Of all the marginal filmmakers of the Soviet 1920s, Yevgenii Cherviakov may be the only one whose voice was heard, whose cinema became an event. His films were proclaimed a model of poetic cinema. It would be much more accurate to call them existential. He represented the “subjective” and personal branch of Soviet cinema, if you will. Not only did he directly dissociate himself from Eisenstein’s “intellectual cinema,” but he basically dissociated himself from society: “My main task was to show, by means of cinema, anger, love, despair, jealousy – in short, the entire complex of emotional phenomena that is called ‘human passions’. To show it outside any historical, mundane, industrial, or any other accessories.” This he wrote in relation to Moi syn, his only surviving uncensored film. The premise of Moi syn suggests a melodrama. In the very first scene, the wife confesses to her husband that their newborn son is not his. But that’s practically it, there are not too many plot twists in the conventional sense, and for the rest of the film the couple just has to cope with the situation. Cherviakov considered the human face to be “the true centre of any lyric picture” and “the most perfect ‘instrument’ of production”. So extensive are the closeups in Moi syn and so ascetic are the medium shots and the few long shots, that the viewer is forced to observe every sign of life as closely as possible, and the slightest movement becomes significant. Crushed by her sense of guilt, the wife (masterfully played by Anna Sten) is hesitant to make any unnecessary moves; throughout most of the film she tormentingly controls herself. This tension alone is painful to watch. Cherviakov wanted his actors to convey their emotional state solely through their eyes, without the aid of mime or gesture. Whenever the characters lose control and do something as simple as turning their head or raising their eyes to confront an insult, that becomes as powerful as hysteria in a “normal” silent picture. After the rediscovery of Moi syn in Buenos Aires in 2008, Cherviakov‘s silent films became The Holy Grail of Soviet cinema: his 1927 debut film Devushka s dalëkoj reki (The Girl from a Far River) now tops the rating of most wanted Russian and Soviet films.

Peter Bagrov