I was partway through a reading of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “Brothers Karamazov” for a literature class when I came to the conclusion that Russian literature is really not my cup of tea. Like Jane Austen’s work, I found much of what I’d read heavy on the who and where and not nearly enough time on the what and why but unlike Austen’s novels which I did come to love, I never could find it in my heart to pick-up another Russian novel though I never walked away from film adaptations as I found most of them did away with the boring bits and got right to the heat of the action, often at the cost of the “boring bits.”
Enter Dover Koshashvili and his film Anton Chekhov’s The Duel. Deftly adapted from Chekhov’s short story by new-comer Mary Bing, this is the story of a man who has lost his way. Laevsky has escaped to a seaside town in the Caucasus’ with his lover, the beautiful Nadia, who happens to be married to another man. The two left the big city with dreams of making a new life for themselves but Laevsky has spent his money and his heart has grown cold and he claims to his friends that he no longer loves his mistress (though he appears to have no problem using her none the less). In an attempt to leave this now failed life behind and start afresh, he concocts a plan to borrow money, take a ship and abandon Nadia with no money and no one to turn to. Through a series of events, plausible ones considering the small group of “society” folk that appear to be around, Von Koren, a naturalist who already dislikes Laevsky, challenges the man to a duel on the grounds of protecting his honour.
Koshashvili’s film is sparse. There are beautiful scenes and costumes to fill the time and space but this is a film that, like the story it’s adapted from, lives in the minute details and apparently empty spaces. The subtle look, the passing line of dialogue that appears to hold little importance; it’s a film that builds slowly but defiantly towards an explosive (literally) climax that manages to encompass every spoken and unspoken emotion. Part of the film’s success comes at the hands of the talented cast. From the gorgeous Fiona Glascott as Nadia, a character who manages to garner pity while playing her own sly games to Tobias Menzies who plays the moral centre with gravitas. Andrew Scott is charged with the ungrateful task of portraying the unlikable Laevsky and he does so memorably (I’ll never forget the look on his face when he fires his gun only to realize that he is likely going to die).
What I love most of Koshashvili’s film is that it keeps intact the subtle ideas at play in Chekov’s novel: the fight between moral and immoral (a fight that is much more prominent as it plays out to the backdrop of this idyllic town and among the lives of individuals who live their day to day amidst petty events and disagreements), the questions of expectation and the importance of perception and society. Anton Chekhov’s The Duel is a masterful adaptation and a stunning film all its own.
See VIFF screening schedule for show times.
