It would seem, what to do peace in the cinema? This is a “perfect storm”, not a calm: there should be tension in it, not relaxation. But there are films that lift the veil on the secret of inner peace.
“ARRHYTHMIA”
Oleg (Alexander Yatsenko) lives in a rented apartment in some suburban hut, he drinks, his wife is unhappy with him, he did not live up to expectations as the best student on the course, he fruitlessly defends high principles before his superiors. You can’t fix him, you can’t fix his life… Because she is absolutely happy. He is an emergency doctor. He does not have a career, but a mission. He loves his outlying life, silly patients and his wife Katya. And what seemed to be a dead end, in fact, is the purpose of the journey – the habitable space of love and understanding.
Boris Khlebnikov, 2017.
THE BIG LEBOWSKI
He calls himself The Dude (Jeff Bridges). Everyone around is hungry for something, and only he, with his plastic sandals and a lush overgrowth of the once “flower children” on his no longer violent head, is exactly what he seems to be, a samurai of equanimity with his own bushido. Which says: if you soak up life like a White Russian cocktail, then it turns out that the world is not so scary and not at all aggressive.
Joel and Ethan Cohen, 1998.
“GREAT SILENCE”
The documentary is 2 hours 49 minutes long. There are almost no words in it, only the ringing of bells, the noises of nature and human life. “Silence” was filmed in a Carthusian monastery in the French Alps and plunges into the life of a monastic order, whose members keep a vow of silence. The director seems to be reporting from silence, from an existence devoid of fuss and illuminated by the awareness of the destination.
Philip Greening, 2005
“WILD”
Cheryl (Reese Witherspoon) feels like a partner in crime as she watched her mother die. Life stopped for her. The woman separates from her husband, packs her backpack, and sets off through forests, valleys, and the Rocky Mountains. Cheryl walks 2 miles, bleeds her feet and drinks from a swamp to find comfort in her ordeal. It turns out that this is possible.
Jean-Marc Vallee, 2014.
“CALL ME BY YOUR NAME”
Elio (Timothee Chalamet) 17, son of a historian, musical, good-looking. He is overtaken by confusion from the first big feeling. And it so happened that his subject was his father’s assistant, a young American. Feelings are mutual, but parting is inevitable. And only father’s words will help the young man to survive it as a drama, and not as a tragedy.
Port of Guadanino, 2017