21 minutes, DCP 24/25 fps, 1.78:1, 5.1, Switzerland/Russia 2013

Russian with English, German or French subtitles

THE GREEN SERPENT was shot and mainly edited during a five-week journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Our small team traveled from Moscow all the way to Olkhon, an island on Lake Baikal, with stops in Murmansk – the largest city north of the Arctic Circle –, St. Petersburg, Kotlas, Tomks and Irkutsk, searching for the soul of vodka and filming the people who drink it. 

Vodka and Russia are an old cliché, for some even a joke, or a tragedy. But vodka in Russia runs deeper. It is common sense that every culture has its quirks, its traditions. My journey, and therefore my film, was driven by a desire to find a different Russia – a Russia outside the clichés, the postcards or the myopic views that people often project onto the country. My film explores how drinkers aren’t always feeble, violent characters, but rather people with perhaps too much sensitivity.

As I endeavored to find this other Russia, I contemplated who would be my guides. Who are the most sensitive and reliable barometers of a society and its cultural habits? For me, it’s clearly the artists, and to some degree, the scientists as well. Artists act like mirrors – they reflect life, though not always in a direct manner. Pasternak described the artist as follows: 

Keep awake, keep awake, artist, 

Do not give in to sleep . . . 

You are eternity’s hostage 

And prisoner of time. 

Because I’d never been to Russia and knew little about Russian vodka culture aside from what I’d read, I decided it’d be best to first talk with poets, actors and musicians. As Russians, these artists would have their own experience with the pleasures and perils of drinking vodka. I believed that this approach would also lead me to further understand certain cultural nuances based on the insights these artists have into their cities, communities and neighborhoods. Furthermore, as a filmmaker, I am interested in the artistic process and sought to respond in my own medium to the creative work and thinking of my “guides”. 

The fate of the artist is to be highly sensitive and to produce something out of that sensitivity; I wanted to channel that into my discovery and storytelling about vodka. 

Andrei Tarkovsky writes in his book “Sculpting in time” about his film heroes: “I have always wanted to tell of people possessed of inner freedom despite being surrounded by others who are inwardly dependent and unfree; whose apparent weakness is born of moral conviction and a moral standpoint and in fact is a sign of strength.” From this point of view, I wanted to explore the strength of people who are imprisoned by their desire – whether we see it as healthy or not. At the very beginning I told my crew: Let’s avoid social romanticism, suspend our judgment, and explore. 

Driven by an interest in those substances that enhance life, I intended to show human nature through a prism where vodka is a catalyst for emotions and thoughts. Are we looking for ecstasy and finding escapism? Where does the longing for distraction transform into numbness? Does the lack or absence of something lead us humans to stumble and seek refuge in substances? Drunk or sober, which is the “real” person? According to who? To explore these questions, I sought passionate vodka drinkers. Those who walk a thin line between euphoric inspiration and bleak visions of a more psychotic nature. On this epic and somewhat utopian journey I traveled thousands of kilometers into the depths of mother Russia only to realize that my film is – despite cultural differences – a very personal one close to home. It’s not a film about solutions or defining statements. Because there are none.

To me, THE GREEN SERPENT is a reflection on our behavior as human beings who live contradictory lives – often on the edge of addiction, tinkering with substances able to elevate our spirits and drag us down. The seductive nature of addictive substances and their effects on our lives are often shown and treated in an awkward, moralizing way. As if everybody who cannot “control” him or herself is weak. As if every form of addiction must be viewed in medical terms – something to be identified and “fixed”. 

Drinking liberates and condemns at the same time. Like everyone on this journey I experienced intense hangovers, naively promising that I’d never drink again. It’s impossible to avoid the aggressive but deep hearted hospitality of the Russians – especially when it comes to vodka. There was no way to hide. So we embraced the “Stanislavski system” of drinking and shooting. I repeatedly allowed the green snake to bite me and realized I could easily maintain this cycle indefinitely. With the “opokhmelitsya” – the first drink after a hangover – one feels alive again. Euphoric. Maybe more than ever. 

Drinking befalls one. It‘s probably a bad excuse but I most often believed this “theory” – to drink vodka is to walk that fine line between divine inspiration and utter loss – while walking home each night at ease, for some elusive moment, with the world and what was left of me.

Drinkers die sooner. Alcohol destroys individuals and families. It is the most common and accepted drug of all. It is indefinitely destructive, more so than any other drug. There is no romanticism about this. But like Aleksandr Bashirov in my film says, “There are many sides to the same crystal.” 

Oscar Wilde wrote, “We are all in the gutter – but some of us are looking at the stars.” THE GREEN SERPENT is introspection about people who drink to catch a glimpse of those stars. To celebrate the dark festival that is life we drink to forget ourselves. To be transformed by the rebirth after the hangover. Sin and redemption, again and again, through the catalyst that is vodka. THE GREEN SERPENT is an attempt to capture this cycle of life. 

NOTES ON CINETRAIN

I created THE GREEN SERPENT as a part of the Cinetrain: Russian Winter Project that seeks to shed new light on Russian stereotypes, including vodka. Seven teams with participants from 14 countries were selected in January 2013 to work under extreme conditions, including average temperatures of -15°C, and to travel over 15,500 km by train. 

The collaboration with Finnish cinematographer Joona Pettersson and French location sound recording artist and re-recording mixer Xavier Thieulin – neither of whom I had met before – was part of the unusual circumstances of this production. The team turned out to be highly compatible.

This was the third edition of Cinetrain. The project began as an homage to an amazing experiment of the 1930s led by Aleksandr Medvedkin: The Kinopoezd, a film-train that transported crews, lab and editing equipment, and projectors around the Soviet Union. With a spontaneous working method in collaboration with local people, Medvedkin produced the first rail-movies. Films were shot in one day, processed during the night, edited shortly after, and screened before participants and spectators a short time later. Although they were filming the industrial achievements of the regime, their underlying goal was to give the power of speech to people who didn’t normally have the opportunity to get their voices heard. 

Benny Jaberg