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 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? - I 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? - I 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 CONFESSlON
from the diary of a ship Commander
End of Part Four
Nadezhda 1998
Subtitles: Alexei Jankowsky
Subtitling by TVS - TlTRA FlLM