His teacher mother says that the police can at any time arrest her son, there cart him off to the looney bin and castrate him, the reason being the 22-year-old Oleg Maximov’s autism diagnosis. However, the bigger issue seems to lie in the communication between the parent and her son.
Marina Ivanovna Maximova exclaims that her son is repulsive, even though he appears shy, restrained, lonely and, above all, confused. Particularly confusing are the tools his single mother uses to resolve the situation. At times, the cruelty is reciprocal, but the mother and son are never on an equal footing.
The mother, in the throes of a continuous nervous breakdown, wants to cure his troublesome son into a complete and ’normal’ citizen. To achieve this, she seeks help in the most peculiar places. One therapeutic professional slaps him in the face and rides on his neck to make him understand how his poor mother is feeling, how people of the opposite sex are treated and how anyone with a penis between their legs should be behaving.
’As soon as you open your mouth, you have a problem,’ says a theatre group instructor, although not in the sense that Oleg was talking shit. ’Your chin isn’t moving when you speak,’ she continues, making the boy do tiger yell exercises in order to learn to speak like everyone else.
Fortunately, Oleg eventually finds someone who understands him better.
Teksti: Marko Ylitalo / Translation: Liina Härkönen
Language: Russian
Subtitles: English
- Director: Jerzy Śladkowski
- Country: Sweden, Finland, Poland
- Year: 2015
- Length: 92 min
- Age limit: S
- Format: DCP
- Cinematography: Wojciech Staron
- Editing: Jakub Sladkowski, Agnieszka Bojanowska
- Music: Timo Hietala
- Production: Antonio Russo Merenda/Ginestra Film
Showtimes:
- Cinema Sõprus: Saturday 30.01 - 16:00