Original subtitles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yAWXXqWVdg

Experimental Film Studios, Moscow

THE BEGINNING OF AN AGE UNFATHOMABLE

NOVELETTE ONE

THE ANGEL

Based upon Yu.OLESHA's story

Comrades,

Can anyone of you stand by at the furnace?

Any volunteers?

There are none.

We'll have to find one.

Say, you, comrade.

Yes, I'm speaking to you.

-Could you lend me a hand? -I would to glad to.

Have you hurt yourself?

On the contrary, I'm fine.

What's a fine chair.

Nice Indeed.

Father, get up. We're approaching the 36 mile-post.

Gee...

- That's my affair. - You are right.

Miss,

Can't we move with a higher speed?

Are you tired?

No, thank you.

Were have you been? I told you to cover up for me!

Heave-ho, we'll fall to bravely.

And sever capital head!

You have no God in you,

Lord have mercy

I've been sleepless for five days on end, you whistler.

You're like hawk, hovering.

Can't I whistle?

Go to the woods and whistle there!

The angle will come and show it to you.

And to you?

Comrade engineer, maybe you want me to run some errand?

The enemy may come here any moment now.

-Hey... -Take away your gun.

You're like Tatars, really.

Look, buddy,

I kept watch for 5 days! I'm so mad I can kill you.

We must disconnect the platform.

It will make things easier.

Go to hell! Gee, you give me no break!

Disconnect it and leave me alone.

New bosses coming galore, a pain in our ass.

Hey, leave the platform alone.

Stop it!

-Hey...

Don't, You bastard, stop it!

Come over here.

Yes, you.

In the name of the Revolution.

I confiscate this platform!

Here is the mandate.

-Do it. -Yes, comrade commissar.

-It must be Angel -Zip your lip.

Have you got any bread?

I haven't eaten for three days.

I can't even step away.

They said the watch is very precious.

A Jew professor examined it.

It even put him atremble.

Who burnt down uncle Semyon?

Zip your lip.

What do you mean?

I mean what I said.

-Took him off the train and burnt him down on Easter. -Stop blabbering. For God's sake!

Burning a human down like some firewood.

It's even worse than the tsar's regime.

It depends -burnt for what.

For what?

For playing political games with Bolshies.

Good people.

So much milk waiting to be milked.

I need something to milk it into.

It's made of leather... Won't leak.

What are you doing? Stop kneading her!

Let me do it.

And more...

Here along the road I walk past a spiteful barking dog.

Here along the road I walk.

Past a spiteful barking dog,

It is barking for all to know

That I to my lassie go.

Dear ladies and gentlemen,

Dear congregation!

Heartily partake of this milk!

Come on, child.

Drink this milk, you'll be fine as silk.

Old man, take off your 'pot'.

Comrades, hand out your hats.

Have our potluck, we are not some petty bourgeois,

but Christian proletarians.

I've traveled far and wide in Russia,

and Siberia I crossed on foot...

Drink this bounty, you bummer.

-I'm bursting. -Drink!

Angel!

I want some milk too.

Juncture station 40, the booth of Phyllipych.

Old man!

Old man!

I'll be back in a moment.

During Apple Tide, They will dismiss us and we will go home.

All of you?

I guess so: we have warred enough.

My mother wrote me.

There is a good harvest of grain, untouched by war fire.

And there is no one to reap it.

Seasonable time for a hungry peasant to come back.

Take me, for example.

I paid all my wherewithal for this cow.

She is a most precious thing.

Even her shit is precious.

You laugh so beautifully.

(�����壩Petrogard���������壩the front��

Petrograd, Pea..(�����壩 Have you been there?

Why are you squinting?

I hid my glasses.

They may kill for glasses nowadays...

Wait, comrades! Wait��

Comrades.

Phillipycn...

They've killed him with an axe.

He is passing away.

What on earth is going on!

What monsters, killing an old man.

We should flee to the woods,

away from the railroad.

You fear Angel, comrade commissar?

-Why are you not in the army? -I am in the army.

In the army of deserters.

I'll hand you in to Cheka at the next station.

You didn't ask from what army I deserted.

We'll find out. Consider yourself arrested.

-In the name of the revolution. -How simple it is...

...to kill and condemn in the name of the revolution.

The revolution...

Is it some property you own?

What impudence -to speak on its behalf!

You're thieves, that's what you are!

People came to Revolution through suffering, and you...

Trampling human soul!

and running for your lives to the woods?

If you have power, first offer peaceful existence to people!

People have no life for so many years.

They took away grain and talked of revolution.

And then left me with a pie in the oven...

Ransacked the country!

Parasites!

Parasites...

Revolution is bleeding.

and you swearing at it? You welcomed revolution.

when swarming with lice in the trenches,

And now it's unwelcome and you don't care for it?

So many people perished for his sake...

Show me the document.

Show me the document.

Hey, Mr. Breeches, are you fear or what?

He is fine.

A student which has grown fat, eh?

-Where are you from? -It's a min dollar question.

I was fighting Denikin,

took part in the Polish campaign,

was captured in Siberia and nothing happened.

And now, to be caught by such a low piece of scum.

Unbelievable.

-Where are they taking us? -I don't know.

They've stripping me of documents and money, everything...

-They'll shoot me all the same. -They're going to shoot us?

I guess so.

So they'll shoot me too?

They won't even ask our last names.

I had a foreboding.

Didn't want to go on this journey.

But I have to.

Ironically, nobody needs these papers.

They'll kill us in here.

How many of them?

One, two...

-Three. -six.

Five.

Let's go, my god-child.

Come on, don't be afraid.

They'll sort it out.

Who are you?

Engineer... �������壩

Was hauling waget(�����壩ut they've dismantled the railway.

Hauling wagons for whom��

For nobody.

I was just told what to do. I don't care.

Who are you?

I oversaw order at Mr.Voskoboinikov's.

-A bouncer? -Yes, sir.

Now I'm proceeding to my elderly family.

solely for the reason of my infirm health.

There's a pretty boor!

Excuse me, but the cow needs to be milked, kind sir.

Pasha,

it would be a shame not to milk it.

It's Dante.

No politics. 'Divine comedy'.

Do you believe in God?

I think so...

Yes, I do.

Easy.

-This one. -Are you Parfenov?

Yes, I am Parfenov.

-Don't you know me? -No.

But we know you. You shot Grikha from Old Town.

And burnt down twelve our cribs,

Right?

Yeah.

Give him a black eye!

I'm Angel,

God's Angel,

I will exterminate your lot!

Let's go.

Other you will release, hell with them.

Bring Parfenov here!

Comrades, when they let you go,

Tell my party colleagues in town I was killed by bandits,

Stripped of documents, party money and

papers pertaining to rebuilding a railway fork.

Thank you, comrade.

Close your eyes!

Close your eyes!

Here is a Hammer and Sickle for you.

May I...?

It's all right.

It's all right, Father...

NOVELETTE TWO

HOME OF ELECTRICITY

Based upon Andrey Platonov's works

PRAVDA daily

Beneficial week for those starving along the Volga River.

It was a hot draughty summer of 1921.

My youth was lapsing away.

Since winter we hadn't seen a single drop of precipitation.

Nature itself breathed of decay...

as if opening a grave for the starving people.

One night I was summoned to the Party committee.

and was shown a most singular letter.

Dear comrades!

Don't waste your breath.

Amongst this sick distress.

The tower of our science strong,

Of drought that lizard Babylon.

We'll sweep away - it will be gone.

And huge indeed our champion heart,

Let not your hunger stomach.

Iamentations start.

Infernal times we shall defeat.

Any yummy pastries we shall eat...

Our smart machine is vrooming and need help.

Our villagers. Though we don't yelp.

Machine used to belong to the white Guard

And Interventors. Their counterpart.

Though, spoils our life one crazy cow:

He is away and fights the bandits now

He will be back when all of them are struck.

Stepan Zharenov, a village clerk.

Go and lend them a hand.

while you studied you took our bread,

We shall arrange it with the power station bosses.

They will let you go.

Look.

Lord, have mercy.

Forgive us our transgressions and help us.

Why praying?

There is no God and there will be no rain.

Maybe you are all right.

Why should you cross yourself then?

Maybe I shouldn't.

I have been praying for all.

For my husband and my children

But they have all died.

Now I live only because out of habit.

Not on my own volition.

Just my heart keeps on beating.

..and my hand keeps making a sign of cross

We have fallen into such misfortune:

We have been sowing and plowing

and the land yielded nothing.

Don't pray to anyone, old woman.

The nature heeds not your prayers.

The nature fears only our work and wisdom.

Wisdom...

I have lived for so many years

Now I am only a bag of bones and wisdom,

whereas my flesh has withered away.

after unending work and grief.

So little left in me now to meet death.

Everything has died away.

Look at me.

It's not only God that we pray to

We fear the wind

and ice-slick and rainstorm

and the drought and our neighbor

and a passerby.

all make us wish to cross ourselves.

We say prayers not because we love...

We've nothing to love with.

Goodbye...

-Farewell. -May God keep you.

Don't touch it.

-Hi. -Hi.

Let's go.

Come.

What a nice machine.

Why do you run it needless, in the daytime?

Not needless.

All parts should learn to run smoothly.

I want to show it to new people coming by.

It will be a good publicity.

Let people admire it.

Whereas in fact(�����壩 We won't work at night time.

E-zero one hundred one...

You worked the combine, right?

You think you understand engines?

-What do you use for grease? -All handy things.

What do you use for gas?

Wheat alcohol.

We make strong moonshine to make the bulbs shine.

Alcohol on grain?

It is not a waste of grain.

It is dead grain, not eatable.

Kulak Chuev had buried it in the earth. We found it.

When it had been buried for one year, it was already dead.

Too decayed to eat it. Useless to be used as seeds.

They are helpful in chemistry.

- Hi, old man! - Hi.

How do you do?

You caught the trick of doing this all right.

Checks how much proof, without no instruments.

Are you educated?

No, I'm a student.

Have you ever met such instrument.

Which read proof of alcohol

-No, I haven't. -There you are.

If I saw one, I would make another one myself:

But to invent it - I've no time for this.

The old man is a heroic instrument but prone to die.

How shall I check alcohol then?

Well, Godspeed to you.

Hi to you.

Hi.

Shake off your slumber and awake.

To greater things yourself betake.

(�����壩shine!

Are you Zharenov?

Yep.

You can like elements become

You like to storm to rise and swell.

Lo! Can you hear the Bolshies come?

And overturn the hell?

What is this?

It is my plan.

We need a pump of sorts,

to turn the bike into a water pump.

Understand?

Given water, they will not have those processions

We need a pump of sorts.

Let's step away.

The wind has blown away your words.

You said we need...

A what?

Your pump.

Your pump. Let's go and talk without such ado.

About what awaits you... -The water'll flow to the fields.

-Is it clear now? -Oh yeah.

Very well.

We don't find pump. We'll make one.

Do you have collective land?

Oh, yes.

We pastured there many a cow,

No cows, many a widow now.

The land was given therefore

To families of those who were killed at war.

-How much of land? -How much.

Forty hectares.

Forty hectares? A space too big for one-bike pump.

But we shall irrigate(�����壩 half of it.

Half of it?..

What kind of books are these?

These are books we have read.

These are the books we will read...

I say...

I say...

Will it...

-Will it help? -It will.

You think so?

Uncle Stepa.

Come...

Don't cry.

Uncle Stepa.

It's all because of...

...circumstances.

-Shall I help you? -No.

Why don't you want me to?

Very well then.

But I could help you.

- Will this do? -Yeah.

It will do.

We gonna turn the bike into a pump-station.

But for this we'll have to make a pump.

Will you need this? -Yes, thank you.

First we need to smoothen it out.

-What? -Come here.

Move it aside.

Here you are.

A nice thing. but won't do.

-Please, receive this. -No, Lukeria.

-For chrissake. -All right.

Hold it.

Enough, enough.

Easy, easy.

Take it.

Let's go!

Go on moving.

The wheel can fall apart.

Easy, easy...

Comrades, listen to my rhetoric:

Stop standing agape. Your company's big:

Go get your spades a channel to dig.

But what about electricity?

Yes. The light in our houses?

You silly!

When we don't need water.

We'll run the dynamo and have light in our huts.

-...in our huts? -You hillbilly!

-Turn it on! -Wait!

Your moment's attention!

Comrades!

Though our life's a hard travail,

We live, have kids without fail.

a machine to run we're trying

breathing life to dead iron.

And God's soul we stilled today.

And old skin have cast away.

In the sweat of our brow.

A machine we're running now.

Pah to stars and eternity.

With our horny hands, know we,

A new world we can control.

A most meaningful of all!

Soulful words.

You must be crazy.

-Turn it on. -No!

You spoil their holiday.

-So turn it on! -No!

-Step away! -I won't.

Now, go home,

It's a big sorrow.

We shall dig canals tomorrow!

Maybe we should cut down the number of blades?

Right.

Daddy!

Daddy!

Gee, children.

Come hither, or you'll catch cold.

My galoshes are brand new. I will show them now to you.

One, two, three, my dear son.

Where are my galoshes? There are none.

It's too late...

We keep standing there

and the rain is falling,

but people didn't feel the rain on them.

because they had stopped hoping it would come.

They hadn't noticed how, in their hope to survive,

they became hope incarnate

aiding them to do things possible

And yet impossible:

How that hope became part of a bigger hope,

a hope for the future world of communism

a part of yet bigger hope they need for daily existence.

And that hope only kept them human...

THE ANGEL

Written by B.ERMOLAEV I.SUSLOV, M.SOSLOV

Directed by A.SMIRNOV Photography by P.LEBESHEV

Producting Designer -V.KOROVIN Music by A.SCHNITTKE