Film Review: The Barber of Siberia (1998)

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In 1990s Eastern Europe it was quite common for the people to blame Communist past for all their present day problems. On the other hand, people also tended to idealise more distant historical periods before Communist takeover, often seen as some sort of long lost golden ages that should be brought back. Russia wasn’t an exception to such trend. The career of famous film director Nikita Mikhalkov reflected it. In 1994 he triumphed at Cannes Film Festival and later won Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film with Burnt by the Sun, his period drama depicting Stalin’s reign of terror in 1930s. In 1998 he directed The Barber of Siberia, another period film, this time depicting late 19th Century Tsarist Russia.

The plot begins in 1905 when Jane Callahan (played by Julia Ormond) writes to her son, cadet at US military academy, about her family secret, related to events that took place twenty years earlier. In 1885 American inventor Douglas McCracken (played by Richard Harris) plans to build machine for automatic cutting of forests. The most obvious place to apply it is Russia with its endless taigas and McCracken intends to sell it to Tsarist government. The problem is that the contraption, nicknamed “The Barber of Siberia”, is unfinished while McCracken has already spent money for its production. He asks his daughter Julia, a sophisticated woman of the world, to come to Russia and try charming top officials to give him subsidy. One of them General Radlov (played by Alexei Petrenko), who also happens to run military academy in Moscow. While traveling by train, she meets Alexei Tolstoy (played by Oleg Menshikov), young man who happens to be one of the cadets. Two of them fall in love and this creates a lot of problem for Tolstoy, who can’t control his emotions. Further complications arise when General Radlov also succumbs to Jane’s charm, while the American woman can’t handle love triangle very well and thus brings life’s work of her father in peril.

With 45 million US$ of budget, The Barber of Siberia became the most expensive film in history of post-Communist Russia. The achievement was even more impressive considering that the film’s production coincided with the period of devastating economic crisis when the country under Yeltsin’s rule experienced military humiliation in Chechnya, rampant crime, collapse of infrastructure while the handful of corrupt oligarchs plundered what left of national wealth with enthusiastic assistance of Western banks and corporations. Yeltsin’s government somehow managed to find money for this spectacular endeavour and many saw it as a desperate attempt to preserve at least bit of Russian global relevance by presenting its cinema industry as still capable of deliver grand things. Some critics actually saw The Barber of Siberia as something of a Russian answer to Titanic. Such comparisons indeed make sense, because both films represent spectacular and fascinating recreation of distant but not too distant past which serves as backdrop for formulaic romance subplot. There is, however, one important difference between Cameron’s and Mikhalkov’s work. Russian director was much more explicit in conveying political message. Russia was strong and prosperous not under the evil Communists, but under the Tsarist regime, here represented through the figure of Tsar Alexander III (played by Mikhalkov himself in cameo appearance), revered in Russian right-wing and nationalist circles as the last “good” ruler of Russia, who was autocratic strongman but at the same time, unlike his liberal predecessor Alexander II or his weak successor Nicholas II, knew how to get things done. While some commentators criticised Mikhalkov for brushing off more questionable aspects of Alexander’s rule, like peasant masses still living in poverty or ethnic minorities being oppressed, and this reflected in film’s reception in the West, completely different from the one received by Burnt by the Sun. In Russia itself, where majority of population by that time got utterly disillusioned with Yeltsin and began to consider Western-style democracy as failed experiment, Mikhalkov’s views found much more fertile ground. There were even rumours that The Barber of Siberia was the first part of Mikhalkov’s presidential campaign, financed by Boris Berezovsky, powerful oligarch who was power behind the throne in Kremlin and was in desperate search for Yeltsin’s successor.

Whether such rumours were true or not, the Russian presidency was ultimately won by someone else. Those who watch The Barber of Siberia might realise the reason why. Mikhalkov’s direction, despite occassional success in showing the glitz, glamour, pomp and circumstance of Russian Empire, was in many ways as dysfunctional as the way Yeltsin and his circle was running the country in 1990s. Mikhalkov, who had also co-written the script, didn’t know what kind of film was making – genuine historical epic, regular period melodrama or something like slapstick comedy. Lack of focus reflected on the cast, with Russian actors like Menshikov and Petrenko playing their role well, at least in comparison with their non-Russian colleagues Ormond and Harris who seem disinterested and who were probably cast in misguided attempts to win international audience. General impression is somewhat improved by veteran composer Eduard Artemyev delivering good musical score, but this isn’t enough to recommend this film to anyone but most harcore cinephiles, intersted in exotic cinema during “interesting” times.

RATING: 3/10 (+)