Clemens Roth | Под напряжением (Unter Strom) (Under Tension) / 2017

slugs in the face

by Douglas Messerli

 

Driton Sadiku (screenplay), Clemens Roth (director) Под напряжением (Unter Strom) (Under Tension) / 2017 [8 minutes]

 

This German production in Russian about a fifteen-year-old boy who has remained behind in Ukraine after his parents have left for Spain where they are now working, reminds us that even before the most recent Russian assaults on that country beginning in February 2022, that Ukraine was already being attacked on its eastern fronts by Russia.

     To remain behind as Stasik (Ishtyan Nekrasov) has, is not only dangerous because of the Russian assaults and localized fighting, but, given the fact that Stasik is gay, is made even more perilous on account of his Ukrainian neighbors.

     The narrative of this 8-minute film is no less compelling because of its simplicity.

     The film begins with the central character, Stasik, drawing a picture of people gathered, looking up in fear, the sound of a missile or bomb falling suddenly, transforming into a Skype image of a lovely-looking woman (Larissa Tjurde) saying that they will soon be altogether and his father misses him. And most importantly, Spain is even more beautiful than Ukraine. Stasik immediately responds, “Mom, I don’t want to leave.” His mother bravely smiles, suggesting his father isn’t going to like that answer, and hopes that he will think about it more carefully. As she leans forward to virtually kiss him goodbye, he snaps the application off. 

     In reaction, he takes out his bicycle and rides over to his best friend Vassili, “Vaska’s” (Tigran Petrosyan) place. There the boy’s rather brutal father Ivan (Alexei Boris) is attempting to show his son how to fix the innerworkings of a broken-down automobile, furious that his son is unable to remove a part. About to slug his son’s face, he is distracted by Stasik’s greeting. He looks at the intruder and back at his son: “You don’t have time. You have to clean up the workshop.”

     Despite the father’s warning, Stasik encourages his friend to quickly join him on his bike as they speed off away from his duties. At a nearby quarry, they dig up a small container they’ve hidden in the rocks, holding already rolled joints. As Vaska begins to smoke one, Stasik further rubs in the ridiculousness of his father’s behavior. Stasik confesses that his parents want him to join them, surprised considerably by Vaska’s reaction of “That’s amazing!” Stasik insists that they don’t understand him, but Vaska reconfirms that, if asked, he’d go immediately. He confesses that another friend is trying to find him a job in another country as a mechanic.

      Stasik calls him an idiot, and, clearly hurt for Vaska’s diffidence about their own friendship, immediately knocks him to the ground, hovering over him and moving slowly in for a kiss. Just as he almost reaches his friend’s startled lips, we hear a voice shouting “Fucking faggot!” as Stasik is pulled off by Ivan and slugged fully in the face, Vaska racing off, the camera going black.

      Slowly, the young boy trudges home with his bike.

     Once more we see the drawing of the gathering of people, this time a young boy climbing up a tree to get a better view, clearly a cartoon image of Stasik, a few frames later becoming a bird which flies off.

     We now see Stasik anew talking to his mother on Skype, this time she being pleasantly surprised by his call to them. She calls to his father, Viktor (Oleg Lapochkin), bringing him into the room to talk to his son as well. Both suddenly notice his bruises and wonder who has beaten him, his father quickly shifting from worry to a macho stance arguing “now you are a man.”

     “Did you defend a girl?” his mother asks.

     Stasik answers no, clearly dreading the conversation that has become inevitable: “I am gay.” Like thousands of such parents before them, they each demand to know if the truth he has just bravely spoken is a joke. “Tell me it’s a joke,” insists her father. He begins shouting, “This cannot be true,” the mother trying to calm him down but making it only worse as he becomes more and more agitated. Finally, Stasik demands, “Quiet!”

      “Do you still want me to come?”

      They turn to one another, attempting to seek an answer in each other’s face, as the boy waits in silence, his eyes growing more and more moist with each long second. The film goes black. The second silent slug in the face is certainly the far more painful one.

     Austrian director Clemens Roth’s film suggests that Ukraine’s ethic Russians, at least in the small villages, are no more tolerant to LGBTQ issues than are their brethren in the former Soviet Union.

 

Los Angeles, May 18, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (May 2023).