"The State Film Committee of Russia" "Nadezhda Productions St.Petersburg" "Producer Svetlana Voloshina" "with the participation of Lenfilm Studios" "Alexander Sokurov confession from the diary of a ship Commander" "A cinematographic narrative in five parts" "Part One" "The plot and the characters of this film are creations of the author's imagination." "When he climbed up the nearest hills, everything seemed beautiful." "Or perhaps he was just trying to persuade himself of this." "The deep snow under his feet had fallen months ago." "He breathed easily." "The space seemed to contain a secret." "The air was so still, that each word spoken in the bay could be heard distinctly, coming from the harbour, or from the windows of a small settlement, built upon a dam" "stone by stone, by slaves several decades ago." "The Commander is now posted here." "He has left the banks of the Neva." "That's why he always has something to recall." "He would say over in his mind the names of the streets" "and would imagine himself touching the stones of its shore." "He even saw the faces of people who walked down the long boulevard" "and those faces were both kind and intelligent." "He often caught himself longing for kindness" "and intelligence." "He had understood early in life the particular hardness of military service." "He faced it with courage and patience." "Yet he didn't know that patience was... painfully hard work." "As night fell it became colder, and terribly quiet..." "The Commander recalled something from Chekhov, some lines that he hadn't really understood until now." "The Commander remembered them almost word for word:" ""For whole weeks the sky was covered with leaden clouds, and it seemed to the inhabitants that the dreary weather would go on forever." "Weather like this drives one to depression and drink." "Perhaps this is what made indifferent people cruel, while many good and downtrodden souls, not seeing the sun for weeks and months, forever lost hope of a better life." "Fogs are quite common here." "They are a real disaster for seamen." "The salty sea fogs destroy the plants on the shore." "The gloomy sky, the sea without a single sail," "the steep, loamy bank it is all so harsh."" "How lucky that Russia should have had such a man as Chekhov." "What a pleasure it is to recall his words, his phrases... I can't see." "The Commander could not decide whether he should keep a diary to record the course of his life." "What if, by chance someone were to read it?" "Bring some sand over here and a clean piece of rag." "Break the ice." "Hearing the bosun's cries, he realises there's a problem on deck." "Some oil's been spilled on the deck." "The Commander remembered this sound of human hands sliding over the oily surface" "of the ice-cold steel." "I wonder, what is he thinking about?" "Ah... about nothing." "Most likely they hate military service..." "How stupid l am: is it possible to like something you are forced to do?" "Perhaps only by becoming used to it?" "No pity for that sailor." "He spilled the oil on the deck himself." "It was he who spilled the oil." "He has to clean it." "No one but himself." "It has to be cleaned up." "In the waves, under the snow, in this oily puddle another seaman could perish," "just slip and fall into the sea." "There may be no one at hand to throw him a life-belt, and his miserable cry for help will be lost in the dark waves." "The waters of the northern seas are brutally cold... and a man's heart, even a young and warm one, will freeze within minutes." "So let him endure it." "Let him clean it up." "When it's cold there's emptiness." "No, of course it's not good that I had no pity for the man." ""They must believe that freedom is beyond price", wrote down the Commander." ""My subordinates examine the men once a week, as if they were babies." "Why do they do it?" "Because their subordinates are not free?" "Or because most of them don't know how to deal with freedom?"" "Your hands." ""Or perhaps... it's because we don't trust each other"," "wrote the Commander." "Further on he put in his diary:" ""A young man should be physically clean."" "Then he crossed it all out as if scared to put something so intimate on paper." "Go and relieve the watch, those whose duty it is." "Bozyakin!" "Bozyakin!" "Bozyakin!" "Go and relieve the watch, and call the others." "I will relieve Ludwig, he will come." "Call Ludwig, the CD-5, and come yourself." ""lf they only knew how one can hate to be free sometimes." "If they only knew how necessary it sometimes is, to lack freedom."" " ls there any hot water?" " All the hot water has dried up." " l've used it all up." " Me too." "I've cut my face." " Your neck too." " Yes, it's all red." "I've got everything, pimples and allergies." "The neck, yes." " You did it with a towel?" " With a blade, a blunt one." "With an axe!" "The blade's OK, I've shaved with it." "They sell axes, you know, very small ones, as souvenirs." "It trims..." ""Let me have my say..."" "The ship was moored and tonight he wasn't needed any more." "But he felt unable to get up and go on shore, where his wife and his son were waiting for him." "He caught himself once more enjoying silence." "He didn't want to think about anything, just listen to his heart throbbing in its cage..." "Everything inside becomes quiet." "Conscience falls asleep." ""Let it sleep for a while", he thought." "Oh, I should have washed the towel." " Which one?" " From the officers' room." " Where are the keys?" " l have them." " Have you locked it up?" " Yes." "Good. lt's snow white." " Why is the water cold?" " Go and ask Vanya, why ask me?" " ls it hot now?" " How should I know?" "is it turned off over there?" " ls it hot?" " Let's see." " Turn on the tap!" " lt's already on full." " Then turn off the cold." " What for?" "We'll have neither cold nor hot water." "Oh, it's warm!" " To wash the socks." " Even hot." "Again to the watch?" "Why?" "Oh, our last autumn..." "Hurry up a bit." " ls your water hot?" "Well..." " Cold over there too?" "We don't have any hot water." " And you?" " l have." "When you come, we're always away." "It's a mess." "We'll put out to sea before long." "I haven't sewn my tags on yet." "Have you?" "What's the hurry?" "A new Form 3 has been issued." "So, enough macaroni." "Keks will be making noodles." "Look, the cockroaches keep running." "It's hard to wake Keks up." "I've been trying for 20 minutes." "I wake him up, then I come back 5 minutes later." "He keeps on shouting, "give me an order in writing!"" "The other chap wasn't lazy, he wrote one out and made them register it." "He should have typed it." "Uvarov's a typist." " Yours?" " You've lost it?" " What?" " Your little cross." " Why is it lying around?" " Because I've lost it." "You've lost your tie, too." " l put it down somewhere." " During the training exercises." "Not the training, during the 'all hands'." " ln other words, in Zapolyarie." " Yesterday?" "Yesterday the Mate said:" ""There are no more rats!"" "Then one jumps from just under his feet." "Damn it." "Poison again..." "Did you get any chlorine?" "I found her in the provisions." "She said, "Don't tell anybody I wasn't in the stores." "Say the lock was frozen"." "We received pickles, cabbage..." "She put cabbage on the list." "We have some tomatoes still to come." "Before returning to the shore, the Commander quietly walked about the sleeping ship." "The cook was sleeping." "He was fast asleep." "The Commander did not dare wake him." "The Commander was looking at the young sailors, thinking that everyone should understand:" "to work is more important than serving." "If one says about a seaman, "He performs his service, but he is a poor mechanic", or "a poor radio man", for example," "it means the man doesn't serve at all, he creeps," "he pretends to serve." "And if his officer likes to be waited on?" "Am I like that?" "No, the Commander decided." "I am too cautious." "An obsequious seaman can sink the ship with servility." "Freezing to death in the water, everybody will understand it would have been better to serve than to be servile." "Uskov!" "You took over the night watch." "Yes, sir." "Did you read the rules?" "The watch, especially privates, must sleep fully-dressed." " The pants get wrinkled." " No one cares about that." " You are going against regulations." " But we've always slept undressed." " What?" " We've always slept undressed." "I repeat." "Well I've been in service since '86, sweety-pie." "Come out here." "Let's talk." "I've been in the service since '86." " Have you ever seen me undressed?" " No." " On duty?" " No." " How do I sleep?" " Dressed." "Dressed, and do you know why?" "If there's an alarm... up and off!" "Only the watch officer can get special permission to undress." " Got it?" " Yes." "The watch service must always be what?" " Ready." " No." "On its guard." "And it must take itself completely in hand." "I've noticed that lately all of you have been sleeping undressed." "We have to get rid of this obscene habit." " Read the regulations carefully." " Yes, I read them today." "Even the mechanic, Alexander Petrovich Botaev, when he knew he might have to respond quickly, never allowed himself to sleep undressed." "Even he always slept with his clothes on." "It is the watch's duty." "Serguei Bakai The Commander" "Camera Alexei Fiodorov" "Editor Leda Semionova" "Sound Sergei Moshkov" "Alexander Sokurov confession from the diary of a ship Commander" "End of Part One" "© Nadezhda 1998" "Subtitles:" "Alexei Jankowsky" "Subtitling by TVS" " TlTRA film" "The State Film Committee of Russia" "Nadezhda Productions St.Petersburg" "Producer Svetlana Voloshina with the participation of Lenfilm Studios" "Alexander Sokurov confession from the diary of a ship Commander" "A cinematographic narrative in five parts" "Part Two" "The plot and the characters of this film are creations of the author's imagination." "The ship had been at sea for many days." "The grey light of Arctic day which lasted only ten minutes was already fading." "The rough sea was at last growing calmer." "During a storm the man at the wheel doesn't have the right to leave the controls." "Seasick, the sailors had to throw up the contents of their stomachs" "into this basin." "It embarrassed them." "Meanwhile the tea was getting cold." "The Commander was calm." "He believed the most difficult part was over." "Several hours ago, looking at the menacing waves the Commander sadly thought of his native town, its long old boulevard along which clever and beautiful people were safely walking." "But now it all seemed forgotten" "as if his whole life was only what surrounded him at this moment," "and nothing else was needed." "Everything was there." " 284 to the shore..." " lt's OK." "There were two men at the wheel:" "one of them young, and the other more experienced." "Starboard !" "Has the 30th transmitted?" "If the signal gets stronger, add it on." "There are rat droppings in the tea." "We should buy a sieve, captain, to do without spices." "I'm picking out what I can." "You could at least pick out the droppings." "You could at least be grateful!" "In any case, thanks for picking out the cockroaches." "If not all." "You look like you were about to go into combat." "Please, take a pie." "He was looking at the icy water, raging alongside the ship," "thinking how terrible it would be to be left behind in this world of ice, alone without help," "to watch the ship disappearing into darkness." ""My God", the Commander thought, peering into the black chaos," ""Where am I?" "Who am I?"" "The Commander waited for the beam of the beacon to appear, unable to work out why the whole day before their departure" "he had been dogged by anxiety." "He had a feeling that something terrible was going to happen on the ship." "He couldn't identify the source of his anxiety." "He decided to recall all he had seen on the ship that day," "starting with the call to waken the crew." "Everybody up!" "Up!" "Everybody up!" "Make your beds." "Get ready to do your exercises." "For the exercises you should put on your work uniforms." "Everybody up!" "Get up!" "The Commander often thought that his life, bound to the lives of the conscripts, had a feeling of impending doom." "Yet at the same time, it had a certain serenity." "The Commander saw that he could spend his whole life like this." "But in order to spend one's whole life like this, one would need to love life, and especially, to love the conscripts." ""But I am the shore, and they are the water", he thought." ""They sail into my life for a short while." "The tide of destiny has brought them here, the whirlpool..." "They will be glad to leave me, and follow the course of their own lives." "I will be the only one in their lives, but there will be a lot of them in my life." "But how can one love them?" "How should one love a disciple without knowing love's measure?" "How can I love seamen who are no more than apprentices?" "I can't love them just because they are human beings." "I was taught that human males have to work hard and to love working." "But I know very well that few of them like working."" "He is lost in his thoughts." "But if you ask him what he is thinking about, he'll say, "Nothing"." "And he'll be right." "He speeds up time." "He wants to be back home." "He is a slave, and doesn't even realise the extent of his slavery." "Fishchenko" "Tell me, is he a fool or what?" "When I was salting the fish, I asked you." "I asked, was that all?" "You said to leave... I asked you if it was all, you answered, yes it was." "Nothing left?" "No." "Better to salt than to..." "We'll do it today..." "You'll be the death of me." "We were together." "I asked you to bring all the herring." "I asked if that was all." "You said yes." "Oh, mom, help me!" "It's your test?" "Wait..." "So anyway he said 10 o'clock." "He asked me if I was ready to be tested." "The first aid." "The first aid?" "Yes, today." "He said that part wasn't needed." "I just asked him, and he told me it was." "So I can go?" "Let me go then." " The book?" " Here, all right?" "No, the whole thing." "All at once?" "Yes." "One can't learn it all!" "Comrade midshipman, may I take the test?" " Which one?" " The first aid test." "So?" "There are two types of haemorrhage, arterial and venous." "When arterial, the blood gushes, it's scarlet in colour." "When venous, bleeding is slow." "The colour is dark red." "When the haemorrhage is arterial, the tourniquet should be bound below the wound," "close to the wound." "If it still bleeds ..." "You have to lift his head." "Should we bind his neck?" " No." " Are you sure?" " Yes." " Perhaps we should?" "No." "I say again: you're on watch, you go downstairs and... there he lies, his leg twisted." "What do you do?" "Or again: you come to Central Control, you look behind the electric panel, and there is Private Lazarev, hanging from a lever." "What do you do?" "I make an improvised tool to get him down." "What ?" "Well you..." "What improvised tool?" " A stick." " Have you been there?" "Yes." "What stick... are you talking about?" "I can get him down using my clothes." "You've come from the shower, your clothes are wet." "In the box, there are..." "There's nothing at all. I've just thrown everything out." "I switch off the panel." "You see, you're wasting time in searching and thinking..." ""Oh, if I had a knife, or a stick, or something..."" "First things first." "Cut the electricity." "If I can't find anything... lf you can't switch it off, then you look for a tool." " l switch off." " Done." "He still hangs." "I take him down and put him on a hard surface." "Where?" " On a hard surface." " Where do you find one?" " On a "fish"." " There aren't any." "Have you even been to the Central Control Room?" "Where have you seen it?" "Just by the door." "All right then." "You put him on it." " l check if he's breathing." " He isn't." "I do artificial respiration." " His heart..." " l loosen his clothes." "While you're thinking about what to do, he dies." "You didn't even check whether his heart was beating." "I do heart massage." "Too late..." "Well..." "That's the situation." "You still have a lot of learning to do." "If you've studied with the Mate, it should be him who examines you." "I might not ask for the same things." "Well, let's say..." "Come to see me in the Control Room, we'll speak there." "You come to see me during the training exercise." " May I go?" " Yes." "What a pity, no time to finish!" "Enjoy your meal!" "Enjoy, enjoy..." " Any onions?" " No." "After the meal, those who are free go to peel potatoes." "I'll check the potatoes." "Don't forget to salt them." "Only Keks salts them." "Last time I did it, he asked me if I was trying to kill him." "I put too much salt." "Have you got a light?" "I hate tests." " How many have you passed?" " One." "I'm just going to do the book." "Lazar, don't use the mop." "You'll have to wash it." "I'll hold it over the side." "If you do, the bosun will throw it at your head." "You're going to break something again." "What the hell are you unscrewing it for?" "There's some lubricant inside." "He wasn't there." "Well he was, but he was having his meal." "He told me to come back later." "The lighter, oh, it's gone right down inside." " Who's got any matches?" " Dima has." "There must be 3 cans." "Only 2, and not for long." "You'll have to get some." "The village is nearby." "They've no more oil." "They've given it all away." "Powerful lighter." "Not mine?" "Gloves or no gloves, I don't care." "Where are your slippers?" "Give me a cigarette." "The old story." "Go on, take one." "Only the CD-5 buys "Belomor", but the whole crew smokes them." " He's over there." " There?" "What's up now?" "Not studying any more?" "The electricians are keen." "So keen the capstan's been changed three times now." "You should put the deck in order." "He still has to wash the mops." "He hung them over the side." " Prokofiev!" " Present." "Come here!" "Thinking over the day, the Commander still couldn't make out why this feeling of anxiety would not leave him, and why on this particular day he expected something awful to happen on board." "Everything was just as usual, and probably would be, for the rest of his life," "as he wrote in his diary." "The Commander had a hobby that nobody knew about." "He trained his memory." "He made himself memorise word for word a story by Chekhov, which he had recently read." "He tried to concentrate, but everything on the bridge distracted him." "At last he remembered." ""The soldiers stand on deck and look silently, upwards, then downwards." "Above there is the deep sky, radiant stars, peace and silence." "Nobody knows why the high waves are roaring." "Each wave, as you watch it, tries to rise higher, pushing down the one before." "But a third wave overrides them all, just the same, just as fierce and ugly." "The sea has neither sense, nor compassion." "If the ship were smaller, and not made of thick iron," "the waves would break it without qualm, and swallow all the people, whether saints or sinners." "The ship too has an expression of mindless cruelty." "The monster with its great snout forces its way onwards, cutting through millions of waves." "It doesn't fear darkness or wind, empty space or solitude." "If the ocean had people of its own, this monster would crush them too," "whether saints or sinners." ""Where are we now?" asks the soldier." ""l don't know." "It seems we're on the ocean, you cannot see the land", answers the other." "Both soldiers look at the white foam," "They remain silent and think." "The first breaks the silence." ""There's nothing to be afraid of", he says." ""Yet I'm terrified, as if we were sitting in a dark forest."" "Serguei BAKAl The Commander" "Camera Alexei Fiodorov" "Editor Leda Semionova" "Sound Serguei Moshkov" "Alexander Sokurov confession from the diary of a ship Commander" "End of Part Two" "© Nadezhda 1998" "Subtitles:" "Alexei Jankowski" "Subtitling by TVS" " TlTRA film" "The State Film Committee of Russia" "Nadezhda Productions St.Petersburg" "Producer Svetlana Voloshina with the participation of Lenfilm Studios" "Alexander Sokurov confession from the diary of a ship Commander" "A cinematographic narrative in five parts" "Part Three" "The plot and the characters of this film are creations of the author's imagination." "Opposite the Commander his friend was sitting." "They understood each other." "His friend too commanded a ship." "In general, I have achieved my aims." "If I think over my aspirations, practically all have been realised." "There are things to be proud of, to be ashamed of." "If I had to give my life a mark, it would be between "satisfactory" and "good"." "But the question is what next?" "Will I be able to manage it?" " Manage what?" " This life." "Find an aim and fulfil it." "A new life?" "Yes, but..." "Will my strength hold out?" "Today, I feel more and more certain that it is somehow exhausted." "Enough for one more spurt, no more." "What have you spent it on?" "On this hounded animal." "There's a relation with death." "Life's almost finished." "How old are you now?" "I'm 30 this year." "Only 30." "Before, 30 was something..." "But that's half of one's life." "Statistically." "My own reckoning, too, tells me I won't go beyond 55-57 years." "Still less if I keep ruining my health like this." "When you're squeezed dry, they don't need you anymore." "They dump you." "Everyone forgets you." "That's it." "What have I done, that's worthy..." "There are people whom I've brought up, as it were." "I didn't treat my own tutors well, and I became like them myself." "When people go, a year or 6 months later they come to understand that those 2 years - or 3 as it used to be - weren't wasted." "It forges one's character." "The army is necessary." "Even such as it is now." "At least to produce people." "Not to brand them all alike." "Not in that sense." "In the sense that it hardens them." "Without that hardness a man is incomplete." "Later something else may harden him." "But here is a standard machine which hardens or breaks people down." "It all depends." "If a person is strong enough to handle it, he becomes a man." "Otherwise he breaks down." "But he will break down anyway, even without the army." "He'll break down in civilian life." "Selection." "That's it." "Does it matter what it costs to be formed like this?" "It does." "It's like this." "Yes..." "You know..." "You have a very particular character." "The army is a theatre of characters." "Nowhere else do men reveal their characters so openly." "It's like a particular calibre of weapon." "Our openness of character makes us vulnerable." "Can you imagine an officer in prison?" "I'd never go." "It's not my way." "I'm not ready." "If your life becomes senseless, you must put an end to it." "Old commanders told me they used to carry Makarov's bullet," "or rather a cartridge, in their pocket." "It was about 10 - 15 years ago." "A small cartridge at hand... for such occasions." "Pah!" "And that's it." "Anything but humiliation." ""insulted and injured"." "Humiliated." "This is a humiliation." "Before, there were educated people." "There have always been cruel officers." "He listened to his friend and he recalled" "how one evening he heard some wonderful music on the radio." "He sat and listened for a long, long time." "To begin with he felt fine." "Then he came to hate both the ship and his whole life, everything, from his childhood up to the present minute." "Then he remembered his mother, his brother..." "Where were they?" "He thought of his town." "He remembered himself freezing in the Naval School hostel, sleeping with his hat on," "never thinking about the future." "He didn't know how to think." "Do you think 19th Century Russian officers were like us?" "No, no." "Were they so different?" "Radically different, in everything." "Perhaps for them, it was their work," "their vocation, the realisation of their dreams," "a social position, a way to develop... their personalities." "For me of course these things partly remain." "But mostly it is just a means to survive." "To survive." "I don't live, I survive." "This is not life." "This is an existence." "Just survival." "Something pushes us to survive, to survive, to survive." "Because you cannot do anything else." "To feed your family." "Because..." "you have to survive." "For a long time I believed in my own strength." "I still believe in it." "To a lesser extent." "Hopelessness stamps its mark on you." "You lose faith." "I used to believe before." "To believe in myself." "It always worked." "But perhaps, when it doesn't work, you tend to forget." "Which commandments do you hold dear?" "All of them." "The Commander was grateful to his friend for sharing" "the burden of his soul." "And he remembered how, not long ago, they put out with their two ships to the White Sea." "They dropped anchor by the shore." "And the bosun from his friend's ship, seizing the little steering wheel," "towed a raft of coal to the shore, where a deathly cold outpost could be seen." "And it seemed to him that the bosun looked very much like Dante's Charon." "Here they go along the shore." "A scent of fog in the air... and here is the fog." "And then something begins, something hard to forget." "The soldiers start to carry the coal, further away from the water, nearer to the houses." "The settlement was empty." "Nobody came out of the houses." "Watching this, the Commander wanted to ask the young soldiers:" ""Boys, what era do you come from?" "Have I gone mad?" "You, boy, come back, you've lost your way." "You've strayed into a different time." "The tyrant is dead." "You don't have to go on any longer."" "It seemed to him he had shouted all this many times, but nobody heard him." "Then somebody shouted that the tide was on the ebb." "With the remains of the coal the raft returned to the ship." "Of course, they were freezing," "but come what may they had to load again" "and with the next tide they had to go back to the outpost." "The Commander was thinking of what he saw around him." "What was needed, he thought, was not a reform," "but a complete overhaul." "We have to reconsider completely, what the army should be like." "It must be reinvented, starting from the beginning." "Perhaps our whole life, too, needs this:" "to be reinvented, one day, starting from the beginning." "Perhaps we could invite someone to help us invent a reasonable life?" "wrote the Commander." "What binds us together?" "We understand each other, we trust each other." "We rely on each other, we have lived very similar lives," "and most likely something similar awaits us both in the future." "Just recently he had had a dream, in which he was a very old man, nearing the end," "but he still served on the same ship." "And he understood that what terrified him was not becoming old," "but that his ship did not become old, the sea was not old, the air around was young..." "But he was old and he knew all too well the rest of the story." "Then he saw his friend's ship moving along by a rocky shore." "It struggled against the squall that was driving the ship onto the rocks." ""The sea was big..."" "The Commander smiled, remembering this phrase of Chekhov's." "Towards evening, the bosun and a seaman returned to the ship." "They had taken medical officers on shore." "All the crew was on board." "We will stay the night here anchored by the shore till the storm is over and in the morning," "God willing, we will move on, wrote the Commander." "He added a full stop, and went to bed." "Serguei Bakai The Commander" "Camera Alexei Fiodorov" "Editor Leda Semionova" "Sound Serguei Moshkov" "Alexander Sokurov confession from the diary of a ship Commander" "End of Part Three" "© Nadejda 1998" "Subtitles:" "Alexei Jankowski" "Subtitling by TVS" " TlTRA film" "The State Film Committee of Russia" "Nadezhda Productions St.Petersburg" "Producer Svetlana Voloshina with the participation of Lenfilm Studios" "Alexander Sokurov confession from the diary of a ship Commander" "A cinematographic narrative in five parts" "Part Four" "The plot and the characters of this film are creations of the author's imagination." "Move further off!" "Make room!" "Move in!" "Still more!" "Move over there too!" "Stand closer!" "The Commander often recalled how the conscripts were brought to the base." "Sit down, comfortably, as it were." "Some of the conscripts will stay on his ship," "others will go elsewhere." "Twilight, deserted shores." "It's good the young conscripts don't see these landscapes." "Why should we need the North, if the North doesn't need us," "the Commander thought." "Of course, one can live here and look... at the white and the grey without distress." "Only that means reading thick books by writers of the past." "One can trust them." "They are our only hope." "One should live a life of imagination, of fancy, not the life of the grey sky and cold air." "They kept silent." "They were tired." "They were hungry and they wanted to get somewhere at last." "Nobody could help them bear the waiting." "They had to stand it." "The ship moved on, but they did not even feel it." "Listen to me!" "Now the midshipman will come, he will call out names, five or so at a time." "The man whose name is called strips down to his underwear and boots, and goes into the corridor to be examined." "When did you wash?" "Tuesday." " When?" " Tuesday." "Tuesday?" "That's a week ago." "is anybody sick?" "Any problems?" "Has anybody felt ill on the journey?" "Any contusions?" "Now when we call your name you undress... we examine you, then you get dressed again." "Any questions?" " Listen to the roll call." "Teplov." " Present." "How do you say this?" "Syk-tyk-barov." " Well..." "Kapustin!" " Present." "Ivanov!" "Sokolov..." "Serguei Aleksandrovich." " Your name?" " Krassin." "Any problems?" "Lower, lower." "About turn." "Get dressed." "Next!" " Any problems?" " No." "What's this?" "What kind of scar?" "I've been operated." "You have been operated?" " And your finger?" " l cut it." "With a knife?" "Did it itch?" " No." " Any perspiration?" "Rudder 5 to the right." "5 to the right." "To the right 5." "Distance 2 cables." " Your name ?" " Chernyaev." "Any problems?" " No." " Good." "About turn." "Turn yourself round!" "Further." "Military service allows no privacy, wrote the Commander in his diary," "and then he remembered how, quite recently, he had argued bitterly with a civilian friend of his." "The civilian had said that the army was no more than a big school." "Nobody knew, he said, whether the army would ever have to go into combat." "But making thousands of people learn something useful is necessary." "Only why do you, the military, use such cruel methods of teaching?" "Why are you so cruel, asked the civilian." "If you are cruel, you will get cruelty in return." "Cruelty makes people foolish, insisted the civilian." "Krasnov!" "Kalugin!" "Fadeev!" "Konkin!" "Where is he?" "The Commander knew that in a certain way his civilian friend was right." "The only thing he could answer to this was that it was not the military" "who were guilty." "We are compelled to behave like this." "The military are only as cruel as the nation as a whole." "He was particularly displeased with these last lines in his diary." "What's this scratch on your buttock?" "On your right buttock." "I scratched it on something here in the toilet." "Note." "Scratch on the right buttock." "Isn't this the same?" "No." "On the other, it's an old scar." "Scratch on the right buttock." "Wait, I'll take your name." "You may go." "That's all?" "Two more cards." " 2 more?" " l have 3." " Have you called them?" " No, I've just got the cards." "I'll look at the cards first." "How many have we done?" "15?" "You know, the most important is to paraphrase, how do you call it..." "in the medical way." "Sorry, I am only a mechanic." "We must see they don't have any lice, infections, injuries" "or subjects of complaint." "And that other thing we spoke of." "The person who accompanied them has already checked it." "So our examination is perfunctory." " Your name?" " Ossipov." "Come into the light." "Get dressed." "Why does no one have underwear?" "Wasn't it issued?" "What's this?" "A waistband from my mother." "Treated for how long?" "When did the spots go?" "A week ago." "And when did you fall ill?" "I'll tell you." "I left the hospital on the..." " Did you wash?" " 2 weeks ago." "When I asked, you lads told me a week." "I understand, but practically every second one..." "Pants down." "Lower." "Turn." "Get dressed." " Polivyakov ?" " Polevikov." "Po-le-vi..." "Ah!" " Baladski." " Present." "And Zaytsev." "The 54th." "Do you hear me?" "The 54th." "Was there more?" "Or less?" "Andrey, note." "Scratch on the right shoulder." "Yamanov, Antonov... and Bukhanov." "Zorin!" "OK, are you undressed?" " Your name?" " Yamanov." "Any problems?" "Why so dirty?" "I was on duty." " Has it always been like this?" " Yes." "Turn around." "Take them down." "Turn." "Still lower, down to your boots." "Turn around." "He was asking himself, why have I got to bear all this?" "What on earth brought me here?" "But then he remembered he was only 18, and in this life," "he was just a nobody." "Form a semi-circle." "The second row further to the right, boys." "Put your bags down." "We're ready." "Some are missing, however." "The Commander watched them disembarking and it seemed to him that the young seamen did not see anything." "The dark Arctic life," "officialdom." "Who knows, the Commander wrote in his diary, whether they will remember this quay," "this night, or whether in the young men's lives" "there will be many other events of such cruelty" "that even the darkness and emptiness of the Arctic will be supplanted in their memories." "They kept silent." "They were tired." "On my order, you take your bags." "To the right!" "Form two columns." "Keep the spacing." "Keep your bags inside." "Column, formation." "Keep formation!" "Attention!" "March!" "Smaller steps!" "On the gangway change the pace!" "Andrei Mikhailovich, you know what, let's separate them." "When we returned from Navy Day, everything reverberated." "On the gangway change the pace!" "Serguei Bakai The Commander" "Camera Alexei Fiodorov" "Editor Leda Semionova" "Sound Serguei Moshkov" "Alexander Sokurov confession from the diary of a ship Commander" "End of Part Four" "© Nadezhda 1998" "Subtitles:" "Alexei Jankowsky" "Subtitling by TVS" " TlTRA film" "The State Film Committee of Russia" "Nadezhda Productions St.Petersburg" "Producer Svetlana Voloshina with the participation of Lenfilm Studios" "Alexander Sokurov confession from the diary of a ship Commander" "A cinematographic narrative in five parts" "Part Five" "The plot and the characters of this film are creations of the author's imagination." "The Commander could not remember any particular events" "from his first day in the Navy." "From the start, just the usual run of things and so it had gone on." "It worried him." "It seemed to him a bad omen." "Destiny was sleeping." "His life lacked incident." "Who doesn't have soap?" "Give them a bit of soap." "Prokofiev!" " Prokofiev!" " Present." "Wash yourself and your clothes, everything you wear." "Understand?" "Have you underwear to change into?" "You'll put it on to go out." "The rest you wash." "Go on, and make it fast." "Undress and wash yourself." "The covered pipe is the hot water, the plain one is the cold." "Good luck!" "Galley!" "Why is there no water?" "There must always be water." " How come there's no water?" " None." "Who said there's no water?" " lt should be full." " lt's almost full." "It's half empty." "It will be empty in 2 minutes after the herring they've eaten." "Hurry up, get undressed." "Undress inside." "Anyway, you'll have to wash your clothes." "Wash everything you wear." "Your work uniform, your vests, your underwear, your socks." "Understand?" " The water is cold!" " Still cold?" "Go on, turn it on." "This way, turn it on more." "Still more!" "On full." "Go on, go on." " ls it working?" " lt will." "The water isn't running." "The pipe is cold." "We'll be here hours." "What shall we do?" "Why don't you take off your watch?" "Wash your armpits thoroughly, and your balls, your cocks... behind the ears, your heads..." "Wash your balls thoroughly." "Prokofiev!" "I don't like water!" "Shut the door, stop it!" "Hurry up the rest of you." "May I keep my letters?" "Yes, you can take them to bed with you, you can sleep on them." "They've brought a whole library." "Step on it, honey." "It's time to go to bed, and have sweet dreams:" "of naked women, a beer and a bite to eat." " l'll keep this, take it later." " OK." "Have you got everything?" "The three from the Urals, raise your hands." " Speciality?" " Radar operator." " Radar operator." " Motor-mechanic." "Follow me." "The others stay here." "There's a place for radio-telegraphers." "Are you the last one?" " ls this your hat?" " Yes." "All right?" "The young seamen who came on ship an hour ago," "did not expect any major events." "They weren't prepared for any." "Later they came to understand there wouldn't be any." "It would all go on the same way as it started, taking care of their bodies and clothes." "Still later, they would see that their commanders don't expect anything either." "Out loud, they curse the monotony and dream of battle." "But in their hearts, they are ordinary homely people." "Wake up, it's time to make tea." "Come on, wake up." "Wake up." "He felt pain, shame," "and bitterness." "He saw that nothing else was ever going to happen in his life." "He was going to remain the same." "He wouldn't have time to change," "because the life around him wouldn't change for a very long time." "People don't change." "They don't change because they cannot, or don't want to." "Then he felt ashamed for his doubts and his depression." "He started to blame himself." "He looked at the young seamen, who had been out in the frosty wind for 2 days," "trying to thaw out an Arctic settlement." "He realised with disgust that he was grateful to them for their patience and their submission." "And the Commander at last understood that it was this sentimental feeling that prevented him" "and many others like him, from one day taking" "the most important decision." "Where are the rags?" " Over there." " By the 30th?" "Where's the can?" "It's over there, 20-30 metres away." " lt's here." " lt's here, where are you going?" "What are you doing?" "It's like stone." "It's frozen, it's as hard as stone." "They should find a welder." " That's enough, away from there!" " l should go away?" "They have to cut it off." "No one to weld." "They have to find a welder." "Come here, the pipe is warm." "It will take 2 more hours." "One never knows what might explode." "It's barely possible." "Rags - where?" " There are some over there." " By the 30th?" "Where's the can?" "Over there, 20 metres away." "Where the hell are you going?" "The can is here!" "The can is here!" "This is for the hot and the cold water." "There's only cold." "No, he thought, I cannot keep silent." "I must constantly, ceaselessly, openly," "honestly, sincerely, and quite frankly converse with myself," "he thought." "It is not acceptable to become silent towards myself." "I have to converse with my soul." "Its questions cannot be ignored." "Being an officer, I must be a reasonable person." "To keep my wits lively I have to think, to think, to think all the time..." "And to read thick books written by people of old." "Once upon a time they also looked on this terrifying beauty," "day after day, without knowing what the future would hold," "those slaves of the 1930s." "It was they who built the dam and the old quays." "I am looking at it too," "thought the Commander." "The Commander is turning over the pages of his diary." "Suddenly he takes a decision:" "in this diary, he will not write" "another single line." "Early in the morning he comes out on deck." "It is cold and damp." "The Commander hears a young sentry walking nearby." "The sentry seems to be delirious." "He's freezing." "He's composing a letter as he walks." "But he only has enough energy to repeat" "the first phrase." "The Commander hears," ""My dear Mother..."" ""My dear Mother..."" "Serguei Bakai The Commander" "Camera Alexei Fiodorov" "Editor Leda Semionova" "Sound Serguei Moshkov" "Alexander Sokurov confession from the diary of a ship Commander" "The End" "© Nadezhda 1998" "Subtitles:" "Alexei Jankowsky" "Subtitling by TVS" " TlTRA film"