I have been describing this movie as if it were directed by a Russian Stanley Kubrick. I have yet to be proven wrong. Professor Isham challenged the class to figure out the plot and the time period of the film. Well, I am a man who stands to challenges; so I shall do my best:
The time period is a little easier to figure out (by no means is that saying it was easy to identify). I estimate the setting of the film to be two distinct time periods: Early 1930s and late 1950s. The war was a clear indication for both, and some of Adult Alyosha's statements were clues ("that was 20 years ago...when I was a boy").
Bear with me, but the plot was difficult to follow. None of the characters had names (except Alyosha, and this is found out at the END of the film), the plotline was convuluted with individual viewpoints that were expressed randomly, the timeframe shifted by means of a mirror, and there was no clear, identifiable main-character.
That being said, I believe the plot goes something to this extent:
Young Alyosha and his family try to make ends-meat and survive during WWII. Alyosha's imagination and reality begin to blend together due to something that he has seen (or imagined to see), and the focus warps between his family in the 1930s and the later family in the 1950s.
Ouch. My head hurts...
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Much of what you're surmising here is on the right track: though note that we are presented episodes from the 30s (e.g., the fire and probably also the printing press scene), the 40s (all of the WWII related portions), and the early 70s (Alyosha close to death, Ignat his son, and the wife).
ReplyDeleteOne thing to keep in mind is that while we often hear the narrator Alyosha speaking as an adult, we never *see* him at this stage of his life--probably because the film is told from his perspective and he doesn't have the courage to look at his present self in the mirror. We are only shown him as a child (played by the same actor who plays his son).
But keep in mind that the film is not designed to make one's head hurt in this fashion. It's not a "puzzle" one has to solve. Rather one might liken it instead as a director's attempt to artistically recreate the way our memories work. This is what gives the "stream-of consciousness" flow between scenes.