For a debut feature director who is famed for music videos and tour documentaries (he was also a Eurovision producer), Rebenae knows how to create an atmosphere. This is a film about stolen glances, not steamy nights. Some may criticise that the romance is sanitized with the camera moving away when the mood heats up. The intimate scenes are romantic, with late-night swims and dimly lit lovemaking. Using Estonian dialogue with subtitles may have added an authenticity because at times the Eastern Bloc accents are a little distracting Parasite proved that if a film is good enough, people will happily read the subtitles.įirebird looks visually stunning. The choice to use an international cast speaking English won’t please everyone. The camera zoom is on their faces, every micro-expression of longing picked up by the lens. Prior and Zagorodnii look good together, Prior sweet and wide-eyed whilst Zagorodnii is handsome and chiselled. Despite the obvious journey, it’s a beautifully realised account of love flourishing against a cold, loveless background. Firebird leans less on the perilous action of being gay in the Soviet era, but instead on more clandestine affair cliché. Tensions heighten when Roman embarks on married, domestic life with a woman whilst Sergey is more relaxed about his sexuality.
Sergey embarks on an acting career, whilst Roman continues in the military. The weakness of this film is its reliance on obvious twists and cliched character development. It’s desperately romantic, even if the film chooses melodrama over realism.įirebird’s narrative does take the most obvious turns. The pair must make a decision between risking their lives in the face of escalating KGB investigations, or hiding their feelings. Luisa hasn’t spotted their connection, obviously placing herself as the third member of a love triangle.Īn anonymous report exposing Roman’s indiscretions is a reminder that sexual relations between two men wasn’t just frowned upon, it could be punished by five year’s hard labour.
Their relationship is all clandestine late-night encounters and longing glances. Sergey once had dreams of becoming a stage actor and a night at the ballet seeing Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird’ brings the pair closer together. Looking like silver screen icons of the bygone age of Hollywood, the two men bond over their shared interest in the arts. His girlfriend Luisa (Diana Pozharskaya) has started planning their life together, but Sergey soon becomes distracted by dashing fighter pilot Lieutenant Roman Medveyev (Oleg Zagorodnii). Co-written and co-produced by the pair, Firebird is a sensitive if not slightly melodramatic true story of gay love in Soviet-occupied Estonia.įirebird opens in 1977 with Sergey (Prior) serving his last few weeks of conscription. Director Peeter Rebane and leading actor Tom Prior ( The Theory of Everything and Kingsman: The Secret Service) fought to bring Sergey Fetisov’s memoir of a secret love affair between two soldiers in the Soviet Air Force to the big screen.
0 kommentar(er)
