Inzeyen – Sweet Delight

Inzeyen – Sweet Delight is the second feature film by experienced documentary film maker Vladimir Sivkov. It is a free flow of eight film novellas connected by one character – thirty-year-old Alexei. Alexei is an admirer of Chagall and even tries to paint like him. He is an amateur archaeologist, and tries to fly a hang glider too. The sketches of provincial life somewhere around the Ryazan region are filled in with other peculiar characters surrounding Alexei, like an ugly man, a mute and an old Muslim praying. The sketches are contemporary (the modernised provincial life, a portrait of Putin), as much as they are timeless (as in the old-fashioned life style).
Alexei is also head of the local Cultural Department and a close friend of local artist Katya Medvedeva (played by the real Katya Medvedeva, who is a well-known naïve painter, a representative of the Russian underground whose work has been appreciated by many, including the artist Marc Chagall). Alexei deals with questions about the Russian provincial avant-garde and what it actually means. The almost unbearable lightness of his provincial life leads to the only decisive action in the end: he covers his eyes, hangs spoons on his ears and pronounces the magic word inzeyen that takes him to a different world.
This Russian fairy-tale like film has little dialogue. It is, in its way, a tractate on emptiness and full with young hearted spirit. (LC)