14/02/2011

At 1:23 am on April 26, 1986, an accident in the fourth reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, in the Ukraine, caused the release of a gigantic radioactive cloud. As the members of Communist Party in the nearby city of Prypiat try to downplay the event to keep from spreading panic throughout the population, Valery, Kabysh, a young Party member who ran to the plant, realizes the situation is grave and that the only answer is to run, the sooner the better.

With this premise, Innocent Saturday by Russian screenwriter-director Alexander Midzadze fully represents the spirit of the Berlinale Competition.

The film portrays one of the biggest disasters of the past 30 years, from an unusual perspective of among an endless number of possibilities. Valery (and with him the viewer) knows he has to leave, but life around him continues as usual for a Saturday, with its parties and small daily activities. He wants to take the train out of there, but his girlfriend doesn’t seem to fully understand the danger.

Valery thus finds himself catapulted into a wedding party, where, in almost real time, he meets his old rock band members, whom he betrayed in the name of the Party. Valery gets drunk, gets in a fight, makes senseless declarations and tries to forget.

The director follows his main character alternating agitated sequences, shot with a handheld camera, with more static (though equally chaotic) scenes of the alcohol-fuelled celebrations of an “innocent Saturday.”

The potentially interesting idea gets lost among the noisy exchanges of opinions, dances, embraces and kisses that run parallel to the main event. For the reactor is burning, and history, despite the crazy inhabitants of Prypiat, is about to run its course.

Innocent Saturday is a Russian/Ukranian/German co-production between Non Stop Pictures, Passenger Film, Arte, MDR and Bavaria Film, which handles international sales.

(Translated from Italian)