12 Angry Russians

This past weekend I caught Nikita Mikhalkov's latest film, 12. It was at once familiar and yet foreign. The former because it's a loose adaptation of the classic teleplay and film 12 Angry Men and the latter owing to it being a Russian film that is all about Russian culture and society.

Things begin quite differently than the original story does with a shot of an immobilized armored personnel carrier replete with the corpse of a Russian soldier. This grisly scene gives way to a shot of someone's feet hurriedly running down stairs. But wait, there's more! An oneiric sequence follows that is shot in bleached out black & white and features Mikhail Gorbachev standing behind a podium that is smack dab in the middle of a field in Chechnya.

After the credits roll, the scene begins to look a little more familiar.

The setting is contemporary Russia where 12 jurors must decide the fate of a Chechen boy who stands accused of murdering his stepfather who was a Russian army officer. The courtroom empties and the jurors are slowly led to a gymnasium of a nearby school by a bailiff who explains that the courthouse is being remodeled. I presume that this, along with an HVAC duct in the gym that seems beyond even the help of Harry Tuttle, is a comment on Russia's crumbling infrastructure. Also symbolic is surely the piano which is locked away behind bars.

We never learn the names of the jurors but they are given ample time to tell their stories and demonstrate just what kinds of men they are. One is a cab driver who, dead set on a guilty verdict, also proves himself to be a racist as he spews invective towards the Chechens as well as one of his fellow jurors who is Jewish. Another is a Harvard-educated reality TV show producer who is vacillates between guilty and not guilty constantly. But it is an electronics engineer who gets things going by casting the sole non-guilty vote in the first go-round. When asked to explain himself, he slowly reveals his love for the underdog and eventually tells the other men his tale of redemption.

In scenes like this, 12 greatly resembles its predecessors. But Mikhalkov tacks his own course as well. We witness the Chechen boy in his holding cell as well as flashbacks to his childhood. For instance, as a boy, he did a knife dance for the Chechen resistance fighters and he does the same dance as he waits for the jury's verdict. The kindness of his stepfather is shown as is the horror that is war. Plus there's one shot which is repeated throughout the film and that is the one which was hinted at in the very beginning of the film. We see the disabled APC with the soldier's body atop it. The camera turns to the right and we can see the figure of a dog running in the smoke. As it approaches, the glint of something shiny penetrates the haze but the shot ends before we are able to make out the details.



Vladislav Opelyants' cinematography is excellent throughout but really shines in the first third or so of the film. The first time a vote is taken, the camera starts on the jury foreman at the head of the table and slowly pulls away from him as he reads the votes aloud to reveal the other jurors. Another great scene comes early on when the men are arguing and the camera just goes in circles around the table like a whirlwind. As the film progresses, the shots become more static but great nonetheless. Also notable is the sound. There's some great music which sets the mood well without being melodramatic. Plus the diagetic sounds of the gymnasium are omnipresent. The Stalin-era heating system constantly creeks in the background while we are periodically hear (and see) bird that flies into the room at one point. These little audio touches lent the room some life and helped make the setting seem fuller, seem something more than a stage.

I was able to discern some of the more obvious references to contemporary Russia and, in addition to the ones I noted above, I would also note that juries themselves are a product of post-Communist Russia. I don't doubt for a minute that many more went over my head. Even so, I found 12 to be extremely compelling as the arguments the men have and the personal revelations they give are general enough to be understood by non-Russian audiences.

With the collapse of Communism, Russia began to reinvent itself in a Western image. But 12 tends to portray the image more as artifice than substantive change. Knowing what I know about The Bear, I think the film makes a nice companion to Aleksandr Sokurov's Russian Ark. Russian Ark examined Russia's past while 12 questions whether the country will ever be able to transcend it.

12 will be at Sundance Cinemas through Thursday, despite not being listed on the Screening Room calendar.