A Family (2004)

Ida stands at a wishing-tree and talks about her children, her longings, her life. Ida could be happy: she has a good job as head train-conductor with the Russian railroad and only a few years left to retire. Her oldest daughter Natasha has a husband who works as a clown and a child. Larisa, the youngest, has one marriage behind her and a second one pending – and seems to be a thoroughly happy person, who enjoys celebrating and going to parties. Yet Ida somehow has the feeling her life has passed her by: she had to marry because of her pregnancy, even though she had her eyes set on another man. Her marriage does not make her content, let alone happy. “Always back and forth, that was my entire life,” she says at some point. All of this is revealed in this documentary, allowing us an unusually intimate insight into the inner life of an average family in Tallinn. For more than three years, the filmmakers accompanied Ida, Natasha and Larisa. The political changes seem peripheral to this family: without a care they move between Riga, Moscow and Tallin. Private footage from a vacation is intercut with scenes in which, while driving, the daughters talk about their children, husbands and the person this film is dedicated to: their mother, who died during the making of this film. But with the upcoming birth of Natasha’s second child and footage of Larisa’s delivery, the film sends us the message that Ida’s life is continued by her daughters. And that things are as they are.

http://goeast.deutsches-filminstitut.de/goeast_2005/engl/programme/family.htm

Keywords: marriage | problems in marriage | loss of a spouse | love | yearning for love | honesty | living conditions | analyzing life | biography | mother | mother-daughter relationship | losing one's mother | mother's love | retired serviceman | gay club | breathing exercises | yearning | father | reading father's letter | clowns | home | dog | sadness | birth of a baby | childhood memories | wedding ceremony | recollections about the Soviet times | laughing | memories of one's youth | exhibition opening | family ties | hugging a tree | pregnant woman | warmth | cordiality | daughters | swimming | conductor | painful memories | Russian spirit | Russian community | Russians in the Republic of Estonia | Russians outside Estonia | alienation | experience beyond senses | View all »