RESPONSES
Kseniyka Smith-Velikolug, playwright, painter, blogger, reviews Insulted. Belorus(sia)
I just watched an incredibly powerful film by Oksana Mysina - Insulted. Belarus(sia). I rarely watch films, but when I saw the trailer on Facebook, I realized that this movie must be seen.
Someday, when all the Middle Ages of the 21st century are behind us, and the past finally becomes the past, this film will be studied as a masterpiece. This is truly a masterpiece. Made in the manner of a ZOOM-reading by actors, apparently sitting at home, this film raises goosebumps on the skin and a lump in the throat.
Unfortunately, I don’t know the names of the actors, except for Lia Medzhidovna Akhedzhakova, and therefore I’ll talk about a brown-eyed dictator, a boy with a fashionable haircut, the blue-eyed and golden-haired embodiment of goodness and truth, an evil red dragon of the past, a fiery football fan and... the devil, who has a sexual member in place of brains.
This story is about how a dictator grabbed power and will not let go. For him, his country is like a woman, whom he rapes every night. And a woman, like his country, must be controlled... Because a woman, she is a stupid, unreasonable creature, and if she has a temper, she just might eat the poor man. She is a nightmare! Not like a horse. You can beat a horse, even whip her, she won't say a word. This is what the dictator dreams about. A dumb horse. But that wasn't how it worked out...
Suddenly ungrateful people no longer wanted to be cattle. They organized a “thee-yay-ter,” and, boy, the dictator does not like theater. There is nothing in his universe but hay, birds and harvesting potatoes. His brain is stuck dumbly in the past... Alongside him lives an unfortunate boy with a broken psyche. He no longer can stand harvesting potatoes or smelling stinky, steaming milk. Nor can he stand Soviet, idiotic pathos, which adds up to nothing more than a lie. The dictator has a devil under his control. They both are very similar to, both have brains stuck in the Middle Ages, only the second of them, perhaps, is the most terrible. This one would rape or kill is own mother and would not blink an eye. For he has a higher goal, the protection of the homeland. But is it his home?
The dictator also possesses a red dragon who spews Soviet truths... Oh, how often I meet such dragons... they are everywhere... they cook borscht and miss the USSR... they love order, not in the German sense of the word, but as one finds in a graveyard. Eventually, one feels sorry for the dragon... She ceases to be a dragon and transforms into a heartbroken mother. He, who she defended at the cost of her conscience, repaid her with the blood of subsequent generations.
What stands in opposition to these people? Pure light. They try to trample the light out, beat it down, rape it, but it will not go out. Even a football fan, known for his aggressiveness and pugnacity, turns out to be a real person... All of them - the girl in a white dress, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, and the invisible Masha, the bride of the devil - they all seem to form one suffering body. Yet, rays of light are breaking through their wounds.
'STRIKES TO THE HEART...'
Natalya Perova, director and teacher of acting, Shchepkin Institute
Yes! All the actors are good and the point is well-taken. I like that the actors' selection was made for their internal makeup, and not their external givens. This provides interesting levels and depths. All of them are excellent! Congratulations! The mix of live actors and documentary frames is good. Things develop and break through beautifully. It is marvelous that you left Akhedzhakova's final scene with her reading off the page number, that you did not cut that. It's very life-like and adds something quite touching. A job well done that strikes to the heart.
"EVERYONE SHOULD SEE THIS FILM..."
RUZANNA MOVSESYAN, Director, Moscow
"A powerful film! I’m weeping. Everyone should see this. It should be shown wherever it can be shown. Your Lukashenko [Alexander Topuria] is so spot-on! And your Nikita [Alexei Nesterov]! This is the real thing!"
"MARVELOUS...TERRIFIC...MASTERFUL..."
KRISTIN CORBET-MILWARD, Actress, London
"I completely forgot to congratulate Oksana on her marvellous film. I thought what she did was terrific. It was deeply moving. It was very interesting to see the play with such a different cast from ours - she made so many brave choices when it came to casting that came off beautifully. I'm thinking particularly of the woman who played Cheerful [Lia Akhedzhakova], whose age made a nonsense in so many ways of what we know about Cheerful, but whose performance was absolutely triumphant. I wept as I listened to her. And the actress playing Svetlana [Anna Sirotina] - marvellous. I could go on and on. The editing Oksana did was masterful."
"MYSINA’S FILM BRINGS OUT THE MYTHIC QUALITY OF THE PLAY..."
BRYAN BROWN, director, co-founder of ARTEL Theater, researcher, Exeter UK
"Oksana Mysina’s film is especially notable for bringing out the mythic quality of the play through layering external shots of both the natural beauty and ancient historical sites of Crete (where she is based) on to the solitary footage of actors (often shot on smartphones in Russia or Spain). In doing so, Mysina not only understands the way in which Kureichyk tapped into archetypal ideas of human experience, power, and freedom, but also how he aimed to merge the mythic with personal confession."
"The Translation of Protest: The Worldwide Readings Project of Andrei Kureichyk’s Insulted. Belarus," New Theatre Quarterly, Volume 39, Issue 1 (2023).
"THE ACTORS INHABIT THESE EVENTS THROUGH THE TEXT AND FATES OF THEIR HEROES..."
A Facebook review
By journalist Arina Borodina
With a difference of a single day I watched two films, both dedicated to the events in Belarus. The Belarusian protests. My entire feed of Facebook memories "on this day" a year ago, starting on August 9, reminds me of what was happening then in Minsk and other cities of Belarus. Freedom and suppression. Protest and torture. Power and lawlessness. The lawlessness of Lukashenka. And once again - freedom, people, dignity, love... These events, of course, were shocking then. It was all the more interesting and important for me personally to watch both of these films. They are very different, the authors, the style, and their heroes...
Oksana Mysina, a well-known actress, a person of talent and a concerned active citizen, shot her first feature film as a director. It is entirely dedicated to the events in Minsk on August 9, 2020 and is called "Offended. Belarus(sia)." It was filmed in an unusual format, it is a "reading" of roles in an online format, where there are both real characters (Lukashenko, his son Kolya, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya) and the collective heroes of that night in Minsk, those who took to the streets to protest falsified results in the Belarusian presidential elections and ended up in police vans, having lost friends and loved ones, as well as those who shot at people, mocked them, physically destroying them, and those who supported Lukashenka, then lost loved ones on the streets of Minsk. Their reconsideration of events cost them dearly... The actors, led by the beautiful Lea Akhedzhakova, inhabit these events that took place a year ago through the text and fates of their heroes, while the background footage is a chronicle of the events of that night... Screenwriter Andrei Kureichik, as Oksana writes on her Facebook page, is "the leader of Belarusian drama." Here is a link to a site where you can find all the information about Oksana Mysina's film "Offended. Belarus(sia)." https: //jfreed16.wixsite.com/insultedbelarus .... There is also a link to the film, but for some reason it does not work now [Ed. note: closed by distributor at present.]
There are terrible and difficult moments in the film, incliuding the role of a storm trooper, a security officer, who is played by Vladimir Koshevoy [Ed. note: see photo above]. It is very difficult to watch and hear this, but it is important to remember. How orders were given to destroy people.
[...]
Both films, that of Oksana Mysina and of Masha Borzunova, run for an hour and a half. Each provides differing evidence of what happened and how it happened in Belarus. They tell a common story. In spite of everything, I want to believe it has an open ending.
Thanks for these films to Oksana and Masha and everyone involved in their creation.
"NUANCED, SUBTLE ACTING AND POETIC FILMMAKING..."
"Insulted. Belarus. Worldwide Readings"
By Valleri Robinson
This excerpt from an article about the Worldwide Reading Project of Andrei Kureichik's Insulted. Belarus is devoted to Oksana Mysina's film of the play:
[…] “A cinematic reading” directed by Oksana Mysina, relies upon nuanced, subtle acting and poetic filmmaking. The film, featuring legendary Russian actress and human rights advocate Liya Akhedzhakova as Cheerful, premiered on the Russian television station Rain on November 12, 2020. Filmed with COVID protocols, the actors appear stationed in non-distinct interior and exterior spaces, initially signaling the work as a reading of the play. Through elegant sound and video montage editing of documentary and impressionistic natural footage, the film creates a rhythm that illuminates the unsettled environment as it grows increasingly dangerous and fractured. Urgent, impatient honking transitions to machine-gun fire and heavy rain as the camera closes in on the piercingly cruel eyes of the riot policeman and a chilling close-up on Oldster. The film ends, as many readings have, on a note of resolve, following Kureichik’s suggested use of the Belarusian version of the protest song, “Destroy the Prison Walls.” […]
Theatre Journal 73, No. 3 (Sept. 2021): 427-429.
From the book Belarusian Theatre and the 2020 Pro-Democracy Protests: Documenting the Resistance, by Valleri J. Robinson (Anthem Press, 2024), pp. 34-35.
"...filmmakers Oksana Mysina and Javor Gardev found two alternative readings of the work. Both films were made using Covid-19 protocols using solo performers and limited technical support. Russian director and celebrated film and stage actress, Mysina, created a poetically naturalistic film that incorporated imagistic montage and rhythmic editing and sound to capture the pre-election hope and disorienting, chaotic, violent aftermath. The actors, stars of the Russian and Belarusian stages, filmed themselves in various natural interior and exterior settings and performed their roles in an understated, realistic manner. The film premiered on Russia’s TV Rain Channel on November 12, 2020, before the station was shut down by the Russian government..."