A PLACE ON EARTH (Mesto na zemle)
Dir. Artur Aristakisyan
Russia, 2001, 120 min, b/w

Maria, a homeless beggar, comes to a commune of beautiful young people who preach love with the destitute. What she finds, is far from the heaven on earth she expected. Jonny, the charismatic leader of the commune, is losing his hold over his disciples and even his girlfriend is leaving him. Maria falls in love with Jonny and tells him she is the only person who can make him happy. What she doesn’t know is that, to save the commune, Jonny is about to commit a terrible sacrifice…

HANDS (Ladoni)
Dir. Artur Aristakisyan
Russia, 1994, 129 mins, b/w

HANDS was released by KINO KINO! at the Renoir cinema, London in September 1998 and has since been shown in cinemas across the UK.

Artur Aristakisyan's award-winning Hands is an innovative film which returns us to the very roots of cinema. Although usually described as docudrama, like any new phenomenon in art it defies clear cut definition.

One critic called it "an unique phenomenon bigger than just a piece of art". The film delivers an anarchic messianic message, similar to that of the early Christians: ANY AUTHORITY, ANY POLITICAL, SOCIAL, RELIGIOUS SYSTEM IS DETRIMENTAL TO HUMAN FREEDOM. IF YOU WANT TO BE FREE, LEAVE THE SYSTEM EVEN AT THE PRICE OF SUFFERING AND DEPRIVATION.

There is no soundtrack to Hands except the voice-over of the author, Artur Aristakisyan, who is addressing his yet unborn son. Yet unborn, and most likely "to be scooped out of the womb". Artur offers him a path to salvation, the path of sacred "madness".

We do not know whether the son ever existed or whether the extraordinary stories Artur relates, are true. But if they are not, is one capable of inventing them?

The film's "heroes" are a woman who has been lying on the ground for forty years, a disabled young man who has promised not to move from his place until the Kingdom of God comes, a dumb simpleton who ran away from an asylum, a man with no legs moving through the sea of people on his trolley, a collector of clothes of the dead, a hunchbacked old woman keeping the head of her beloved hangman in a box, a man living in an attic with birds, a blind family living from begging, an old man collecting a pile of rubbish so that it can reach the sky...

The film seems to achieve the impossible by making one feel spiritually uplifted and enriched despite the tragedy and horror of the stories it relates. Director Artur Aristakisyan says he was always fascinated by beggars. "From childhood I wanted to make a film about them. Even as a child I had a relationship with film as if it were a church. It was a God-given territory upon itself. You can't watch a film without wanting to be saved. It's a meeting with the living light. The light works with you as you work with it. I would like the film to answer the need for community - to show how people are tied together, sometimes paradoxically."

 

ARTUR ARISTAKISYAN'S HANDS (AKA PALMS) RECEIVED MANY INTERNATIONAL AWARDS. AMONGST THEM: