The author's dramatic film “Panic Attacks” directed by Ivan I. Tverdovsky was released in Russia. The director was awarded the main prize for it at the second open Russian film festival of auteur cinema “Winter” in December 2023.
In his characteristic manner, Tverdovsky continues to explore important social problems. In the “Conference”, which participated in the Venice Film Festival, the director touched on the topic of the consequences of the terrorist attack in “Nord-Ost”, in “Correction Class” he considered the fine line between humanity and aggressive misanthropy, and in “Flood” he spoke about the jealousy and tragedy of a girl left alone at one with the outside world.
Tverdovsky's paintings are mainly built around some kind of illness, be it a physical limitation or mental fragmentation. If in “The Conference” the main character is torn from mental trauma, then in his new work the director gives the heroine a mental disorder and brings to the attention of the public her desire to escape from the poisonous and suffocating environment.
Tverdovsky ironically showed a resident of a modern industrial single-industry town, whose residents, being surrounded by industrial infrastructure, continue to give meaning to traditional beliefs and rely on solving problems with the help of witchcraft practices.
In the story, 18-year-old Vika suffers from panic attacks and other nervous disorders. According to the residents of Nikel, the girl is subject to demonic possession - hysteria. Vika wants to escape from the city that has become like a prison for her, the only entertainment in which is singing in a karaoke booth with her friends. She is sure that she will find peace of mind only in Scandinavia. Vika goes to a local healer in the hope that she will relieve her from painful anxiety, the suffocating care of her mother, and preferably from a remote, gloomy area with an unfavorable environment.
It seems that the grandmother’s rituals lead to some results, and the girl, as planned, draws up documents to go to Norway to join her sister. As if by magic - although in the literal sense this word is not comparable to Vicky's world - she meets Nikitos, a driver who regularly visits the northern European country. The heroine goes on the road with him, at the same time not forgetting to shout about her desires to the devil himself into the Kola superdeep well.
© Still from the film “Panic Attacks” (2023)
As in “Correction Class,” Tverdovsky first misleads the viewer - here the negative traits of the characters are not immediately revealed, which is why their perception in some moments changes dramatically. Gradually and slowly, the author reveals the true essence of the characters and turns inside out the truth in which they believe. In the new reality, even finding herself in a confined space, Vika does not experience any discomfort. But her act, committed to stay in the snowy paradise, may shock the audience.
The moody road movie, consisting mainly of static long shots, enhances the melancholy and the feeling of heavy and unpleasant aftertaste.
Contrasting color schemes also play an important role in the film, with the help of which the Russian dreary reality is contrasted with the serene Norwegian one. As the heroine moves away from her home, swamp green tones give way to gray-blue and light purple hues, and then the space is filled with sterile white.
However, such a visual technique is not new to the director; he already used this method in “Flood.” In addition, a kind of reference to the film is the appearance in the film of Maxim Shchegolev, who played one of the main roles in the film adaptation of Zamyatin’s work.
© Still from the film “Panic Attacks” (2023)
In “Panic Attacks” there are revealing scenes that metaphorically personify the doom and hopeless state of the characters. For this, the director chose the image of a young mother. For Tverdovsky, motherhood is akin to a disease and best conveys a viscous, viscous feeling, which, depending on the environment and conditions of the woman who gave birth, can become a happy period for her or a heavy burden, prompting her to escape from the new reality. Using the example of the heroine Daria Savelyeva, the author seems to justify the previously expressed claims of the character Svetlana Kamynina.
The ring composition once again returns the viewer to three friends who are already in different places: the girls sing without Vika in a karaoke bar, where on TV they show a clip about a cloudless sky on an attractively beautiful tropical island, and the heroine herself, who has achieved her goal, is in the desired place. Only the increasingly alarming and creaky music, reminiscent of the sound of a car engine starting, hints that the sterile happiness of the heroine, achieved after tasting the “bloody porridge,” will not last forever. This brings up the truism: wherever you go, you take yourself with you.
Tverdovsky’s “Panic Attacks,” like his other films, are undoubtedly among those that are remembered forever, regardless of what feelings they evoke. However, in his new work, the director reached his apogee in terms of skill in depicting a melancholic, depressive and pressing irreversible reality.