This most recent work by the famous documentary-master Marker is among the rare films which both stagger and move. Using a portrait of the recently-deceased Russian film-maker Alexandr Medvedkin (born in 1900), a personal acquaintance of his, he rewrites part of the history of Russia.The life of Medvedkin forms the line along which Marker investigates the tragedy of our century. He does so in the form of six fictitious letters to his dead friend and colleague. Marker pauses at important dates in Russian history and keeps asking what Medvedkin was doing at the time: the 17¬year-old during the revolution, the 20-year-old as red cavalryman during the civil war, the 38-year-old victim of Stalinist censorship, the war film-maker in his forties and the aged supporter of glasnost.Marker made this intriguing film as a personal video letter; during his visits to Moscow he recorded the conversations with a small home-video camera. The film also comprises many surprising fragments from the too-little-known work of the forgotten and vilified Medvedkin. In detail Marker follows the wayward carreer of the odd and original Medvedkin in the unfathomable system that had such trouble coping with originality. In a challenging and lucid way, Marker weaves these often absurd details into the broad lines of history. Clear, poetic and above all visual.
