In
Vadim Jendreyko’s gorgeously shot documentary feature, we meet the indomitable
85-year-old Svetlana Geier, a woman considered to be the greatest translator of
Russian literature into German. She is a woman acutely aware of the echoes and
reflections that bounce back to us when we really see, when we really listen,
when we really absorb what surrounds us.
And that the exact right words, somehow, contain the ability to say
something wordlessly. “I believe
that each spiritual experience leads us to treat one another better, to not
strike others dead. Quite
elementary. And I believe that language is a very effective remedy.”
Her life is ordered,
peaceful, purposeful in every way, from the type and variety of vegetables she buys at the town
market (everything she cooks is made from scratch) to the way she irons her handmade linens, explaining to Jendreyko that
the fabric being caressed under her hands, the warp and weave of each thread,
creates a distinct texture and could only have been made in this particular way by its maker; the soft, flowing, beautiful piece of cloth
wouldn’t be able to exist without each and every thread laid together just so. There is a wonderful sensuality to her life that is reflected in Jendreyko's filmmaking, a luxurious sense of time passing, each moment an inspired one when life can change forever because of a gesture, a glance, a lifting of the eyes. Geier has extraordinary eyes and a riveting presence. She constantly reminds us that there is enough beauty in the world if you can just see beyond your own circumscribed view. She offers Jendreyko, a consummate listener himself, a multitude of intelligent reflections and he takes them in in the spirit in which they're given, always gently probing, questioning, building a quiet maelstrom of emotion, never afraid to meet her challenging gaze. It's an exciting collaboration and she grows more and more beautiful before his lens. I'm hard pressed to remember the last time a woman in her 80s was represented so in film.
Still
razor sharp, a fierce light emanating from laser-beam blue eyes, Geier is
introduced in her home office where she continues her meticulous translation
work, aided, in scenes loaded with droll humor, by collaborators who
are themselves exacting and precise in everything they do, one of whom is a
musician who is tasked with reading her translations to her out loud. The rhythm of language and the exact
right word are held to impossible standards, argued over vociferously, he always
valiantly conceding to her final decision. She notices when things are “ridiculously
ugly” and she is determined that language, above all else, “works.” Punkt.
Born in
Ukraine, Geier's teenage precocity and facility with languages brought her to
the attention of the country's Nazi occupiers during World War II. Some fellow
countrymen saw the Germans as saviors after the excesses of Soviet Communism.
While she doesn't apologize for her youthful collaboration with the fascists--and is clearly still bereft when recounting the massacre at Babi Yar,
where one of her closest friends was killed—it’s telling that she left her
homeland for good when the Germans were driven out in 1943. She describes her
life's work as repaying her "enormous debt to Germany."
Geier:
“Right from the start, it is clear to Dostoyesvsky that the most important
characteristic of a human being is his need for freedom. And this freedom expresses itself in self-determination. One does what
one wants to do. And our intelligence
plays a fatal role here because our reason constantly offers us reasons, when
we want to justify something. We
can offer a reason for anything, in fact.
. . . Here, Dostoyevsky is in sharp contrast to all the potentates of
this world. And for him, there is
no doubt: there is no end that could ever justify a wrong means.”
The film interweaves the
story of Geier’s life during this journey, her chosen dedicated vocation to
literature, and the secrets—some very dark and painful—of this inexhaustibly
hard-working and exacting woman who possesses a love of language that outshines
everything else. “One cannot exhaust an excellent text, and that is probably
the sign of the most superb quality.”
In his exceedingly intimate portrait, Jendreyko shows us a human being
living an inexhaustible life, a life that celebrates the beauty of each small moment and, more importantly, the spaces between them.
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