Hunting Down An Angel or Four Passions of the Soothsayer Poet

Colour, 35mm
Russia, 2002, 56 min
Section: Documentary Films in Competition

Synopsis

This film describes the life and singular character of Russian Symbolist Andrei Bely through his poetic creed and in the spirit of his conviction that the greatest creative endeavour is how one lives life. To this end, the filmmakers also focus on Bely’s love affairs and marriage. Their curious dramatic course is illustrated in an assemblage of period films, both Russian and Western European, in accordance with the dimensions of his existence. The film covers his journeys across Europe, his temporary Berlin emigration and his return to his native country. Bely’s drawings and verse document his fascinating mysticism and quest for the meaning of life through anthroposophy. The approaches adopted also expose the type and nature of the Symbolist experience of life and the world, and the emotional behaviour of people from a revolutionary era, based not so much on facts but evoked more through a purely emotional experience. The film also brings to light the idea that silent films of varying origins share an inner affinity and emit an analogous tension on an aesthetic, ethical and emotional plane.

About the director

Andrei Osipov (b. 1960) graduated from Odessa Polytechnic Institute (1982), and from the Higher Courses for Scriptwriters and Directors in Moscow (1995). Documentaries: The Touch (Prikosnoveniye, 1993), Duel (Poyedinok, 1994), Erase the Accidental Features (Sotri sluchainye cherty, 1995), Voices (Golosa, 1997 - Special Mention at the Karlovy Vary IFF), Blown in with the Wind (Zanyesennye vyetrom, 2000), Hunting Down an Angel or Four Passions of the Soothsayer Poet(Okhota na angela ili Chetyre lyubvi poeta i proritsatelya, 2002).