[CRITICAL] YOU AND ME (1971)

History : Piotr, a doctor disillusioned, leaves for Siberia, leaving behind him his friend Sacha… The confrontation of two men to the fates opposed in the only color film of Chepitko.

I was talking about The Ascension, of cinematographic language, two-speed, of sensor. There is a little bit of that in this YOU AND I, made six years earlier. There really is this feeling of being totally lost, from the very first minutes. To hear a “noise” hypnotic to which we do not understand anything. Not within the scenes themselves, very understandable, but, rather, through the narrative choices, the more blurred. It me and took a good half-hour to understand what it was, to simply reconstruct the timeline of the film, the purpose of these scenes.

It may be that, the famous ” sensitivity “Russian” as I try desperately to understand : let all pragmatism aside to surrender to a certain sensory feeling. Anyway, YOU AND ME, I was immersed by this device, whether voluntary or not, of organization is labyrinthine. Fortunately, because otherwise I would have probably been insensitive.

Because YOU AND ME, far from being complex, is a simple tale of opposites scalable inside of a love triangle. Well, Piotr is the one who dreams of escape, and Sacha, the one who dares nothing. In parallel montage, the opening and closing. Dialogue and discovery of the other to Piotr, introspection to Ash. The industrial decor ( horrible and wonderful ) of a mine, port, the city and its buildings partitioned to the other. Between the two, Katia. Abandoned by the one will to the other ; allowing everyone to move forward, by its absence and its presence. At the heart of the film, there is a tipping point, or the conversations, encounters and discoveries, come finally to touch the two men, each in a manner extreme enough. The staging of Larissa Chepitko still finds a way to put two languages film very distinct, which went on to win our membership.

“Once seen this famous ‘sensitivity Russian’, the film fascinates by its consistent quality.”

In the end, despite a premise that is quite common, Larissa Chepitko offers a film, probably, that mark discreetly the imagination.

Even if at the beginning you can not necessarily connect them, YOU AND ME is full of intense moments and magic. This is the intro, a hockey game, a dialog in a coffee alternating close-ups and distance, a scene of seduction that turns to the manipulation, a helicopter flight, a healing chance, an improvised show (my favorite scene of the film), a hug in a kitchen… All these scenes mark, hypnotize and fascinate. There was no imbalance of rhythm or emotional, in spite of the antagonism inherent to the subject of the film. It is strong. And then, technically, nothing to say ; YOU AND ME, beyond the realization very own, manages at times to distill a mood, both in the urban as “rural”. The actors (outside of the “girl in the eyes” which gives a bit too much in expressionism) are close to breathtaking. Moreover, there is a very nice sensitivity behind each dialogue. And then there’s this I don’t know what that is not explained, but which gives a singular charm to the film, and most importantly, a soul.

YOU AND ME has been reviewed in the context of a retrospective Larissa Chepitko proposed by the festival of Light 2015.