Mermaid
Screendaily
Dan Fainaru at the Berlin Film Fesitval
February 8, 2008
Director: Anna Melikyan. Russia, 2007. 118 minutes.
Azerbaijani director Anna Melkian’s second feature opens Berlin’
Panorama section with a World Cinema Director’s award from Sundance
and solid box office at home in Russia under its belt (her first,
Mars, was also shown in Panorama at Berlin).
A coming-of-age fairytale with dark undertones, Mermaid is delivered
in a light, bantering tone – a first-person narrative of the life of
Alissa (played by Donstova as a child and Shalaeva from adolescence
onwards). With the insouciant approach of a young director who doesn’t
particularly care whether everything in her film makes sense or
follows the rules, Mermaid looks certain for international festival
and arthouse acclaim.
Hailed at home as the Russian Amelie, Mermaid’s heroine is Alissa. the
daughter of a portly, bouncy woman (Sokova) and a passing sailor who
chanced upon her on a deserted beach, bathing in the nude. The sailor
is long gone, and Alissa, aged five at the film’s onset, lives with
her mother and senile granny. She wants to be a ballerina and dreams
of meeting her father but both wishes are denied to her.
Some of her desires do come true, however – such as her village home
being destroyed in a hurricane which forces her mother to move to
Moscow. Whether this, and some other momentuous events in the course
of the film, are actually Alissa’s doing remains an open question
until the very end.
Once in Moscow, she carries out a succession of odd jobs (including
one which involves roaming the streets in a rubber mobile phone) until
one night she fishes a young man called Sasha (Tsyganov) out of the
river. He turns out to be an upwardly mobile young businessman,
successfully selling lots on the moon to people (only the visible
side, he stresses) in the daytime, getting drunk in the evening, and
conducting an affair with blonde bombshell Rita (Skrinichenko) in
between. Alissa falls in love and works some of her (supposed) magic
to save him several times, with mixed results.
A lively portrait of the transition from childhood to maturity,
Mermaid’s bemusing, downbeat ending confused many in the Berlin
audience but seems simply to represent the end of this transition –
the child disappears, the adolescent is no longer there, adulthood
sets in.
Melikyan’s own script doesn’t quite provide the material for an
almost-two-hour move and the length is felt by the audience despite
sterling work from both Dontsova and Shalaeva (in particular).
Some crazy but efficient supporting performances are delivered by
Maria Sokova and Yevgenyi Tsyganov (an actor, singer and youth
idol). Technical credits are solid, and Igor Vdovin’s score rounds up
the fanciful mood.
Production companies
Magnum Studios
Central Partnership
Worldwide distribution
Central Partnership 00 7 495 981 8214
Producers
Ruben Dishdishian
Screenplay
Anna Melikyan
Director of photography
Oleg Kirichenko
Production designer
Ulyana Ryabova
Editor
Aleksandr Andryuschenko
Karen Oganesyan
Maksim Smirnov
Music
Igor Vdovin
Main cast:
Masha Salaeva
Yevgenyi Tsyganov
Maria Sokova
Nastya Dontsova
Irina Skrinichenko
Veronica Skugina