Film Reviews

A Room and a Half

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• Details: Russia / 130mins (12A).

Although at times A Room And A Half (a semi-fictional account of Russian poet Joseph Brodsky's life) feels as long as it's full Russian title of Poltory Lomnaty Ili Sentimentalnoe Puteshestvie Na Rodinu, director Khrhanovskiy's injection of a myriad of styles keeps this 'biopic' chugging over.
We first encounter Brodsky (Dityatkovskiy) as an ageing man making his way home to Russia for the first time since his exile to America in 1982. Khrhanovskiy's film follows in this vein for the remainder of the running time - Brodsky's self-deprecating narration recounts his life from when he was a boy to his eventual banishment and along the way we're treated to a brief rundown of recent Russian history from WWI onwards. With the advent of Communism, his parents - Alisa Frejndlikh and Sergei Yursky - are forced to move to the small, titular apartment where the close-knit family are forced to eek out a meagre living. But the film never wallows in the squalor of the life and paints the Brodsky's as a tough, life-loving trio willing to make the best of what they've got. This Cinema Paradiso-esque tale is made all the more powerful in that Brodsky never made this final journey home.
A Room And A Half is one of those films you really need to be in the mood for to enjoy, but those willing to give themselves over to Khrhanovskiy's peacefully madcap film will easily immerse themselves in this interesting man's fractured memories, which he admits aren't perfect. Khrhanovskiy taps into how one remembers; how a curtain might hang, how the cat slept on the bed one particular day, or a stack of books in the corner of a room can be more vivid than life-changing events. He revisits the little moments of Brodsky's life - a random conversation from a half-forgotten party or where how stood by a railing the day he went for a walk with his father - rather than his emergence as an important poet and how he threatened the establishment.
Along the way there are many nods to directors from Fellini to Gilliam. In his flashbacks, Khrhanovskiy uses colour, Black & White, sepia, newsreel footage (that the director superimposes his actors onto with a Zelig-style), photographs, dream sequences and even animation - Khrhanovskiy uses every trick in the book to tell Brodsky's story. Sadly, because the director glosses over what Brodsky's poetry meant to people, we never get a sense of how important he was/is - a scene depicting his receiving of the Nobel Prize is hurried through. This is more about the moments that shaped the man rather than the poet.

Review by Gavin Burke