1st
12 (2007)
12 is, of course, an adaptation of the play Twelve Angry Men, first brought to screen by Sydney Lumet in 1957 (Henry Fonda as the lead). This one was adapted by the Russian writer/director Nikita Mikhalkov (also shamelessly playing the film’s key role), and he lenses the picture in Russian, with Russians, in Russia. Leaving the theater after the show, I overheard one bespectacled young man say to his loose frocked date “that was Russian like apple pie is American.” The snippy young hipster was right: this film is loudly Russian, but being loudly Russian is a far cry from being loudly American. The patriotism of other nations never strikes me with the open-throated caterwaul pitch that our own prime time patriots impress upon me. In this instance, I was actually a little charmed by the film’s hand-wringing obsession with its fatherland. The film takes the foundation of the play - a hung jury - and re-purposes it as a soap box for emphatic diatribes on the state of newly democratic Россия. Some of these speeches are gripping and others are nicely timed for mid-movie catnaps (the film is nearly three hours); one of them is an exceptional alignment of scripting, monologue delivery, and a steadicam operator with impeccable timing. While in the theater, I felt my pulse quicken during the hyper-cut final five minutes. So many familiar images were being flashed and juxtaposed, I felt certain that this meandering film had finally proven itself to be what I had hoped it was: a masterpiece of purpose and direction, a film fully in control of its content. But once free from the darkened freak box of Film Forum’s rear theater, I reflected and realized “no, it was just cut at 0.5 shots/second”; anything, even a commercial for Aunt Jemimah, will seem cathartic and consciousness elevating at that speed. The film is good, but (and I may be missing something, speaking only grammar school Russian and having no taste for kvass) it does not unlock any hidden secrets of the trembling, sad-eyed Slavic empire.
