Everybody Dies But Me (2008) User Reviews

honest and thought provocative

[meruyertaliyeva · 7/10 · 12 March 2019]

The first feature film of young Valeria Gai Germanika, released in 2008, won a special prize of the judges in the contest "Golden Camera" on Cannes Film Festival. The film's plot lays around Katya, Zhanna and Vika, who are studying 9th year in school and are eagerly waiting for the disco, but many things in their lives change until this disco like fights, first sex and relationships with parents. The themes that Germanika was able to touch on by this film, such as youth and elder generation gap, child abuse and adolescence were shown very clearly and professionally. This job can be seen from the narration of the film, where the viewer sees the problems of growing up of Katya (Polina Filonenko), Zhanna (Agniya Kuznetsova) and Vika (Olga Shuvalova) from the perspective of their peer, not a usual adult. This idea is explained by the negative identity, which is described by girls perceiving their parents and any other adult as their personal enemy because they do not want to be as adults. This way the girls identify themselves as young people who are unlike these violent and coward adults are trying to live their lives the way they want and enjoy it without any restraints. As a result, they are "young, brave and smart" girls. As an instance, unlike adults, girls want to stay loyal to each other and as a result very hastily promise each other to stay together until they grow up. Germanika's choice of the way of narration eventually played the most significant role in the delivery of this key idea of the girls' identity. The story of each girl's entering the adult world shows vividly the suffering of teens during the post-Soviet Russia. As one of these sufferings, Germanika discusses in her film the generation gap. The very first scene in Katya's house shows her coming back from school while her parents are waiting for guests who do not come, but they still were hoping they will come. After that, we see a close-up scene of Katya looking at her belly with piercing that she would like to have, but her father comes into the room and beats her up until Katya starts crying and laying on the floor. It seems that for post-Soviet youth and teens having a piercing was a normal idea. However, parents due to their Soviet background and being a Soviet person still had such negative reactions to already usual things like a piercing. Moreover, as a result, in the film, this Soviet background and absence of progressive mindset lead to even greater misunderstanding between teens and parents, resulting in parents staying out of the growing process of their daughters because of their attitude. This negative attitude towards social progress is heated up by the follow-front and pan left shots, which prepare the viewer to something shocking like the scene where Katya is being beaten by her father while her mother just stands still looking at this process. The very first possible reason for the indifference of her mother that comes to the mind of any viewer might be that mother just got used to this kind of scenes because it happens very often. This again already tells a lot about parents' mindset and fear of losing control over their child, which is clearly a result of their staying out of the growing process of their children. Another great moment of the film is a smooth work of operator and director because this collaboration resulted in an effect of presence in the moment. As Julia Vassilieva, author of the academic articel "Becoming-Girl" in the New Russian Cinema" says, "Germanika delivers an insider, cinema vérité - style perspective on the daily functioning of this universe" (p.63) In other words, Germanika's decision to reject the usage of any camera rails and go with the good old hand-held camera method, along with the decision to shoot the film in the region of Moscow where just that type of marginal group lived, by which I mean not the rich New Russians or any middle class group, but the ones who were not able to "win over" the situation of post-Soviet Russia, became a key to delivery of the film's idea. Here Germanika's experience in the documentary film helps her to portray the real life of teens and adults that could not accept the reality and improve her skills as a director. I think the scene when Katya just jumps out of her room's window to the disco and operator, the best operator at that time Alisher Hamidchodzhaev, also runs following her great, thereby creating this follow-back shot (FBS) with shaking hands and taking the viewer with Katya to the school disco is one of the greatest ones in the film. Deliberate and at that moment of time unusual for youth film production choices eventually made the film as much honest and unexpectedly thought provocative. I think the main achievement of Everyone Dies But Me is its bravery and realistic style of narration which inevitably led to the perception of the adolescents and teens as a pretty serious and attention-deserving theme and teens being just as important to the society. Showing the old decayed system in terms of oppressive schools and misunderstanding between parents and children, the film succeeds in showing the ugliness of humanity in post-Soviet Russia.

horrors of modern adolescence

[ch261 · 8/10 · 14 September 2012]

"Everybody dies, but me" is a surprisingly powerful coming-of-age drama, set in the suburbs of contemporary Moscow. Amidst a scenery of desolate concrete towers the 9-grader Shanna, Vika and Katya spend a crucial period of their adolescence dominated by school, violent parents, and of course the longing for fun and love. As a school disco is announced, all their thoughts and desires get concentrated onto this one event. This, however, will not at all bring about what the girls are looking for...

While the main plot itself is far from revolutionary and works off many clichés like (halfhearted) suicide attempts, a flight from parents home for the sake of a party and douchebags for lovers, the movie never feels simplistic or shallow. This is because its focus is not on what happens but how it happens and the implications that come along with it for the protagonists' status (within their own small peer group and within the school) and their developing identity. This is where the director Valeriya Gay Germanika has put all her efforts into and she has done it well. Though the movie is relatively short the main characters develop a convincing, multi-faceted personality moving far beyond the average teenager-movie.

This is of course only possible with convincing actors, and here again we are lucky because Polina Filonenko, Agniya Kuznetsova and Olga Shuvalova but also some side characters deliver - especially in the second half of the story - a stunning performance throughout most diverse episodes ranging from intimate friendship to brutal violence.

A strong indicator for the quality of the movie is the great interest one develops in the characters, though there is not a single one to identify with. In fact, the more one knows about them the less one sympathizes with them. This is a key element in a movie depicting adolescence not as the exciting time of sometimes difficult but in the end fruitful striving for love and success but rather as a period of weakness, insecurity and instability and the medium horror that comes with it for so many teenagers. In that, it is rather dissection than entertainment, and those who only seek the latter and have no interest in the former may be disappointed. Those, however, who are looking for a convincing portrait of how it is to grow up in the bleak quarters of our modern society the movie is highly recommended.

The epitome of teen angst

[Stas3098 · 10/10 · 18 June 2014]

Recently, I came across this movie, by pure chance, at a house of one of my Russian expatriate friends and the first thought that popped into my head was that this was yet another Russian totally down-right unwatchable piece of crap movie, but my friend ,however, went out of her way to laud and extol this movie and ,in sooth, she forced me to give it a watch and for that I'm glad now.

First and foremost, it is the first Russian movie in which I heard strong language used left and right.

Now about the story. The plot centers on three school BBFs (Katya, Vika and Zhanna)going through the teenage angst phase. They are wallflower type girls, though, they are no different from their peers in that that they believe the school to be the be-all and the end-all of everything.

Brimming with angst the wallflower girls decide to embark on a journey (they decide to go to the school party, simply put) that, they are sure, will let them escape the tedium of the listless suburban life. Little did they know that the notorious "teenage angst" was bound to upend their lives forever and ever.

They start making plans and indulging in day-dreaming about how the journey they're on (the school party) should turn out for them. Their grand plan is quite simple to go together to the party and shine there. But no, no such luck!

The shattering of their best-made plans of going together to the school party triggers a chain-reaction which takes them to some very dark places all courtesy of teenage angst and putting some stupid "pipe- dream" first at all costs.

The Other Side of Modern Russia in Gai Germanika's Everybody Dies but Me

[aizhanyerkimbekova · 10/10 · 21 October 2020]

Gai Germanika's Everybody Dies but Me is both a movie about growing up and a thought-provoking drama that rises social issues related to marginalization, gender, and the institute of the family in modern Russia. Gai Germanika is a Russian film-director that primarily raises issues of coming of age through her documentary-style movies and tv series. Similar to her previous works such as School, Girls, and Boys in this movie she focuses on the topic of youth transitioning from childhood to adulthood. She uses specific techniques of cinema verité style such as handheld camera, authentic dialogues, and natural setting to achieve the feeling of reality. The movie explores the border between drama and documentary by showcasing the mundane experiences of three schoolgirls compressed to five days of their lives. At the beginning of the movie the heroes, Vika, Katya, and Zhanna, learn about the disco that will be in five days and start preparing for it. This event becomes some sort of initiation after which they have to become "true" adults. We follow their paths of becoming adults by diving deep into their lives, experiences, and feelings during these five days. My initial feeling about the movie was that this is not a typical movie about youth. It does not moralize about what youth should and should not do. Gai Germanika breaks the tradition in modern Russian filmmaking where the youth is usually presented as a problem in the eyes of the adults. It doesn't try to judge or teach them about how to live. I felt extremely anxious after watching the movie because it was like a pill with a big dose of truth, but no one told me how to swallow it. The truth was that there is another side of Russia, there are people who are left aside. I always perceived Putin's era of "stability" as an era free from hunger and crimes of the 90s, an era of growing social and economic prosperity. However, Gai Germanika moved the camera lens from the lives of people who experienced this prosperity. Instead, she switched her attention to the apartments of ordinary Russians where the real life took place. This previously unknown "alternative reality" where people constantly live in a state of survival made me think about unresolved transgenerational traumas that were expressed through unhealthy behaviors of both adolescents and adults. I felt particularly anxious and related to the experiences of these girls because it reminded me of our own unresolved transgenerational traumas of living in poverty throughout the 90s, the feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness experienced by our parents and passed to us through stories and post-traumatic behaviors. One of the themes that I can relate to is the life of the marginalized. This movie shows one of the uncommon narratives about the era of stability- the lives of those who have been bypassed by the progress of those years. Being born in one of the provinces of Kazakhstan, the scenery from the movie with old Soviet buildings, roads full of potholes, and shabby playgrounds felt painfully familiar to me. I could relate to the lack of economic progress shown in the movie. I could also relate to the social degradation that was reflected through the relationships within families and school. Generally, all of the relationships between adults and teenagers were formed on the basis of a negative identity or "us" against "them". For example, Vika, Katya, and Zhanna usually snapped at their teachers and parents and used curse words and obscenities as a way of communication to show their opposition to those who considered as "others". The same is true for adults. Parents didn't understand their children and used physical violence such as in the case of Katya's father beating her. Teachers emotionally abused teenagers by publicly embarrassing and insulting them. This unhealthy state of relationships between parents, children, and teachers is one of the signs of social degradation that described the life of the marginalized. One of the interesting aspects of the movie is the cinema verité style of filming that Gai Germanika uses to show us the life of the marginalized. The handheld camera allows us to follow girls and witness their ordinary life as it is. We don't only witness their first experiences with boyfriends, alcohol, betrayal, but we become a part of their lives. The camerawork captures both the outside reality that is manifested in the relationship with others and inside the reality that is related to the relationship with the self. The outside reality shows that their relationship with parents, peers, and teachers is dysfunctional at its core. It is full of resentment, anger, avoidance of communication, and absolute disregard of each other's feelings and thoughts. Along with that, the camerawork was able to reveal the inside state of girls that is related to the unhealthy relationship with the self. From the close-up view, the camera captures the tears of Zhanna when she loses her pet, but at the same time, it captures the times when she tries to shut down her "childishness" by drinking and smoking. This style of filming masterfully delivers the battle inside of girls between adulthood and childhood by closely capturing their actions and emotions. Gai Germanika also used cinema verité style to raise a theme of feminism. Gai Germanica didn't try to educate the audience about the inequality between genders. She used the language as a tool for redefining the role of women in Russian society. Through authentic dialogues that usually characterize cinema verité style, she showcased the example of female empowerment. One of the ways she did that is through mat or curse words that were used to establish women as equal to men. For instance, in one of the last scenes, the girlfriend of Alex starts beating him and swearing at him. When she starts doing it, Alex starts backing down, which shows that he is rather a weak figure despite him being a male. This scene shows the skillful use of language, specifically curse words, to deliver messages about changing social roles between men and women without explicitly mentioning gender as a social problem. The movie of Gai Germanica is a thought-provoking and extremely emotional drama about the youth, the adults, and modern Russian society in general. Those who can relate to the experiences of Katya, Vika, and Zhanna might feel empathic and even angry, those who can't will at least feel the pain the girls go through as a result of their experiences. This movie reveals a lot about social problems through individual experiences. I would definitely recommend watching the movie to those who are interested in exploring social problems through stories of people.

ADULTery: Cheating on Childhood & Life

[alpysbaeva_m · 8/10 · 6 March 2019]

If you expect someone to die in this movie based on the title, you should probably reconsider your choice, and may be watch something like Game of Thrones or one of Tarantino's movie. Because Gai Germanika is an artist from another league. She boldly represents the New Drama movement as well as documentary movies' artists that are moved by the desire to show the unpolished reality of our life. So, if you were once a teenager, you will be able to relate to this movie. In Everybody Dies but Me Gai Germanika provides a complex documentary insight into the youth development and aims to recreate the brutal life of marginalized groups. Gai Germanika is a female, independent, young director in an old male and large production dominated industry. Her unconventional profile as well as her art stand out and resist the norms of Russian cinematography. Similarly, Katia, Zhanna, and Vika- the main heroines of the movie- are in the opposition of power structures. The movie brilliantly portrays common to all young people and especially teenagers experience of resentment, opposition and constant conflict both with external and internal worlds. The concept of "negative identity" resulted from the feeling of resentiment is central to the movie and is especially evident in the hostile and violent way girls treat their childhood. This violence in turn, is a response to the disenchantment with adults and school officials that were once held as role models and omniscient authorities. One of the very first examples of internal conflict we see in the scene when Zhanna attempts to cut her wrists as a punishment for taking her father's fishes to comfort the dead cat in a grave. Thus, the suicidal scene showcases Zhanna's realization of her own immaturity and frustration with her childish and naïve behavior. This scene is then immediately followed by a naked Katia sitting on the pipes in something like a basement and repeating following: "Pust' budet diskoteka i u menia budet paren'" (Let the school dance happen and I'll get a boyfriend). Diskoteka (school dance) and getting a boyfriend are repeatedly emphasized as initiation process into the adult world and a way to finally defeat their childishness. But the culmination of this internal conflict and hostility towards their childishness for me was Katia's sexual intercourse with Alex. Because although we see the unpleasantness and painfulness of the process for Katia, when Alex finishes, she says that she felt very good and it wasn't like anything before. Thus, we can clearly deduce that Katia feels proud of ending her childhood and conforms with what she thinks an adult would say despite the abuse she experienced. The choice of the mundane, very common experiences and settings in which Gai Germanika places her heroines don't seem to help us understand and perceive their characters. This usually negatively affects the connection between the audience and the main heroines, possibly lowering the degree of sympathy towards the hardships of their life. However, this can be easily explained by the intentional depersonalization and focus on group identity in the best traditions of New Drama achieved through verbatim (Beumers and Lipovetsky 2010). Thus, girls' rough speech consisting of youth slang and interjections: "blin, koroche, vashche, ovtsa" creates a sense of authenticity of a marginalized group they belong to. And in contrast to conventions, make them believable and real to the audience (Beumers and Lipovetsky 2010). Gai Germanika's documentary shooting techniques is another diamond in the crown of this movie, as they recreate the illusionary sense of presence. Shaky shots created with limited usage of camera track sliders, Steadicam or any stabilizing techniques, and dominant usage of hand-held camera imitate home videos and strengthens the truthfulness of the picture. The close-up, medium close-up, and over-the-shoulder shots, in turn, also engage the audience as life witnesses of the action. Another spectacular feature of this movie is that true depiction of common experiences makes it relatable to all, as we were all once teenagers just like these girls to some degree. It shouldn't therefore be surprising that Gai Germanika's excellence in both shooting and writing, as well as directing in Everybody Dies but Me got a massive recognition on national and global scale, as it collected Nika Award in "Young Talent Discovery of the Year" nomination, Prix Regards Jeune and special mention in the Caméra d'Or ("Golden Camera" award) on Cannes Film Festival, CineVision award of the Munich Film Festival, as well as «Best Actress» award for the three lead actresses on 26 Brussels International Independent Film Festival. Although by now you should be already downloading the movie, I still feel an obligation to explain the title due to my disappointing disclaimer in the beginning. But you can stop now to solve this riddle yourself. I must also note that Gai Germanika came up with the title only after shooting the movie, so you can similarly deduce the meaning of it after watching. But for those interested, let me continue... As I mentioned before, Everybody Dies but Me is a complex picture. Gai Germanika doesn't only discuss the resentment of childhood, disenchantment with adult authority, and making sense of Self in terms of opposing childhood as the Other discussed above. It also rotates around young generation's alarming attitude towards the death. The phrase proclaimed by Katia a.k.a. the title of the movie when she returns home from diskoteka, therefore, is symbolic for teenagers' rejection of death. Because apart from the desire for sexual relations as a mean to be initiated to the adult world, teenagers are also shown as consuming alcohol and constantly smoking cigarettes, as if death is not something that can happen to them. Thus, young people commit not only ADULTery on their childhood, but also on their life.

Everybody Dies but Me

[adelyasyzdykova · 8/10 · 8 March 2019]

"Everybody dies but me. Go **** yourself!" - would YOU ever dare to say this phrase to your parents? If YOU would not, then the film Everybody dies but me directed by Valeriya Gai Germanika is really worth watching for YOU. If YOU would, then it is much more than worth watching, it is worth analyzing for YOU. The process of growing up is crucially important for both parents and children, which is dramatically portrayed in the film. This work can be used as a source for analyzing the necessity to non-childfree people pay attention to their children and to minimize the mistakes during this period of misunderstandings. By mentioning the artificial detachment from the real world, the film draws attention to the issues that exist in reality: the attempts of kids like Zhanna (Agniia Kuznetsova), Vika (Ol'ga Shuvalova) and Katia (Polina Filonenko) to be adults through drinking, talking about sex and suffering from these desires afterwards which led them to unconsciousness, rape and betrayal; the useless attempts of adults like the girls' parents to control their kids, by violently suppressing them, beating and then falling at the girls' feet after realizing that their children need support OR A PROPER UPBRINGING instead. Such a provocative approach to the topics not openly discussed in the post-Soviet countries like parent-child relationships, reality of growing up, brought several awards to the director of the film, including Cannes Film Festival "Prix Regards Jeune - Young cinematographer" award (2008) and Nika Award nominated for "Young Talent Discovery of the Year" (2009) IMDB. Various messages sent by Gai Germanika can provoke the emergence of the flashbacks to real life in the mind of the viewer, just like it happened in my head. The film woke up the memories of being a child and an "observer" of the situations that the main heroines Zhanna, Vika and Katya went through. When I was a child, I was happy to meet people whom I did not think of until watching this film. And I am now happy that the films like Everybody Dies but Me give the viewer a chance to draw the parallels with the reality of people who had been going through similar situations in their life. I remember a 14-year-old girl that was betrayed by her boyfriend, suffered from this as an immature child, in the mean time trying to hide more behind that mask of suffering from betrayal. When I asked her what the problem was, she asked me to follow her to a place where no one would see us and showed me a lump of breast cancer that she could not even tell her parents about. Another girl Galia living in the dormitory for low-income people was misguided by constant shifts between the abuse and sudden support of her parents, in the same way as Vika was. Undoubtedly, we all have memories that our consciousness wants to bury inside, however, this film's plot will make you dig them up and reanalyze it as a direct observer of the events happening with the heroines. The lack of special effects in the shooting and the montage of the film makes the viewer feel as if he is standing near the girls, looking at them but just not able to stop them from rash decisions that the girls' parents should have prevented. "Everybody dies but me. MOM, WHAT?!" The way the girls treat their parents can result in unpleasant feelings towards them, however, this behaviour can also be perceived as a common issue among various generations. The film demonstrates complete misunderstanding between Generation X, Y and Z, by showing their relationship with each other through the dialogues emerging due to the disco that the girls wanted to attend so much:

• "Mom, why don't you go to hell? Dad, why don't you go to hell? I ****ed it all!"
• "We still love you very much."
• "But I don't!!!"

Why did this conversation happen only after horrible events at the disco? Were the girls supposed to face such a destiny so that their parents would understand that there is something going wrong? Did they understand indeed? Or should the world be like that: parents reacting by carrot and stick, teachers aggressively reacting to the provocative actions of girls, girls having no idea how to grow up, therefore, choosing the way that seems to be supported by older girls in the school. Is it a reality? A hundred more questions will arise after watching the film and a thousand more answers will form in the viewer's mind. "Everybody dies but me. If only all adults would die..." The girls depicted in the film obscured from the reality of adolescents and generated their own adult world where their imperfections could transform into the traits that older girls from the school would consider to be cool. Uncertainty hidden by impulsiveness, preference to bubblegum when they are alone because they like it vs drinking alcohol when they are with other girls because it is a way to deserve respect in their society. Gay Germanika shows that adolescents are often doing everything they can to create a parallel world to fit their views and dive into the reality that seems to be more pleasant. But whom is it actually pleasant to? To the girls themselves? Or to those older girls who witness their shame? The girls' rejection of their parents, teachers, schoolmates, rules in general demonstrates the negative identity they can be associated with. Trying to react with violence and perceive people, who they do not identify themselves with as others, worsens the situation for the girls. Actually, everything is the other in this film for the girls: world, society, adulthood, childhood, parents, girls to each other and even death seems to be something unreal for them, because they prefer to be untouchable by all of that, they have their own reality. The girls' incomplete understanding of the world around them and the depictions of others as rivals pushes Zhanna to say: "If only all adults would die...". But does she want everyone to die indeed? Zhanna's reply to this question would be: "Come and see it, or go **** yourself!"

Girls Will Be Girls

[kaisardauletbek · 8/10 · 22 October 2020]

Valeriya Dudinskaya was 14 years old when she decided to become Valeriya Gai Germanika. She also considers it as the beginning of her artistic career. Zhanna, Vika, and Katya of Everyone Dies but Me were the same age when the school principal announced an upcoming school party - an ultimate event which would be a life-defining moment for girls. They prepared their best looks, planned on how to get alcohol and cigarettes, and most importantly - were desperate for boys' attention. And they did get all of that... Except for the fact that they pictured it a bit differently. Germanika's straightforward look into the Russian reality puts the viewer in an uncomfortable position. At first, we see an average post-Soviet setting - adolescence in Soviet-built apartments, neglected parks, garages, and families of middle or less-than-average income. That all, however, gets darker, as Germanika incorporates violence as a part of the daily life of a Russian teenager. Katya is thrown down to the floor by her father for wearing vulgar clothes. Zhanna makes a suicide attempt because of being scared of getting beaten up by her father for killing his fishes. Kids are fighting outside the school on a regular basis. So, why does Germanika puts such an accent on violence, both physical and moral? To answer this question, we may refer to the concept of negative identity as it can help us with the interpretation of Germanika's narrative. Negative identity refers to the identification that opposes any kind of societal expectations. In Everyone Dies but Me, the ultimate desire of girls to defy the status quo that the society assigns to them is a key element of the film. Their decisions reflect their will to prove everyone wrong: "It's you who is an excess. Moron", says Katya to her teacher. By doing so, they treat every other person - parents, peers, senior students - as an enemy. This hatred is the main cause of the violence we see in this film. Referring to Beumers and Lipovetsky, we see that the negative identification causes any kind of communication to be violent, since every Other is a potential enemy. As regards the technical part of the film, I have to mention that the camera work of Alisher Khamidkhodzhayev plays a crucial role in the viewer's perception of the film. Khamidkhodzhayev ensures that the viewer is involved in the film as much as possible. He holds the camera predominantly on the level of actors' eyes and in a close range, placing us on the same level with them and allowing us into their personal space. That is also one of the key components of Germanika's filmmaking - she is a peer to her heroines. With the help of camerawork, she is able to tell the story about the girls while being with them, as if she was a tailor that sews from within. Germanika's omnipresence in this film is what, I believe, critics in Cannes found interesting about her approach. Another remarkable point about Khamidkhodzhayev's work is that he picks his camera angles so that there is always a prolonged space, whether it is the school hall, playground, or an alley. And here, we are getting involved with the concept of liminal spaces in this film. When assessing girls' physical location, it is important to notice that they spend most of the time somewhere in between their homes and school. The stairs, the landings, the taxi cab are the places that are supposed to take you from point A to point B. The girls, of course, refuse to be in either of those - they run away from classes with the same enthusiasm as when they run away from their parents. Therefore, Germanika shows that this age is all about being transient - first, Katya, Zhanna, and Vika swear to be friends till the ends of their lives, and two days after we see them doing exactly the opposite. Speaking of Germanika's previous works, many critics mention that Everyone Dies but Me is reminiscent of Germanika's documentary The Girls. There, she depicts the lives of three real girls during their summer holidays. In both films, we see the usual urban setting, the young female characters, and their vulnerability toward the things that adolescence exposes them to - romantic relationships, alcohol, and body experiments. However, the key difference between these films is that Germanika keeps her distance in The Girls - we can only see what the characters allow us to. Zhanna, Vika, and Katya, on the contrary, are much closer to us. Germanika makes a great effort to share the most intimate of their experiences with us, as was discussed earlier. Summing up, Everyone Dies but Me is Germanika's detailed answer to the question of: "What does it mean to be a teenage girl in Russia?". She picks average characters, puts them into the usual Russian setting, and depicts the way they interact with the world surrounding them. It is also interesting that Germanika is known to be very compassionate about demonstrating the world through the eyes of young women. A perspective that she delivers successfully, and that is still so much needed in the male-dominated world of film.

About humans and their relations

[tomirisnurgaliyeva · 24 October 2020]

"I make films about human relations, about the lack of dialogue between the generations.", - says a famous Russian director Valeria Gai Germanika about one of her works, the TV show School (2010). Themes of interpersonal relations can be seen in many of her other works like Sisters (2005), Girls (2005), Boys (2007), and, eventually, Everyone Dies but Me (2008). The coming-of-age stories about the teens going through the hardships of balancing their lives between the home, school, and friends dive viewers into the reality of early 00's teens, who were stuck at the era of the affordances. This problem, caused by the historical period of Putinism and consequent growth of availabilities of food, films, and ideas on the market results into a new era of teenhood, where being cool is having sex, drinking, and trying drugs as early as possible. The film was shot not for the teens who know themselves all the truths of the 00's but for the parents and adults to let them understand the youngsters' issues. Gai Germanika was only 24 years old when she directed the film Everyone Dies but Me and received the award "Golden Camera" at the Cannes Film Festival. Not her experienced skills in film making but her proximity both to the teenages of the films and the adults behind the screen made her film unique. Gai Germanika understood what new ideals of the teenagers were because she was slightly older than the characters, as well as she knew what parents should know because she was an adult already. By using visual, plot, and mise-en-scene solutions, she shows a week from the lives of three 9th grade girls, Katya, Zhanna, and Vika, who survive the domestic violence, school bullying, and personal problems just to be able to go to the event of their teenage dreams - the school disco party. Visually, the film is different from traditional Soviet films. There is no usage of stabilizator. As a result, the narration becomes less strict and more realistic. Camera moves as if an imaginary classmate of the girls follows them everywhere, sometimes focusing their home camera on the faces of the girls, sometimes on an interesting action nearby, and other times on the masses of people like if the viewers are inside these crowds. This solution creates a feeling of presence in the film from the perspective of the student of that school. Moreover, there are longshots with the duration from 5 and more minutes long that let the viewers embrace the atmosphere of the environment. In addition, phrases of the characters are of no less significance to the atmosphere. There are not only important for the narration phrases but also some less informal and casual situations, such as the purchases of snacks, driving from the home to the school, or burying the kitten. All of these shots and their features form a relation with the character that is new for post-Soviet spectator - more intimate, trusting, and natural. The plot and how it engages the audience is another important aspect of the film which changes the understanding of the teenhood. Viewers do not feel the estrangement, or a feeling of distance and incomprehension, to the problems of the girls. In contrast, the director involves us into girls' everyday lives. For instance, one would accompany one of the girls, Katya, from school where she is shouted at by her parents to home where she is beaten up, then back school and back home. Her life is not taken out of context but shown to the public in all its reality and diversity. The same with other girls, Zhanna and Vika, whose deepest wishes and aspirations are shared more carefully with the viewers than even with each other. For instance, we see Zhanna's pleas for having a boyfriend at the disco, while her friends did not know this. Moreover, the film is set during one of the highest emotional experiences of their lives - the disco-party. This event uncovered the girls' emotions to a larger extent. Disco is a social event that is one of the first parts of adult life that the teenagers may experience. They try to show their best at this event because they want to become like adults. Therefore, their emotions become more sincere and vivid. Purpose of the film is also unique. As Julia Vassilyeva said in her critique on the film: films of the pre-21st century era " were lacking in one important respect: they were all made from a socially normative point of view located outside the youth world and were often judgmental and didactic.". For some, in fact, the film may seem disgusting and repulsive because the school teenagers were shown together with the drugs, violence, and alcohol. However, as Gai Germanika depicted in her film, that is the new reality of some youngsters. They live surrounded by violence, dirt, and anger. But they do not become so on their own. These teens absorb what they see in the adults around them. This is why Gai Germanika captured this film for the adults. This film is her message to the older generation, implying: "Look! Look what we've done to our children!". She made a film about the relations of the people. But the relations were not on the screen. She made the people think about their real life relations.