Directed by Kantemir Balagov
Written by Kantemir Balagov, Aleksandr Terekhov, and Svetlana Alexievich (book)
Starring Viktoria Miroshnichenko, Vasilisa Perelygina, Andrey Bykov
Running time 2 hours 10 minutes

by Jaime Davis, The Fixer

In the middle of Kantemir Balagov’s bleak, gorgeous Beanpole, Masha and her boyfriend Sasha are painting the apartment Masha shares with Iya, a strikingly tall, pale creature who looks not of her time. Deeply old, deeply red wallpaper crusts the walls as the two slather them in bright green paint. In one beautiful moment, a swatch of green slowly melts down the wall, covering the ancient red walls in something newer, brighter. Green and red lovingly pervade almost every shot of Beanpole, a stylistic choice not unlike that made by Jean-Pierre Jeunet in Amélie, Hitchcock in Vertigo, and most recently by Pedro Almodóvar in Pain and Glory. Ozu has also famously infused pops of red throughout his films. Color is so strikingly and significantly prominent in this story of the horrors amid the aftershocks of war.