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| Images courtesy of Mosfilm |
Ukrainian born Soviet actor-director-screenwriter and 1990
People’s Artist of the USSR Rolan Bykov has been active on the stage theater
and film scene since the 1950s.
Appearing in everything from Andrei Rublev to The Twelve Chairs
as well as a frequent comedy and/or children’s film director, Bykov’s work was
often characterized as that of a jovial funny man who possessed a unique skill working
with child actors. Bykov was set to be a
sort of successor to such Soviet comedy directors as Leonid Gaidai or Vladimir
Menshov as well as becoming Russia’s family friendly filmmaker. His works were upbeat and life affirming representations
of Russian youth with a hopeful outlook on the future which sent viewers home
generally feeling happy and refreshed.
But in 1983, with an adaptation of novelist Vladimir
Zheleznikov’s novel of the same name Scarecrow which was loosely based
on schoolyard bullying experienced by the author’s niece and the director’s son,
all of that came to a shocking screeching halt.
After years of delighting audiences and in particular younger viewers, it
is as though Bykov angrily began turning the tables in his temple of children’s
movies, asking that same target audience to stop and think about the gravity
their actions might have on the lives of others through action or inaction. Though ordinarily kidding around, Bykov gets
serious here and delivers one of the most scathing, emotionally devastating
films about harassment and bullying not directed by Larry Clark or Todd
Solondz.
In a provincial school in Russia, we meet new preteen grade
schooler Lena Bessoltsva (Kristina Orbakaite) who is being harassed by a posse
of classroom bullies and retreats to her home under the careful love and
concern of her devoted yet scruffy neighborhood’s laughing-stock painter grandfather
Nikolay (Yuri Nikulin in his final screen role). Deeply upset by his granddaughter’s state,
Nikolay asks her to explain what happened and through a series of flashbacks we
come to find out on her first day in class she earned the moniker of Scarecrow
after taking a fall on her way to her desk.
Unbeknownst to Lena until time and tide passes on, from day one the
class has its cruel daggers out for her.
While eagerly trying to mingle with the classroom clique spearheaded
by young girl Shmakova (Anna Tolmacheva) and cozying up to quiet boy Dima
(Dmitry Egorov), the class skips school for a trip to the cinema, a detail
which is later revealed by Dima to their teacher Magarita (Elena Sanaeva). After the class is formally deprived of a
field trip to Moscow during the autumn holidays, the cult student body led by Shmakova
starts calling for a boycott of the culprit including but not limited to
ceasing all communication with the person who fessed up.
But before Dima can work up the courage to admit to it, Lena
intervenes claiming she was the one who spilled the beans, prompting a brutal
backlash from her classmates who mock her and even physically assault her at
every opportunity. Later still, the kids
try breaking into her home with a boar mask and at one point even steal her
dress and ritualistically burn it at the stake, somehow or another playing out
under the adult populace’s noses. All of
this hostility and violence starts to take a toll not only on Lena but her
grandfather as well who, along with Lena, are secretly cooking up a plan for
sweet revenge, leading up to a devastating grand revelation neither we nor they
see coming for miles.
Ostensibly a socially conscious horror movie about the
depths to which undisciplined unaccompanied minors in a school setting can sink
in their self-serving cruelty towards perceived threats to their preteen
hierarchies and social cliques, Scarecrow despite the director’s history
with family filmmaking is intended for adults.
For being predominantly populated by children, between Bykov’s longtime
cinematographer Anatoly Mikasei’s Sovscope 35mm widescreen images largely
filmed in claustrophobic closeups and female composer Sofia Gubaidulina’s
frankly starkly terrifying atonal orchestral score Scarecrow is a most
distressing watch to sit through. Most
of the horror is conveyed by Lena’s grandfather played brilliantly against type
by The Diamond Arm screen legend Yuri Nikulin. In other words, his appalled reactions to
Lena’s ordeal becomes our horror and soon after our rage.
Let it be said Bykov’s command of his ensemble child acted
cast of characters is powerful and stunning, perhaps the Russian filmmaking
equivalent of Francois Truffaut or Steven Spielberg. So good with conveying complex, even young
adult, emotions and expressions from the young actors we truly feel thrust into
a believable clique of mean kids who thrive on dancing on the backs of others. Most stunningly of all is Kristina Orbakaite
as the poor tormented girl Lena who, for a child actress, is tasked with
conveying emotions most adult actresses would be afraid to touch. With a lot of screaming, crying and
heartbreak, her unprovoked pain and suffering comes through raw and clear to
her grandfather and therefore us.
Released in 1984, the film came as a shock to Soviet
filmgoers who had never seen such evil and antagonism in the Russian schoolchildren
before and naturally it was met with controversy. A hot button topic in the mainstream media, some
even contended Bykov’s work should be censored or destroyed outright as it
contributed to “dishonoring the Soviet children” while others praised the
director for having the courage to put a spotlight on an important subject
concerning, frankly, all youths in the world entire. A couple of years after being released, the
film won the USSR State Prize as well as the top prize at the Lyon International
Film Festival.
Seen now after digesting such iconic domestic bullying films
such as Bully and Mean Creek, Scarecrow is a startling,
shocking heartbreaker that intends to wring you dry of tears by the time it
reaches its poetically devastating coda.
Regardless of where you come from or what language you speak, whether
its America or Soviet Russia it is hard not to come away from this one with
tears streaked down your face. One of
the most powerfully emotional films about the cumulative overarching impact of
schoolyard bullying in the world made by a director who specialized in children’s
movies who saw how those same children were treating his son and deciding once
and for all he had enough!
--Andrew Kotwicki
