The State Film Committee of Russia
Nadezhda Productions St.Petersburg
Producer Svetlana Voloshina
with the participation of Lenfilm Studios
Alexander Sokurov CONFESSlON
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,
Iooking 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... - It'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 l?
Who am l?"
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
Iike 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...
If you can't switch it off,
then you look for a tool.
- I 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.
- I check if he's breathing. - He isn't.
I do artificial respiration.
- His heart... - I 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 CONFESSlON
from the diary of a ship Commander
End of Part Two
Nadezhda 1998
Subtitles: Alexei Jankowski
Subtitling by TVS - TlTRA FlLM