Beanpole

Dramas don't come much bleaker than Beanpole, director Kantemir Balagov's wrenching story about the damage caused by war, and the exceedingly high cost of survival.

Balagov's beautifully acted second feature...

The story is compounded by Balagov's imposing visual aesthetic, which was evident in Closeness but here is on a whole new level.

They can't look away. Neither may you.

If you can grit through it, the film offers a rewarding - if also unnerving - look at survival in the face of tragedy.

Even if the film seems slow at times, there's always something to look at, including Miroshnichenko and Perelygina, who are able to find grace and dignity in two such odd, hollowed out characters.

Beanpole masters the unseen, the unspoken and the “presence of absence” in the way it unpacks the toll of ongoing armed conflict through a kind of metonymic expression of experience.

Is the world ready to be slapped face-first by Beanpole? Let’s hope so.

Oh God. How horrid. How unfair. How intense. How glorious.

Its images, of solid aesthetic invoice, not only speak about the psychological wounds of the war in two women, but also about buried socio-political criticisms of Russia. [Full review in Spanish]