Galway Film Society

A Room and a Half

Dir: Andrey Khrzhanovskiy - Russia 2009 - 130 mins

A unique journey to the earlier life of Nobel Prize winning Russian poet Joseph Brodsky and the USSR, the country of his youth. Asked in an interview if he was planning to come back to see his fatherland, Joseph Brodsky said that if he did so, it would be anonymously. Khrzhanovsky presumes that Brodsky actually made the trip and this is the inspiration that underlies A Room And A Half. The poet travels by ship to the country of his youth, taking the audience along as he crosses not only geographical barriers but barriers of time as well. We are transported back to the 50s and 60s in the USSR and the atmosphere of the country's cultural capital, St. Petersburg. Stylistically, the film is a perfect blend of fiction, historical footage and animation, smoothly intertwined with one another in a highly original manner. The basic facts are all connected with the life of Joseph Brodsky and his milieu. It is a fantastic, unique voyage to the country's past and its genius - delicate, intimate, revealing.

ACCA Jury Award Mar del Plata Film Festival 2009