And by “Summer Film” I don’t mean a blockbuster with special-effects, but a languorous film about summer, filled with that particular blend of ennui, humor, carefully written dialog and profound insight into human nature that was typical of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov.
This week, the 2009 film The Duel, directed by Dover Koshashvili, final migrated to the top of my Netflix list. Admittedly, I had expected another lackluster adaptation of Russian literature. Happily, this expectation was upset.
The cinematography and on location filming in Croatia is brilliant – there is a lightness and airiness to every scene that evokes June and the sea. The casting selections of the virtually unknown British actors were inspired (though the director would have been well to spend a bit on a dialog coach to teach them how to say “Nadezhda Fyodorovna” properly – it was like hearing Hilary Clinton trying to pronounce “Medvedev”), and the writing and staging is simply beautiful. While the visuals did seem a bit immaculate versus what one envisions of 19th century life in the Caucasus, this did help keep the focus on the actors, where it should be with Chekhov.
Andrew Scott is perfect as Laevsky, the slovenly layabout who shacks up with another man’s wife, but who doesn’t want to commit to her after he finds out her husband has died (something he learns before she does and withholds from her). And Fiona Gascott (Nadya, Laevsky’s married mistress) manages to be both pitiful and alluring all at once, as rudderless and lacking in moral compass as Laevsky, yet completely sympathetic. The principled zoologist Von Koren, played by Tobias Menzies, could easily have come across as a two-dimensional comic book character, but Menzies shows perfect restraint and we are never sure whether to admire him or condemn him as a self-satisfied prig. And the secondary characters, such as the police chief, the priest and the debutante are memorably drawn (the episode where Laevsky spies a beautiful woman with a lapdog walking by is a nice touch). The film builds nicely to the climactic duel between Laevsky and Von Koren, which even if you know the surprising outcome is wonderfully tense.
In short, there is all the Chekhovian uncertainty here, the complexity of personality and moral equivocation that makes his works such vivid reflections of real life. And it is wrapped in a beautiful cinematic package that makes you long for summer, even in July.
There seem to be few instances when Russian literature has been done justice by a screen adaptation, This is certainly one of them.
