During
the Cold War, the Soviets not only quartered an occupying military force within
Poland, they also groomed a serial killer in their midst. At least the young
psychopath was eventually packed off to Russia, where he would keep busy as the
nation’s most prolific and elusive murderer. The story of Kola Sokolow is
fictional, but the Soviet and Russian attitudes it depicts are profoundly true
in Waldemar Krzystek’s The Photographer (trailer here), which screens
during the 2015 Three Rivers Film Festival (that’s in Pittsburgh).
Natasza
Sinkina actually had the nerve to arrest a regime-friendly oligarch who
deliberately mowed down a young woman with his SUV. As a result, she is sent in
for a psych evaluation, but it goes surprisingly well. It turns out she was not
talking to the shrink she had been referred to, but the notorious serial killer
known as “The Photographer” (so dubbed because of the forensic photography
markers he always mockingly leaves around his corpses), who had just butchered
the real psychiatrist in the next room. Unfortunately, due to strange circumstances,
Sinkina never really got a good look at the chameleon-like murderer, but FSB
Major Lebiadkin has her assigned to his task force anyway. He wants to know why
the Photographer spared her.
Sinkina
quickly deduces the psychiatrist was not a random spree killing. The
Photographer deliberately stalked him, because of the archival films he had
just shown in class. Secretly shot by the KGB for potential blackmail purposes,
they record a rather disturbed young boy’s visits to a less than enlightened
doctor. Young Kola was a gifted mimic, who refused to use his own voice. It is
also safe to say the son of an ambitious Soviet officer also had parental
issues. Like many people deemed inconvenient by the Socialist state, the seven
year Kola was soon shipped off to a dubious mental hospital. His current
whereabouts are unknown, but he appears to be headed back to Poland for old
times’ sake.
Although
it is quickly apparent Sokolow is the killer, The Photographer is still a tense cat-and-mouse thriller,
constantly complicated by the grimly absurdist realities of the old Soviet and not
so new Russian systems. You could say the Photographer is truly a product of
his Communist environment, but his parents’ refusal to provide any sort of
nurturing did not help either. Consequently, the stakes in Photographer are greater than “merely” catching a ruthless serial
killer.
Aleksandr
Baluev is absolutely terrific as the world weary but still Machiavellian Lebiadkin.
He makes even the most routine procedural scenes unpredictable. Tatiana
Arntgolts is also an impressively intelligent, coolly collected presence as
Sinkina. Indeed, Krzystek and co-screenwriter Krzsztof Kopka treat her
character with rare respect. Just about the only time it seems she needs her
male colleagues’ help, it is largely because they put her in jeopardy. Although
we hardly see the grown-up Photographer, Ukrainian Andriej Kostash is all kinds
of creepy as the young Kola seen in flashbacks, while Elena Babenko will make
your blood run cold as his Mommie Dearest.
Throughout
Photographer, Krzystek clearly
equates the bloody micro horrors of the Photographer with the macro horrors of
the Soviet era, without bashing us over the head with his points. As a result,
it is quite distinct from any other serial killer film you have seen before.
Unusually cerebral, but also gritty and gripping, The Photographer is recommended for mystery-thriller fans when it
screens this Monday (11/9) and Wednesday (11/11), as part of the Three Rivers
Film Festival.
