Presence is a film about loneliness and a parable about man’s past and present and the traditions and history of his country.Protagonist is a lonesome diver aged about 45 who works somewhere near a dam – or it may be a secret test site. Apart from that, the man doesn’t seem to live in the present but entirely in his memories and feelings.The impossibility of communicating between people would appear to be the main issue of this still and mysterious film. The only person he talks to is a girl aged thirteen who behaves like his mother. But only if the two have first created a distance – in a literal sense using matchboxes with a string stretched between them.The actors, with the Russian star Alexei Petrenko playing the lead, are exceptional in this film filled with mystery; myste¡ry to which Schnittke’s music provides a real contribution.
