Recognisance not to leave

Producer: Andrey Sigle
Director: Anna Fenchenko
Screenplay: Natalya Repina
Genre: Drama with grotesque elements

“Recognizance not to leave” is an attempt to answer the only question: what does it mean to be and stay a human. It is a story about a man who lost his independence, who seeked for freedom and tried to find his own ego.
Usually freedom is associated with independence from other people that create a system that suppress you. But attempt to get freedom trough enlarging the distance between you and others give only an illusion.
The main character of the story is a programmist. His name we come to know only in the very end. He isolates himself from life and defends his small world with convenient roles of life. He is not involved in life affairs. His illusionary independence seems to be comfortable for him. His life is trouble-free. He has perspectives for the future. He thinks himself to be the owner of his fortune, but accidentally he becomes unable to manage himself according to his will. He can be inertial no more. His life goes the way opposite to the one he like: he becomes dependable on everyone. He is helpless and acts according to the circumstances.
Still, during the painful journey the hero comes to an evident necessity of a rebel against a senseless escape. Moved by the power of circumstances he fights his own nature to preserve his ego. Here his victory is doubtless. To be a man in all circumstances is the highest, metaphysical understanding of freedom.
Obviously a man should stay a dominant in opposition of a man and a system. Social and political problems are in the back ground. The world of men who’s lives are not called for and even names have no sense. Every hermitage is not safe. It is the world you want to escape from. It is the world of eternal movement. You shouldn’t stop in order not to see the absurd. In this model of not free world an example of freedom shown by a man has special value.
The most normal everyday people and life events come in touch in the most phantasmagorical and grotesque ways. Tragedy is shown through routine, logics through absurd. Common reality moves to be surrealism, but stay routine. Grotesque here should be noticeable firstly through the interpretation of the characters.
Absence of catastrophism, that is a great advantage of the screenplay, should be supported by the way of acting. The characters should make the spectators believe them, suffer with them. Make them feel their helplessness and naïve hided by rudeness and idleness. However, speaking one language with their reality the characters do not understand each other. Their world make closeness impossible: they are frightened те to have, but they are much more frightened to loose.
Inner tension of the main character grows together with the tension of the whole film, taking us into a strange mysterious and dangerous game. We start with a slight discomfort and through the fear and fatal despair in the film acts come to the final feeling of danger of every moment of human life. Colors get deeper, sound – sharper. Nevertheless in the very end tragical despair is replaced by the clarification that provides a sharp contrast. The shooting method would be based on the main character domination. We see the world through his eyes.
Time manipulation comes from the screenplay base. Events and metamorphoses that take much time have lack of it on the screen. It gives an effect of “scape of time”. The character’s attempts to stop and look at his life from the other side contrast greatly with the whole rhythm of the film, giving nearly meditative pauses. Arrhythmia provided by these attempts cause annoyance of other characters. Not every man is able to stop and ask himself: «Where and what for am I going?” Permanent movement saves from the need to ask this question. Nevertheless the will to solve one question – what does it mean to be a man? – is still live.