|
''Archangel'' (1990) is the second feature film directed by Guy Maddin. The film fictionalizes, in a general sense, historical conflict related to the Bolshevik Revolution occurring in the Arkhangelsk (Archangel) region of Russia, a basic concept presented to Maddin by John Harvie.〔Vatnsdal, Caelum. ''Kino Delirium: The Films of Guy Maddin''. Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2000. Print. ISBN 1-894037-11-1〕 The film marks Maddin's first formal collaboration with co-screenwriter George Toles. Maddin shot ''Archangel'' in black and white, on 16mm film, on a budget of $430,000.〔Beard, William. ''Into the Past: The Cinema of Guy Maddin''. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2010. Print. ISBN 978-1442610668〕 Maddin modeled the film on the style of a part-talkie, an early cinema genre. The "basic situation" of the film's story was "suggested by Henry Green's 1946 novel ''Back.''"〔Beard, William. ''Into the Past: The Cinema of Guy Maddin''. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2010. Print. 61. ISBN 978-1442610668〕 ==Plot== ''Archangel'' is set in 1919 in the northern Russian area of Archangel, during a brief historical moment of Canadian intervention in the Bolshevik Revolution following the end of World War I. One-legged Canadian soldier Lt. John Boles sighs on the rail of a steamship over the ashes of his dead lover Iris. An officer mistakes Iris' urn for a bottle of liquor and throws it overboard into the sea. A narrator then delivers a sermon on the glories of Love and the horrors of Self-Love/Pride and how it forms the roots of War. (Maddin's daughter Jilian makes a cameo here as a young Cossack girl who orders the execution of a young boy.)〔Beard, William. ''Into the Past: The Cinema of Guy Maddin''. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2010. Print. 56. ISBN 978-1442610668〕 Boles arrives in the town of Archangel as an Allied troop and billets with a local family consisting of a brave son, Geza, a cowardly father, Jannings, and mother Danchuk (who is immediately smitten with Boles) and a grandmother simply called "Baba" along with a seemingly nameless baby. Geza has a seizure as Boles arrives but Boles treats him by scrubbing the boy's torso with horsehair brushes. He then prescribes Geza horsehair to eat (to cure worms) and other folk remedies, while scoffing at the folk remedies Baba offers. Veronkha enters and Boles spies her in a mirror and faints, so affected by her resemblance to his lost love Iris. After reviving, Boles remains convinced that Veronkha in fact ''is'' Iris, forgetting that Iris has died. As coincidence would have it, Veronkha's husband Philbin also suffers amnesia, and has forgotten that he is married to Veronkha. Boles dresses up in full regalia and Geza admires his medals, for which Danchuk decides he should be punished. Jannings is too cowardly to flog the boy, so Boles steps in to whip Geza, which makes Geza admire Boles further. The citizenry of Archangel next participates in staging various battle tableaux, posing as victorious over the Huns while a narrator provides commentary on their bravery. Soon after, a real battle takes place, after which Boles and Danchuk travel over a field of corpses that they discover are mostly just resting. However, they do raise one grave marker for a single dead soldier. Boles next follows Veronkha, hoping to learn where she lives, but instead she goes to meet with Philbin's doctor and is hypnotized so that she can recount her wedding night, during which Philbin first forgets their marriage and Veronkha finds him having sex with the front-desk girl. The doctor mentions a rumour that Veronkha has had a child and Boles somehow jumps to the conclusion that the child is his (belonging to him and Iris, who he still believes Veronkha to be) and confuses Danchuk's baby as this child, heading back to his billet to console said baby. Boles sets out to find Veronkha's home yet again, following a treasure map that is also her marriage certificate to Philbin. The dreamlike trek ends in failure. Next another battle begins, prefaced by a flood of rabbits into the "sleepy trenches" where the soldiers have all but fallen asleep. At the last minute they realize that the rabbits have been fleeing the Bolsheviks and an attack is upon them. Some Bolsheviks break into the family's home and threaten Geza after eviscerating Jannings. However, in a final act of bravery, Jannings strangles them with his own intestines. Unfortunately, Geza's head has been covered with a burlap sack and even as his father dies a hero Geza believes him to have died a coward, believing he's been saved by Philbin. Veronkha decides to renew her marriage to Philbin after annulling her first marriage, and they fly back to the Murmansk Hotel to repeat their honeymoon. Boles follows, and Veronkha mistakes Boles for Philbin, confessing a false love for Boles to Boles thinking she will is making Philbin jealous. Veronkha is so shocked when she discovers that Boles isn't Philbin that she develops amnesia as well. Boles takes this opportunity to try to convince Veronkha that she is Iris. Veronkha disappears, and Boles follows the marriage certificate/treasure map again to find her, and does. They reunite gloriously, until Veronkha sees Philbin and remembers who she is, then rejects Boles and threatens to kill him if he touches her again. Boles, dismayed, heads back to the war, although first he begs Danchuk to take car of "his" baby (actually, already hers) if anything should happen to him. Geza is killed in this battle, his ghost reunited with the ghost of his father and finally realizing that his father died a hero, saving him. Boles launches a final assault and is injured by a grenade marked "Gott straffe Kanada" (punish Canada" ), staggering through the same treasure map route that previously took him to Veronkha—this time he arrives at the scene of her marriage (again) to Philbin. Boles then leaves Archangel to return home to Canada, destroyed. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Archangel (film)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|