IN THE RUBRIC "VIDEOTEKA" our heroines talk about their favorite films and TV shows - important, vivid, inspiring, those that are hard to forget once you see them. In this issue, the actress and director of the Praktika Theater confesses her love for Yorgos Lantimos and the “Russian chthonic madness”.
INTERVIEW: Alisa Taezhnaya
PHOTOS: Alena Ermishina
MAKEUP: Irene Shimshilashvili
Alisa Kretova
artist of Dmitry Brusnikin's Workshop, actress and director of the Praktika theater, co-founder of Soft Power agency
The main thing is to be sick with something, not to be indifferent, to look for answers to questions.
And where exactly you will find them - unpredictable, it doesn't matter
I am probably the most inappropriate person for this rubric, and because of this, the right one. I have watched very few movies for a man of my profession. But this does not make me feel ashamed, it just reminds me that I will never feel lonely and at any moment I will be able to start a dialogue with a director whom I don’t know yet. This is how I watch movies: I enter into a dialogue.
I am very careful in my choice, because I pass the movie through myself. Therefore, I love very tough directors: Lars, for example - he conducts some educational conversations; or Yorgos - he always leads somewhere inside and gets interesting things out of me. And in general I do not like entertaining movies, it is better to meet with friends and relax in conversations with them.
It is important for actors and directors to watch films in the same way as going to museums of sovrisk: to study how the cultural code and today's hero are changing, and to reflect on how he was before. But I often know how to do it, and, unfortunately, I don’t do that, so I myself do not look as much as I should, based on my own concept. But I talk a lot with people and listen to them, so real people rather than tapes or directors in another country respond to my request for relevance. But the movie definitely inspires to move - watched something Noe, for example, and you think: "Damn, I want that too!" And then you do something else and your own. The main thing is to be sick with something, not to be indifferent, to look for answers to questions. And where exactly you will find them is unpredictable, and it doesn't matter.
Yorgos Lanthimos, 2005 and 2017
Kinetta / Killing the Sacred Deer
Yorgos is my favorite director. The most of the most. When I watch his films, I have the feeling that someone who feels and understands me embraces me. Someone discreet, but very truthful. And he wants to give me some knowledge.
Allison Anders, Alexander Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, 1995
Four rooms
The movies I watched as a child have shaped my love of risk and marginal aesthetics. And in general, curiosity about the aesthetics of violence. Often times I want to see myself as Quentin himself in the last episode of the argument on the thumb. That would be cool: I walk around with a glass in my hand and accelerate something and it’s not clear how it will end later, but it will be tough and in style.
Robert Zemeckis, 1992
Death suits her
I really love Meryl Streep and her character - a beautiful and hilariously funny woman … She is so rabid and goes to a dream - even if the dream is unrealizable.
Aki Kaurismaki, 1994
Leningrad cowboys meet Moses
Well, Aki. What else to add. And the poster? It was immediately clear that this would be the perfect road movie for me. And so it happened.
Kim Ki Duk, 2005
Stretched bowstring
I watched it at a special moment for me and as if I am still trying to understand what this movie is about. When I think about loneliness in minor, I see episodes from "Breaking the Waves" in my head, and when in major - then from "Stretched Bowstring." My senses got feedback from this particular Kim Ki-dook movie.
Daniel Mirik, Eduardo Sanchez, 1999
Blair Witch: Coursework from the Beyond
While watching, I was scared as never before. So I became a fan of mocumentari and now I dream of working only in this genre.
Pavel Kostomarov, Alexander Rastorguev, 2012
I do not love you
It's much easier and more enjoyable for me to connect to this story of relationships than to any other that I have ever seen. It's just fantastic - I don't understand how it works.
Boris Khlebnikov, 2009
Crazy help
Khlebnikov for me is the Russian Yorgos in terms of the effect he has on me. But since this is also the wildest funny and cruel movie, she noted it.
Alexander Rogozhkin, 1995 and 1998, Roman Kachanov, 2000 and 2001
Peculiarities of national hunting / Peculiarities of national fishing / DMB / Down House
Russian chthonic madness. These films are too Russian spirit permeated: free, insane cinema in production and scale of thought. In the 2000s, everything was possible. I am so sorry that I could not do my own thing during that period - it would have been just a flight, I'm sure. How did the producers of Peculiarities of National Fishing decided to shoot scenes in such incredible locations about men and vodka ?! And Kuzmich and the pagoda ?! It's incredibly simple. "Down House" and such a reading of "The Idiot" - it seems to me, it cannot be more precise. All this for me is a movie about freedom in the profession.
