KITE, THE

THE KITE is based on actual events and a real individual; director Alexei Muradov found his inspiration in a newspaper item, but he thought the tone of the article more flippant than its subject deserved. This compassionate, poignant cinematic tone-poem is the director's rejoinder. In the early 1990s, in a provincial Russian community in the hinterlands where concepts of glasnost and perestroika have not yet penetrated, a stern-faced, gray-haired, middle-aged man marches resolutely through a daily routine. His relationships with his much younger wife and an inebriated neighbor offer precious little comfort or warmth; the one he lives for is his small son Dimka. Although sickly and in desperate need of an operation, Dimka longs to fly kites, an endeavor in which the father joyously participates. In this frail child the man invests all his reserves of gentleness, love and humanity – qualities that few others ever witness. For when playtime is over the adoring papa dons a uniform and goes to his job. He works at a Soviet-era relic of a prison as a state torturer and functionary, frequently called upon to enforce the death penalty. Shot in a mere 12 days, THE KITE is this executioner's song, a soulful ode to the contradictions in one man and in the Russian character, as the film's stoic protagonist endures routine horror, death and deprivation, while passionately hoping for an instant of transcendental beauty and redemption. (In Russian with English subtitles)