What's going on between them?
In what do they differ?
What is opposite to both of them?
I won't answer that
Because... I won't give
you any answer at all
Because I haven't
reached Faust's age
But I do know the answer...
There's a passionate
yearning for youth
An unfulfilled, impossible,
unrealisable dream
It's essentially impossible
And the germ of that dream
gives life to this tragedy
And youth...
Youth will not...
Youth will never understand Faust,
it's just not possible
I refuse to answer because...
It's dangerous
Once...
Once I was asked...
"What is the sence of life?"
Running away.
That's what life is about
Running away, going forward
and never stopping
Always being on the move
Always, always, always
being on the move
- That's life
- Like the Earth
And then suddenly you stop
Changeability, that's what life is
There's nothing permanent
Odysseus. That's what life is
Sometimes death comes
at an appointed time
Sometimes it comes
when you're not expecting it
The unexpected death
that might come
I'm very afraid of it
But I'm open to death which comes at
its appointed time. That's how life goes
Maybe it's a way of going
out into a different form
I believe that when people die,
some other form exists for them
into which they transform.
But when death comes suddenly...
I don't really know...
I agree with the ancient Greeks
They strongly objected
to it on moral grounds
It's terrifying
to die unprepared
To die suddenly,
by accident, unexpectedly
It's very wrong
But, on the other hand, he who
goes to war is always prepared
He goes to war and
knows that he's prepared
It could happen. So in that
sense, he is prepared
Do you think they'll carry us out
of here? Out of this country?
- On cushions?
- I don't know
How will they carry us out?
On stretchers, on cushions?
- On feet?
- On wings?
- No
- Will angels carry us out?
- Angels with fists?
- Arm in arm?
How will they carry us out?
Or will it be unexpected, sudden?
Leaving our personal
story unfinished
staying within a universal story
where everything happens
suddenly and unexpectedly
and you never...
I have an injury,
a crack inside me
If we face up to the truth,
everything that we do
isn't needed by those out there
If we're to talk in terms of science
Today, right now, perhaps they
really don't need any of it
- Perhaps they need...
- It's all the same
Are we just wrapped up
in what we're doing?
Does it matter whether
they need it or not?
Why did they have to eat the fruit
of the Tree of Knowledge?
Why do people always eat that fruit
and search for that tree?
Why do they devote their entire
lives to trying to find that tree?
That's all there is. Does it really
matter what's out there?
It's all for the sake of movement
Movement. There's no other
way to have movement
If there's not something
that's rejected...
That's our lesson
When times are hard
of course we question it -
why did they have to eat the fruit
But when you reach a level of
knowledge and understanding
then we can see: this fruit is sweet
Sometimes it's bitter
but more often it's sweet
Who do you think I am,
Don Juan or Faust?
- You?
- Yes
- Be honest
- Are you fishing for compliments?
Are you fishing for compliments?
What do you want me to say?
The truth
You're a physicist, Dau
Neither Don Juan, nor Faust
- You are a theorist
- And who are you?
I'm a practitioner, Dau
I'm a builder, you're a dreamer
- Here, take this
- I've got one here
It's very interesting
that the first words of
the Book of Genesis are
"And God said,
'Let us create the world'”
"Let us create." Not, “I will create",
but, "We will create"
What's your position concerning
Moscow? Do you think it's a good city?
Do you like it?
- Moscow?
- No. The fireworks
It's very dangerous to set off
fireworks in this institute
Is Moscow a good city?
No
Because Moscow isn't
an ancient city
And just like any city
that isn't ancient
Moscow cannot be a good city
Perhaps it will be in the future?
- In the future antiquity?
- Of course
In some distant future
it will be ancient
Or do you mean an
"ancient city" in some other sense?
Moscow. "Moscow..."
"What depths of fascination
live in that name"
"What echoes start,
and sound in every Russian heart!"
It's all Peter the Great's fault
- What's your name?
- Victor
And what are you doing?
Wiping the windows.
Living life
While you're cleaning the windows,
we're doing nothing
Everything can be done
while doing nothing
Perhaps it would be best
for us not to see out?
- Why?
- Why do we need it?
Wipe it off and
you look into another world
With a different life out there.
Different problems, different people
It's all exactly the same
- You can feel like God
- Victor. Is that your name?
- "Victor" means "Conqueror"
- Perhaps
- Mr. Victor, stop wiping the window
- But I'm not fighting anyone
- Victors don't wipe windows
- Why?
Because out there
it's the same as in here
No, everything is
different everywhere
It only seems to be the same
It all depends on your attitude
Do you know what
this building is called?
What all of this is called?
The Institute
Of Gynaecology?
- No, Victor?
- It could well be
Why not the Institute of Physics?
Names don't change anything
"Yesterday, in Moscow, publishing houses
started to distribute to their subscribers"
"the 14th volume
of the Collected Works"
"of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin"
That's good news
And do you know my name?
Not yet
And who built all this?
People
Yes, people built this
People, who tomorrow will start
reading the 14th Volume
of the Collected Works of Lenin
Those who find it
interesting will read it
Everyone will read it
Not everyone will
- Well, come in
- Hi there
Hi. Careful not to catch
yourself on anything
It's a labyrinth you have here
I suppose it is
I’m glad to see you
Why did you come?
Ήρθα να ζητήσω δουλειά
Θέλω να σας μιλήσω ιδιαιτέρως για
κάποια ζητήμα που με απασχολούν
Τον τελευταίο καιρό.
Μπορώ να μιλήσω ελεύθερα εδώ
Oui… εδώ…
Μήπως έχει τίποτε το μάτι μου
This is Moscow, my friend
Have you been in Moscow long?
Have you been here for
a long time?
A week
I've long waited for your
return, because...
Have you heard?
What should I have heard?
I don't know anything
Vera, are you using
the cleaning liquid?
Where were you before?
The Garden City
Why aren't you smiling?
You know, I am
a rather joyful person
I don't see it
- May I smoke?
- Go ahead
- Should I feel free here?
- As you like
- Do you feel free here?
- No
Then how can I feel free here?
A sign of freedom
Dau, take a seat
- Would you like a cigarette?
- No
Are we distrubing you?
Can you hear me out?
I would be very grateful.
Here's the situation
- They came...
- I can. Not here
- I came here to work
- Should I take the girls out?
"Despised Traitors
Sell Their Motherland"
For digestion
I drink only hot water
with lemon. Want some?
To aid digestion
Go on, I'll try it
From my cup
- Yes, I can try it
- From my cup
It's not poisoned
Dau
What happened?
Recently, in Kharkov there started
some sort of medieval process
They arrested every fourth person
Before, when it was spoken about,
I didn't believe it could happen
- Here
- Thank you
The main thing is that
I just fled the city
I still can't forget what happened
These people came...
"People" you know?
That's a compliment to them
- Which "people"?
- All these "people"…
I have a favour to ask
Listen, why all
straight away and
so directly?
Because... there's a plague
It's medieval,
there's a pestilence
Do you know they've already
arrested every fourth person?
They didn't touch me.
I don't know why
Perhaps they were frightened
off by the red jacket
There was a kind of
incomprehensible force...
So I wasn't... killed
It wasn't about the slap.
It was about the relationship
Now, they're locked up
Soon, they'll be no more
And this technology,
"the killing of angels"
They've developed it well
And it works
They didn’t get to me, I don't
know why. They could have
Do you read books?
Various books?
Cheerful books?
In general, what are
we doing here? If...
- Here?
- Here, in general
We're making a country
A big country
A real one
A country of steel
And to make a country of steel,
must an angel be killed?
To make a country,
you must go like this
To make a country,
you must go...
NKVD, it's a force of nature,
a volcano
Like this. Light up
Can you?
I can
But it is...
It's better to kill an angel
than take away its wings
Who's the angel?
It's better to kill him,
than take away his wings
- "These". Who are these "these"?
- Yes
- The angel?
- Yes
To kill an angel,
an archangel
To make a country,
you must go like this
- It's a medieval method...
- Do you go to the cinema?
No
What about girls?
Any girlfriends?
Do you frequent girls?
And how will the angel
live without his wings?
If we do go like this?
- Listen, Dau...
- Better to die then
Well…
If you were me,
what would you do?
If I were you,
I'd come and see me
- Where?
- Here. In Moscow
I would come from Kharkov
to see me, if I were you
- To me
- Yes?
But you must agree
that it would be...
For the train, I packed
everything in one suitcase
I left half of the books there,
I just took what I needed
You must agree that
what we did was important
It's a work of genius
We had a dream,
and our aim was to realise it
It's just that I'm...
Of course, I do have great
respect for what you're doing
- What am I doing? Nothing
- Well, the Institute...
- I'm only just beginning
- But I know what you're doing
I began as a builder
I built those three hands
And I built those hands too
How are things with Misha here,
how is he working?
Misha? He's always wearing green.
He's doing very well
Come here, Mikhail.
Cheer up
- Last night...
- Anatoly Alexandrovich
Bring us some cognac
Last night
Can you see out the window?
There's a blizzard
A blizzard
There's a blizzard outside
A blizzard in the apartment.
A blizzard in the bedroom
I got up several times
Then went back to bed
At dawn I had a dream
I was in the laboratory
I was in the laboratory along with
some colleagues,
some of them I knew
some of whom I really love,
and value their talent and genius
It was somehow strange
One of them goes up to a window,
a big window, opens it
And stands on the windowsill.
Then, another one
younger than him,
also goes up to the window
I just cannot
understand anything
There's the blizzard, the wind,
the snow is swirling around
The one standing on
the windowsill jumps out
The other one gets on the
windowsill. Jumps out
I keep watching. I see them
falling, both of them
But they don't land on snow
or on the ground
They fall into water
They plunge into
the water, feet first
It's warm, hot even, but
the water is the colour of lead
They sink further into the water
I can see them sinking down,
then swimming under the water
They're swimming under the water,
coming up to the surface
I see them swimming, approaching
a tunnel. The tunnel is narrow
but wide enough to swim through,
to go through, to dive through
and emerge on the other side
One of them swims through
the other hits his head
on the lip of the tunnel
I see him clutching his
head under the water
He's moaning, looking at me
Water
It's always a premonition
of sickness
When you dream
of water, cold water
When people are swimming
in the water, under the water…
Dau
What's the matter?
Put it down and leave
- And shut that door
- Alright
May I?
Who do you love?
They're all bastards
How can you love anyone
in a world like this?
And you, do you love?
In a world like this?
- I do love
- In a world like this?
In a world like this, yes,
there are some I love
Dau, who sent you to me?
Did you come yourself or
did somebody send you?
They wouldn not choose me.
Anyone but me
Who have you come from?
I'm neither "a guardian angel"
nor a "cunning tempter"
Oh no?
Who have you come from?
Can I lie down here,
at your place?
Here you cannot lie down
but you are allowed to write
In my office, people write.
Over there, they lie down
and a bit further along, they sit
down, they're put in prison
But in my office, they write
Through there, they calculate
And down there,
they lie down for good
Here's a fountain pen,
here's some paper. Sit down.
Write a job application
You know that I never write
Here. I only think
Fuck you.
Write a job application
Once, a man
spent a long time striking matches,
but they wouldn't light
Finally, he managed to light
the last match in the box
And said, "That was a good match,
I should have kept it"
- Who is your second?
- Come here, gather round
- We'll have a game of Gorodki
- We will
- Accompanied by poetry
- Very effective
- So, will I...
- Will you read?
- I'll read first, then you
- Alright
- "Instructions"
- I'll say it loudly after you
"Allocate"
"500 pounds of Chinese gunpowder"
"200 pounds of refined
potassium nitrate"
"And 700 pounds of
alchemical sulphur"
"for the production
of rocket fuel"
"With this fuel,
stuff up the ass"
- "of Comrade Beria"
- Yes, him too
"Of comrade Beria"
"And launch him into
eternal space"
"Glory to the Soviet Scientists"
Glory to the Soviet Scientists
The canon will fire from
up there, right?
Go ahead, friends
- You're my second
- Very well
Allow me to introduce to you...
I'll go for this one
Let's go
Right. "Allocate 500 pounds"
"of Chinese gunpowder."
Well done
- Misha
- Go get it, move quickly
Congratulations on your
wonderful result
I'm listening
"200 pounds of potassium nitrate"
There's been a deficit of
potassium nitrate so far
200 pounds of refined
potassium nitrate
We've just got "potassium nitrate",
but yes, let's refine it
- Bravo
- Well I never
That's some powerful potassium
Now, "700 pounds
of sulphur", Dau
I'm having no luck
- Another one
- Yes, go on
There you go… Nevertheless
- Dau. Come here
- "For the production of rocket fuel"
I have no luck
It's not a revolution.
It's not a coup d'etat
It's an invasion of some
people by some others
And everything submits
to the laws of this invasion
A state within a state
I have no luck, you see?
- We haven’t finished the reading
- Read it
We've already had "700 pounds
of alchemical sulphur"
"for the production
of rocket fuel"
"With this fuel"
"stuff up the ass"
I think you stuffed it up
- I'll stuff it up now
- Congratulations
Good boy
- Very difficult
- Hard, isn't it?
I should have razed it to the ground.
It's hard when something's left
We'll raze the whole
world to the ground
People are running about over there
Can I try this?
- Calmness, accuracy
- And precision
This is impossible, it's unbelievable.
It takes aggression
My essay...
...as a fourth-grade student
at School Number 53...
There, a good pyramid
...in the city of Tula
"Comrade Lenin little yearned
to lose sleep over Comrade Stalin"
"as Comrade Stalin cast a bust,
a steel bust of Comrade Lenin"
"Once Comrade Stalin cast his bust,
his steel bust of Comrade Lenin"
"he strapped a steel bra
across the steel bust he'd cast"
"And within the
unbreakable embrace"
"of the brassiere's
two hemispheres"
"he squeezed all the proletarian
achievements of Comrade Lenin"
"Thus Comrade Stalin
cast those mainstays"
"that we still use and praise
right to these days"
Why aren't you laughing?
It's not funny
Let's go
"Secrets of the Madrid Court"
There's the progress
of mankind, look
Right? Dwarves
And here...
What a transformation,
a metamorphosis, just look
Can I cross the line?
Here, our heads are scaled up
Or are only the demigods
allowed to cross it?
Here, we already look
like modern man
Here, dwarves again
What are you working on here?
I like this very much
You're such a romantic
Some kind of revolution within
a revolution, towards a revolution
- How do you cover your backs here?
- Dau
I've told you already,
there was no revolution
People just called it that
- Can revolution exist at all?
- Yes
Yes, it was an explosion,
a revolution, a coup d'etat
But essentially, at its core
It was an invasion
by a people called...
Of course, the new
establishment...
Let me finish. A people
called the “proletariat”
The invasion by this people,
called the “proletariat”
It was a barbarian invasion
Then the barbarians do what they
want with the other people
What they did with
the previous ones
And when you talk about
physicists, your friends...
There's a poet who says
What a pity the barbarians never came
and are nowhere to be found
Because barbarians would have
been a very good solution
A barbarian invasion is always
a good solution for civilization
A very good solution
If each person could kill a bit
of their inner authority figure
Not just so as to kill and become
a criminal, but so as to be free
Then they could bring about
a revolution, in a global sense
But while the ignorant masses
still can't remove that restriciton
which is within each person,
there can be no global revolution
These masses are
the body of the people
The body of the people
called "the proletariat"
What is "the people"?
"The people" is a phantom
It's what's behind that wall,
and behind that wall
I can't see it.
It doesn't exist
I strongly suspect that things
we can't see don't exist
Have you never thought that
we are given a stage set
on which to act out a play?
We talk about Shanghai, say.
We know the city exists
But have you been there?
I'm not sure Shanghai exists
It's non-existent, we always talk
about what "the people" want
But "the people" is a stream
of billions of people
Each with their own drum
Each beats out their own rhythm
of their own inner Motherland
How can we establish
a single rhythm
from millions of drums
all being beaten differently?
This is what rulers do. They say,
"This is the body of people"
They take that line and
use it to do what they do
That's how it is
I'm very disillusioned,
do you understand?
- Misha, give us a fur coat
- What coat?
Give us a fur coat for Dau
- He could do with a...
- Bring a fur coat for Dau
That one's funny-looking
The people's strike
- Almost
- Dau, go again
If I get a hit then I'm right
- You're right, but not entirely
- Third attempt
Now, it will happen
Nothing will happen
- Can I try?
- Yes, let Misha try
- Shall we try the Greek way?
- We'll be here till spring at this rate
This is the Greek style
Nothing will happen
- Hard, isn't it?
- Can I ask you something
If I now engage...
Will I just hit it?
Can I try that?
This is unbelievable,
I can't get it together
It takes aggression
- Will you allow me?
- Yes
Yes, hit it
What is this? What is it?
- Hit it
- This is becoming fatal
I just really want to raze
them to the ground now
these frustratingly
intricate structures
This is beyond belief
- I don't get what's going on
- Rhythmically. It's impossible
I'll take my revenge now
- Upon whom?
- This is a vicious circle
My hands aren't working, its cold
A creature that eats people
is called a man-eater, right?
A creature that eats people
is called a man-pleaser
Or a man-teaser
And what do you call
one that eats angels?
- Let's think something up
- A stewardess
Kharkov is full of stewardesses
You board a plane, and the
stewardess is eating angels
"Our flight from Kharkov to
Moscow is ready for take-off"
The K-7 airplane
So beautiful...
Come here
"Detestable Traitors
Sell Their Motherland"
"Wipe the Despicable Traitors from
the Face of the Soviet Land"
"The People's Holy Hatred"
"Be Vigilant"
"A Monstrous Crime"
"Sworn Enemies of the People"
"Shoot the Main Traitors"
Is this "the people"?
Or the leaders?
They use the word "people"
They're implying something else.
It's just a toy to them
And when those from whom
you fled interrogated you
- Yes
- Was that "the people"?
- There was one bastard
- One?
- No, one of the Chekists
- One of the Chekists?
If you didn't do what he told you,
he'd slap you in front of everyone
- And who was he?
- Who? A Chekist thug
Just a thug?
With no sense of justice?
Such people have no sense of
justice, who are the Chekists?
- People
- Are they? I highly doubt it
They're people, just like you,
with their own sense of justice
They have two legs,
two arms and...
- And a dick
- And a dick
But that doesn't make them people
It doesn't make them people
What is it then?
Just one person who's
the devil incarnate?
Or is it "the people" who are
protecting themselves?
With their own views
Their own idea of life,
their own rules?
Their own ethnicity
What does it mean to have
your own ethnicity?
Nothing. There is no
"ehtnicity", no "people"
- What is there then?
- It's all just banners for fools
It's all a kind of morphine
"The people" is the morphine
of the people
Just as Marx said that religion is
the opiate of the people
Here, "the people" is
the morphine of the people
They're all bastards
- And Stalin is the arch-moron
- I don't agree
- He's the arch-moron
- Listen, Dau
That's not how I see it
It wasn't a revolution brought
about by a few people
And it wasn't a coup d'etat
by a lot of people
It was an invasion which came
from within the whole of Russia
It has engulfed everything.
You included
It's not just one person,
not just one
But just one person rules.
Who is it that rules?
One person rules.
Fuck him. Let him rule
Dau, put the overcoat on,
you'll catch a cold
Only one person rules, right?
Yes, one person rules,
and a few others with him
- And that comrade's a moron?
- Yes
But who carries out the orders?
Behind him there's
- a whole pyramid of...
- Assholes
A whole fucking
pyramid of the people
They'll build this pyramid
for you now
The things we read
in the newspaper
Is that what we had
the revolution for?
Is it the result of our idea?
And what difference is there
- A whole fucking pyramid
- between morons and idiots?
Just read the language
of this newspaper
Read it carefully,
look at the language
And this man has the power
to rule over others
Listen, yesterday I
came up with a good joke
- Let's recite it together
- Alright
What is scarier than helium?
The superfluidity of Beria
Beria's also a very good man,
very good, outstanding
- Let's say it together
- Alright
What is stronger than helium?
The superfluidity of Beria
"What is stronger than helium?"
"The superfluidity of Beria"
What is stronger than Beria?
The superfluidity of "Peria"
What is stronger than "Peria"?
The superfluidity of "Meria"
What is stronger than "Meria"?
- What is stronger than "Meria"?
- Let's go over there
The superfluidity of "Peria"
You see, this is all...
How can I put it?
How can I put it well?
It's all...
Everything that's built here
Was built... How can I put it?
It's...
You will be...
You know what?
You will be here
I was told this joke
In Leningrad, there was
a head of an institute who died
And people gathered
around his coffin
for the solemn funeral service
Two people were standing right
at the head of the coffin
One was a senior NKVD official
The other was a scientist.
They were standing by the coffin
And the official points at the
the dead body and says
"You'll take his place"
So, you'll take my place here
What is stronger than Nietzsche?
The beard of Krupitzsche
You know what they're doing?
They're just playing Gorodki
Like we do now
But they're shooting the
people over there
Imagine if we started
fighting back now...
- What are all these hands?
- Dau. There are 12 hands
In the experimental lab.
12 hands
- And over here?
- 3 hands
- It's the hand of a volcano
- It's slippery
It's very, very slippery here
Are these your scientists here?
It's slippery
Hi
Hello
NKVD
It's slippery
Dau
Are those my brains up there?
- The brains of scientists
- Of failed scientists?
- And what's this?
- It's a vagina. The 15th vagina
It belongs to me
The biggest one.
It's my office. That's it
There is no more slipperiness.
The road. A blizzard. Moscow
- And what is that?
- All of this slipperiness
it was me who built it
Yes
Hello, comrades
These street lights
are the Fatherland
That's the Fatherland,
over on the right
- On the left too?
- That's the Fatherland too
Dau, this is the sky
of the Fatherland
I was waiting for you,
yesterday
Where have you been?
Dau
Where have you been?
Dau, I waited for you for a year
Where have you been?
I sold you
For how much?
I just sold you
For nothing?
What's the difference?
I have a guilty conscience
You know that you'll end up in
a military tribunal, in a sanatorium?
I can't go on.
It's a world of shadows.
You took me in to the Institute,
got me out of prison
- You've done so much for me
- I didn't do anything
That didn't happen
I didn't get you out or take you in
I've acted like the
lowest of the low
I was dying, just like
all animals die
I didn't know I was an animal
But when you're dying like one
you realize you're similar
I sold you, I gave
evidence against you
Listen, Dau
I'm a museum piece
I can't be sold
- You didn't sell me
- I did
No, you sold yourself
I'm a museum piece
I'm a loyalist
- First, I'd like to repent...
- Please don't
I can't live like this,
don't you understand?
Don't live then
It's already too late
I waited for you for a year.
What were you doing?
- I was there
- There? Where?
It's somehow better here
I was there,
where people suffer
Do you like the park?
The park where we've met
I don't like anything now
Yes. I suffered
And I sold my friends
- In order to live
- How sentimental
Yes, very much so
This snivelling is no good at all
It's no good for a man to snivel
Yes, it's true. That's correct.
I understand it all
Look at me
It's no good at all
Although
A sanatorium
is no holiday resort
Neither you or I need it
I am not doing it for your sake
I know you're a noble person
and perhaps you don't need this
Some kind of horrible, bestial
self-preservation is triggered
- No, this isn't self-preservation
- And you're prepared
just in order to save your body...
- I sold you, do you understand?
- No, it's...
- This is simply qualitative...
- I gave evidence against you
I slandered you
Do you know what it's like?
You don't know
But I know now
It's a certain moment
when you turn into...
- Shut up. It didn't happen. Enough
- It did happen. It did
Listen to me for five minutes,
I just can't go on like this
And what if I won't accept
your repentance?
What if...
I don't need your repentance.
I don't need it. I don't
I don't need repentance.
What else do you want?
Fuck you
Do you understand?
- I can't work
- Don't work
But then who's going
to do physics?
- I consider myself unworthy
- NKVD officers don't do physics
- Well, that's clear
- Yes, they don't
- They do atrocious things
- I don't believe we're animals
I believe we can become animals.
But we are not animals
This plain can be perceived
as a place where you
either ascend or descend
We are now like shadows,
we're not parallel to the Earth
We are not vertical.
We're something in the middle
This is no good, it's all idle chat.
Leave it. You're not a damsel in distress
Remember what you said to me?
That power is a volcano
A volcano
If you light my cigarette
I'll forgive you
Let's go
That’s it
A volcano
Hey, young lady,
what's your name?
She can't hear. Young lady,
what's your name?
Here no one hears you,
that's why I chose this place
Young lady. What's your name?
Here no one hears you,
that's why I chose this place
Young man.
What's your name?
He can't hear
That's the Motherland for you
What's your name?
- He can't hear
- No one can hear you here
Let's go. Enough.
Come on
- They just go up and down
- Let's go, enough
Up and down
Can't you see that
no one can hear you here?
- Nobody
- Let's go, Dau, let's go
Nobody can hear you
Let's go
They're saying farewell
What are we going to do now?
I'll tell you
You know what?
Once, a pupil of mine
came to me
He was my favourite pupil
And he...
He wasn't one of us
He was a stranger,
not one of us
I called him to the window.
Just like you. Come here
- And I told him...
- You asked for lemons...
- Do you want tea?
- No, I don't
I told him: "Do you see
those people walking?"
He said, "Yes. I see them.
There they are, walking"
"They'll be walking there
for as long as I live"
"Always. Under my windows.
Back and forth"
"Do you want this for yourself?"
"Are you prepared
to have this every day?"
"For the cars to be there,
to come and go"
"And for the people to be there,
walking back and forth. Forever"
"If you want that - stay here"
He said: "I don't want that"
It was right here, in this office.
I really loved that pupil
And I said to him: "Go away"
He left. He became
a famous scientist
But it didn't happen here
That's clear
Did you hear something
about him since?
He...
- Have you seen him since?
- No, I haven't
Can I ask you something?
There is no...
What do you call it?
You can't dial. You can only
talk to God on this phone
You pick up and God answers?
There's no dial?
Shall I connect you?
- Inquire if he's taking calls
- Go on, try again
Hello? Is that Saint Peter?
- I was very upset today
- Why?
You remember that expression -
"a state within a state"?
It's not right
In my youth I was very
anxious when I was with women
I was somehow
afraid to touch them
I had no... I never...
I never took a woman
for what she really was
It was always through
some kind of semblance
I never saw her
the way she really was
and what I did see
was unreachable for me
Inaccessible
But that was because you've
seen yourself in those women.
That's my problem too.
I always see myself in women
Well, myself, but...
I project everything
I imagine onto her
And I try to make her equal
to what I want to see
To be equal to that image
I have created
That's a mistake. Or not?
What do you think?
What I think is that...
A woman wants to be seen
as someone she really is
She passionately desires that
She even wants to be seen
worse than she really is
And when you learn to see
her worse than she really is
she starts to unfold in your
hands, and she even likes it
She takes delight
from this treatment
And when I was young,
I didn't know that
Then when I found it out,
I was no longer young
I wasted my youth in vain
I let it pass me by
I had a strange
dream last night
I dreamt that...
twenty years ago
I was somewhere
I was waiting, stalking
the girl I used to love back then
We had a relationship,
but then we broke up
It was something like that
I walked about the streets,
in and out of cafes, stalking her
Hoping that she would
just notice me somewhere
and by chance we'd
meet again and talk
And in the dream
I was as young
as I was back then
but the time since
our last meeting
was of 20 years, as in real life
And something creepy
happened in this dream
My late grandmother came
to the cafe where I stayed
and together with her came
my mother and my brother
They said to me
"Dear, you have suffered
so long because of her"
"Let us have a word with her"
I tell them: "Absolutely not,
that would be terrible"
"It's illegal - I'm stalking her"
But they approached her
and started saying to her
"Why do you hurt our boy? Why
wouldn't you even look at him?"
She said: "But who is your boy?"
She has completely forgotten
"I am his late grandmother"
"Don't you remember me?
You even came to our place once"
And at that moment,
I was terrified
and I felt shame
And immeditately I opened
my eyes and woke up
There's a poem that says
that girls and women
are like broken vinyl records
And there's nothing wrong with it
The problem is that they
always play faulty tunes
You know what? I'm
going to say something
Something that's not correct
The power
shouldn't necessarily be tolerated
Perhaps we shouldn't
tolerate it at all
If it's really the power
we must love it
I disagree
But with that very particular
love, which is hatred
Now, I agree
It's a kind of yearning
for hatred, you mean
If it's...
If you just respect the power
It knows that you only
respect it, and nothing more
That you're only tolerating it.
You have to love it
while others don't love it,
they just respect or tolerate it
You have to nurture within yourself
this repulsive ability
to love that power
Absolutely brilliant!
You know, they say love
is a destructive feeling
Maybe we should love that
power in order to destroy it
But if you don't love it,
there is nothing to destroy
True
If you don't love a woman,
how can you destroy her?
- You're indifferent to her
- Exactly
If you just tolerate her
your tolerance humiliates her
Of course
Humiliates her in a bad sense,
not a good one
Let's drink to that
And this is...
Our colleagues would
see it as a betrayal
to feel such an unexpected,
criminal love for that power
Our colleagues would
see it as a betrayal
However, the power would
have it's own suspicions
but it wouldn't be able to see
any cracks - there is just love
The most...
I think that the most
courageous act a person can do
and I can't see anything
more courageous than this
I've never seen anything
more courageous than this
and it's also something
entirely illegal and incorrect...
It's to penetrate into the very
heart of that power
with one single aim
Terrorism
- I agree
- But that's the hardest path
To blow it all up
right from its very heart
But how to get into
the heart of that power?
That's why I have
always travelled
not along the body's periphery,
but straight into its heart
And the corresponding
blows have been dealt
Blows that correspond to
what I have wanted in life
To defend "a different logic"
Plato, who did he write
"The Republic" for?
Did Plato live in the same
world as we do?
Because, if you
read "The Republic"...
What happened to us, here?
Why have people
become such idiots?
Why do we have to
drag it all along?
Lagging 300 years
behind everyone else
He wrote “The Republic"
and it's some kind
of manifesto
It's a manifesto that suggested
a gentle way of approaching the
social religions of its time
But what happened to us, here?
What approach could work
with the idiots everywhere now?
What do you think?
I really hate that power
I think about Plato...
Funny little toy
Listen, look.
We'll do this now
Perhaps it's that history
takes a turn backwards?
- We'll do this now
- What has actually happened to us?
Go on, set it off
It makes good music
- It's pierced me
- It got a vein, I hope?
- It's a ballerina, isn't it?
- A ballerina
And here.
We took it over here
"A little architect of
one's own happiness"
Does it resemble you and me?
The legs are longer than ours
"The Republic"
Why are you not
at all cold? I'm freezing
You're a southerner,
why you are not cold?
- You've got good cognac
- "The Republic"
But you're not drinking
You know what? We
need a little bit more...
How do creative ideas come to you?
Do you note how and when they come?
- In dreams
- In dreams?
Mine come at the washbasin
when I'm brushing my teeth
While I was waiting
for you I wrote this
"The Creator decided to create power,
and He created co-power instead"
- Shall I write something for you?
- Go on then
It's an ancient
inscription which says
"All toys have the right
to break down"
"Tα πάντα ρει."
Everything changes. It's Heraclitus
There's the ashtray
Socrates was
an ironic philosopher
A very mocking,
joking philosopher
He asserted things through negation
His path
was the path of mockingly
asserting things
and enjoying negation
He took pleasure in negation
He took particular pleasure
in negation and mockery
And in order to get to...
The truth is always hiding
And, in order for the truth
to reveal itself, somehow
We have to create quite
a bit of distance from it
- And hide
- Yes
Yes, we have to keep,
to keep going away from it
It's a constant
game of negation
Those who unite with one another...
Those who unite together in order
to proceed forward coordinately
they establish a state
They can't not establish a state
The state is a kind of violence
It's some absolute violence
of the few over the many
Of the strong over
the subjugated. That's clear
And then that state
assumes its proper place
It gradually gains in stability
in order to transform
that stability into motion
And then it destroys
its own stability...
These thoughts are rubbish,
I know they are, but...
I can't imagine a society,
I can't imagine any society at all
without the power of the state
It would crumble. It would
destroy itself and collapse
I understand that an individual
will never agree
with the use of force
Neither you, nor I,
nor anyone else
- Will never agree to violence
- Will never agree, ever
But they'll agree with
the coordinated efforts
Can I read something to you?
And tell you about my ideas?
"The Stone Guest"
by Pushkin. "Leporello"
"O statua gentilissima.
Del gran' Commendatore"
Four dots. "Ah, Padrone.
Don Giovanni"
"Scene 1. Don Juan and Leporello"
This is what I find interesting
- Don Juan: "Let us wait for the night here"
- "Let us await the night here"
"Await the night here.
Ah, at last"
"We've reached the gates of Madrid,
soon I'll tread familiar streets"
"My moustache hidden by my cloak,
my eyebrows by my hat"
“My moustache hidden by my coat,
my eyebrows by my hat"
"You think they won't recognise me?"
Separate line
"You shall hate me then"
Listen, Dau, this character
of the Commendatore
Who does he represent?
Whose representative is he?
- The church? Religion? The state?
- The patriarchy
The patriarchy
Is he a father?
Or a private individual?
Or is it that there's an idea
that's focused within him?
- It's a whole range of things
- It's an idea of what?
Take Donna Anna
Does she love the Commendatore?
As a father? Or not?
- She cries because she loves him
- Is she pretending?
- Who the hell knows?
- You have to answer that
- If you're reading it out
- It's a declaration of love
for the man who killed her ideal,
who killed her father
There's a dual reality to it
That's why I'm asking
- No murder, no love
- No drama
There's no drama
So first, a love object
has to be killed?
- Yes
- An object of love and devotion
Of loyalty and worship
- A totem
- Yes
- Yes
- A god must be killed
In order to...
In order to start
loving another god
The drama starts
only when he is killed
That's true, isn't it?
- So the Commendatore is killed...
- Just a second
"It doesn't matter if I'm recognised"
For our beloved drama
because without the Commendatore
there would be no drama
Without the murder
We move into a different logic.
He shakes the statue's hand
He even invites
the statue for dinner
That would be impossible.
The dramatic development...
Right, it's impossible.
But who is this Commendatore?
Is he a private individual?
A father?
A representative of patriarchy,
as you said? A patriarch
Or some kind of archaic figure?
- Who is he?
- He's all of that
He's an archetype
The Commendatore's murder is just
a prologue to a long story
To a big story about
copulation with sin
It's not even a prologue.
It's the first act
The prologue is when
Leporello wants to...
It's the first act
In the big story...
What is it that really drives
people on this earth?
Sin or Good?
Good
But if there is no
resistance to sins...
Yes, how can we be
driven by Good?
Day can't be driven by day,
if there is no night?
That's clear. But here's
a tricky question for you
Why did Adam and Eve fall?
- Why did they fall?
- Yes
- I can't answer this question
- I'll answer you
If it hadn't happened
then neither you nor I would
have come to know the world
- On the one hand, yes
- Never
Because the only thing the Creator
forbade the people he created
was knowledge
- Knowledge of what?
- Of good and evil
- He forbade them that knowledge
- That's what I wanted to hear
- The knowledge of good and evil
- Good and evil, yes
So good and evil already
existed at that time?
You and I are being fucked
around by present-day religions
When they talk about the
Fall of Adam and Eve
as an act of copulation
No, they ate from
the Tree of Knowledge
Yes, the Tree of Knowledge
of Good and Evil
The act of copulation symbolises
the act of knowing good and evil
The whole of human history
started from that moment
If that act hadn't happened,
none of us would have existed, ever
- I have a different...
- It was the blessed...
How can I put it? It was the blessed
providence of the Creator
who had planted that tree
for the sake of tempting
those primeal humans he'd created
You know, I see it as...
- That's how I see it
- It's a field of contact
People could have continued to exist
in amorphous harmony
- With lizards?
- Knowing only that they know nothing
In ignorance
How can I put it? Through
an endless search for knowledge
Through the path of investigation.
That's what I find interesting
Because not knowing is wonderful
But only if it's an effect
of your own labour
Not knowing just
because you don't know
That's no good
So let's say, there's a monk who
believes and doesn't investigate
and someone else who might investigate
through living in this insane asylum
In order for him to
both know, and not know
Faith opens the gates
to the Tree of Life
But not to the Tree of
Knowledge of Good and Evil
In Eden, in Paradise,
two trees were planted
The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil
and the Tree of Life
Jesus became the Tree of Life
When we partake of Jesus's
flesh and blood, we believe
And through this faith we live
without this act of knowing
good and evil
And we don't need
to come to that knowledge
Faith in itself gives us
that knowledge
But it was necessary to
travel a long way
along the path of
knowing good and evil
for God to sacrifice his son
This sacrifice that
God made of his son
will continue on and on and on
And will not end, ever
He will always be sacrificed
He wasn't just sacrificed once,
he will always be sacrificed
This path toward the
knowledge of good and evil
will eventually
as a path that tends to a limit
as a path that eternally
tends to its limit
will eternally bring us
closer to this knowledge
of God as He is
At the moment humanity was
banished from Paradise
It didn't yet know that the door
was opened and then closed forever
But the Creator lent us this idea
for many thousands of years
Have you ever thought
about blowing up the Institute?
You've built a state
within a state
You hired me, and lots of others
And it all seems to have
come together, doesn't it?
But has it ever crossed your
mind to just blow it all up?
No. That's wrong
That is wrong
Others will blow it up
Donna Anna comes
to know good and evil
through her passion
for Don Juan
Until then she doesn't know it
Absolutely
She comes to know good
and evil in the flesh
along with Don Juan's body
And through his body,
she comes to know the Spirit
Absolutely
I think that if...
The purpose of life.
How can you...
How can you grasp
that idea of what the
purpose of life is?
It's creation
People have been given
the gift of creativity
But not everyone
uses that gift
Any creativity is wonderful
But not all of it is useful
You like creativity that's useless
The beautiful creativity
And I insist on useful creativity
The person who rejects creative
power and creativity
and the reproduction
of oneself
through the act of creation
that person rejects life itself
in all its existence,
they just reject it
Perhaps it's somehow...
I don't know if that's right
No, I know. It is right.
For me it's right
Perhaps it's right for others
too, right for everyone
Anyone who is not creative
is not beautiful, is not useful
I'm very excited by unfinished work
Theories that were left
unfinished on purpose
When the author was
ready to accomplish it
when he was just about to cross
the threshold of perfection
but he stopped there and
said: "I won't go further"
And left his puzzle for others to
solve. For those who could never
even catch up with
him on that level
On the one hand,
that's creativity
On the other, it's...
How can I put it?
The excitement of leaving
your life incomplete
You know, the Supreme Reason...
Imagine He is doing the job
of a traffic policeman
If He sees that
a car's going straight
and at a good speed
then He knocks
that car off its course
He knocks it off its course so that
it crashes... with its passenger inside
To leave the route unaccomplished
And the creativity, incomplete
So that it can have
subsequent incarnations
in the real lives
of other people
It's not that we do not
reach completion
it's that completion
is not granted to us
But in our case, more specifically
Suppose that all the theories
we're coming up with now
have to be implemented in some
kind of social reality tomorrow
From the point of view of
creativity, these theories
are undoubtedly fundamental
for the progress of humanity
But what if they are
put into practice?
If they are implemented in society?
- Will it be useful or not?
- Creativity which is inspired in society?
Yes, if our creativity
is inspired in society?
That's not useful
because if the whole society becomes
creative, it becomes restless
And a state with a restless
society will fall apart, blow up
and it won't survive
for very long
The aim of any state
is to strike at and
paralyse any creativity
It selects rulers who
have good enough minds
to govern those who
are under its control
and to paralyze their creativity
in every way possible
Creativity...
And that's when you get
certain loners who...
And in creativity, injections of
resistance are very important
When they meet
resistance, they might...
This is a terrifying
category for a state
Any state would attempt to paralyse
the creativity of the individual
Otherwise, it would never survive
Freedom is very
difficult for all of us
Fighting for freedom
is easier than having it
Freedom is immeasurable
Once there was a monk
who was asked...
"Tell me, are you fighting
with the Devil?"
The monk laughed and said
"In my youth, I fought with the Devil,
now I'm old and I fight with God"
Brilliantly said
"I'm fighting with God"
I don't have a...
I've never seen...
I've never considered
the configuration of power
according to the class attributes
- Or according to the class principle
- Yes, I agree
People aren't organised by class principles
Class isn't what
unites and directs them
But...
Look attentively: how people
are usually grouped together
They become very similar when
they're grouped together
Very similar
Not only because they form
one another to be similar
but initially they group
together on the basis of a principle
which is stronger
than a class basis
It does seem that they are
on the territory of class, but
there's a much stronger basis to it
Why do we always treat people
as some kind of objects
of the material world?
Why wouldn't we allow for the people
the same principles we allow for physics?
Because they make us suffer
It's our revenge
They make us suffer
The objects of the world
are making us suffer...
What is the affinity
between the decisions
of Don Juan and Faust?
Do they know each other?
Don Juan and Faust
What's going on between them?
In what do they differ?
What is opposite to both of them?
I won't answer that
Because... I won't give
you any answer at all
Because I haven't
reached Faust's age
But I do know the answer...
There's a passionate
yearning for youth
An unfulfilled, impossible,
unrealisable dream
It's essentially impossible
And the germ of that dream
gives life to this tragedy
And youth...
Youth will not...
Youth will never understand Faust,
it's just not possible
I refuse to answer because...
It's dangerous
Once...
Once I was asked...
"What is the sence of life?"
Running away.
That's what life is about
Running away, going forward
and never stopping
Always being on the move
Always, always, always
being on the move
- That's life
- Like the Earth
And then suddenly you stop
Changeability, that's what life is
There's nothing permanent
Odysseus. That's what life is
Sometimes death comes
at an appointed time
Sometimes it comes
when you're not expecting it
The unexpected death
that might come
I'm very afraid of it
But I'm open to death which comes at
its appointed time. That's how life goes
Maybe it's a way of going
out into a different form
I believe that when people die,
some other form exists for them
into which they transform.
But when death comes suddenly...
I don't really know...
I agree with the ancient Greeks
They strongly objected
to it on moral grounds
It's terrifying
to die unprepared
To die suddenly,
by accident, unexpectedly
It's very wrong
But, on the other hand, he who
goes to war is always prepared
He goes to war and
knows that he's prepared
It could happen. So in that
sense, he is prepared
Do you think they'll carry us out
of here? Out of this country?
- On cushions?
- I don't know
How will they carry us out?
On stretchers, on cushions?
- On feet?
- On wings?
- No
- Will angels carry us out?
- Angels with fists?
- Arm in arm?
How will they carry us out?
Or will it be unexpected, sudden?
Leaving our personal
story unfinished
staying within a universal story
where everything happens
suddenly and unexpectedly
and you never...
I have an injury,
a crack inside me
If we face up to the truth,
everything that we do
isn't needed by those out there
If we're to talk in terms of science
Today, right now, perhaps they
really don't need any of it
- Perhaps they need...
- It's all the same
Are we just wrapped up
in what we're doing?
Does it matter whether
they need it or not?
Why did they have to eat the fruit
of the Tree of Knowledge?
Why do people always eat that fruit
and search for that tree?
Why do they devote their entire
lives to trying to find that tree?
That's all there is. Does it really
matter what's out there?
It's all for the sake of movement
Movement. There's no other
way to have movement
If there's not something
that's rejected...
That's our lesson
When times are hard
of course we question it -
why did they have to eat the fruit
But when you reach a level of
knowledge and understanding
then we can see: this fruit is sweet
Sometimes it's bitter
but more often it's sweet
Who do you think I am,
Don Juan or Faust?
- You?
- Yes
- Be honest
- Are you fishing for compliments?
Are you fishing for compliments?
What do you want me to say?
The truth
You're a physicist, Dau
Neither Don Juan, nor Faust
- You are a theorist
- And who are you?
I'm a practitioner, Dau
I'm a builder, you're a dreamer
- Here, take this
- I've got one here
It's very interesting
that the first words of
the Book of Genesis are
"And God said,
'Let us create the world'”
"Let us create." Not, “I will create",
but, "We will create"
What's your position concerning
Moscow? Do you think it's a good city?
Do you like it?
- Moscow?
- No. The fireworks
It's very dangerous to set off
fireworks in this institute
Is Moscow a good city?
No
Because Moscow isn't
an ancient city
And just like any city
that isn't ancient
Moscow cannot be a good city
Perhaps it will be in the future?
- In the future antiquity?
- Of course
In some distant future
it will be ancient
Or do you mean an
"ancient city" in some other sense?
Moscow. "Moscow..."
"What depths of fascination
live in that name"
"What echoes start,
and sound in every Russian heart!"
It's all Peter the Great's fault
- What's your name?
- Victor
And what are you doing?
Wiping the windows.
Living life
While you're cleaning the windows,
we're doing nothing
Everything can be done
while doing nothing
Perhaps it would be best
for us not to see out?
- Why?
- Why do we need it?
Wipe it off and
you look into another world
With a different life out there.
Different problems, different people
It's all exactly the same
- You can feel like God
- Victor. Is that your name?
- "Victor" means "Conqueror"
- Perhaps
- Mr. Victor, stop wiping the window
- But I'm not fighting anyone
- Victors don't wipe windows
- Why?
Because out there
it's the same as in here
No, everything is
different everywhere
It only seems to be the same
It all depends on your attitude
Do you know what
this building is called?
What all of this is called?
The Institute
Of Gynaecology?
- No, Victor?
- It could well be
Why not the Institute of Physics?
Names don't change anything
"Yesterday, in Moscow, publishing houses
started to distribute to their subscribers"
"the 14th volume
of the Collected Works"
"of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin"
That's good news
And do you know my name?
Not yet
And who built all this?
People
Yes, people built this
People, who tomorrow will start
reading the 14th Volume
of the Collected Works of Lenin
Those who find it
interesting will read it
Everyone will read it
Not everyone will