The films of a new generation of Russia's cinematographers speak their own language—both cinematically and literally. Although the original script of Unclenching the Fists (2021) was written by Kira Kovalenko in her native Russian, the film's protagonists speak Ossetian. Kovalenko's previous film, Sofichka (2016), was filmed in Abkhazian. Vladimir Munkuev's latest Nuuccha (2021) speaks Sakha. For both Kovalenko and Munkuev, whose films focus on the lives of historical and contemporary ethnic minorities in Russia, language serves as a means of authentic self-expression that arguably disrupts the framework of colonial discourse. Nalchik-born Kovalenko graduated from Aleksandr Sokurov's school in Kabardino-Balkaria in 2015, and a year later she stirred the film industry with her first feature film Sofichka, based on the 1997 novel by Fazil΄ Iskander. Her second and latest feature, Unclenching the Fists, received the Un Certain Regard Award at the 74th Cannes Film Festival and was Russia's official nomination for the 94th Academy Awards.
The main narrative of Unclenching the Fists questions the relative burdens of familial loyalty (to the extent of captivity) and freedom. The film depicts a typical Bildung of rebellious youth, their desire for independence, and their impatience, quite literally, to “kill their fathers.” The film tells the story of a young girl, Ada (Milana Aguzarova), who lives in a small mining town tucked among the Caucasus Mountains. Her father Zaur (Alik Karaev) brought his family there to hide and protect them, and to set his children free from their tragic past. But very soon, his love and care turn his family's life into a suffocating existence that resembles a prison: Zaur becomes a guard, hiding the apartment keys and his children's passports so that “they don't go running.” Mountains, natural prison walls, surround the town and obstruct Ada's view of the world. But Ada has a secret tucked away in her bag.
Along with Kantemir Balagov, Vladimir Bitokov, and several other graduates of the Sokurov workshop, Kira Kovalenko is a representative of what they themselves call “Caucasian neorealism.” The war seems far from over for this Ossetian town or for Zaur's family: from the beginning of the film, we are reminded of its horrors through key images: the “wounded” house, covered in bullet traces; an oven lighter in the shape of a gun; unending obituaries on the television. Ada experiences an attack of PTSD at a local dance in a school gym—a direct reference to the Beslan school attack. Their father's extreme overprotectiveness is the result of unimaginably horrible yet real events: Ada was seriously wounded in a terrorist attack that took her mother's life. Zaur's denial paradoxically preserves the tragedy as the center of his family's story. Ada's body is “broken” and, as her brother suddenly realizes, unless he helps her escape, her spirit will be broken too. Escape is the only way for Ada to become “whole” again.
Kovalenko is a true disciple of Sokurov: Unclenching the Fists makes a fierce attempt to avoid aestheticizing the Caucasus. Yet the film still presents a distanced perspective on the region and its inhabitants. Oppressive mountains promise a romantic vision of what freedom might look like beyond them. Another scene, recalling both Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia (1938) and Sokurov's depiction of masculinity in Father and Son (2003), shows a group of young men swimming in a mountain lake at dawn, their athletic bodies partly concealed by the steam rising from the freezing water. The stark contrast of the film's color palette reflects the tension between the extreme calmness of the surface and the hidden emotions brewing beneath. While Zaur chooses this small mining town precisely for its monotone background and thick dusty air, as if to camouflage the family's past and ease their assimilation, Ada's desire for color is palpable: her purple jacket explodes through the monotony of the provincial town and the hopelessness of her life. She never stops dreaming, and when she finally receives her long-desired freedom, she makes an unexpected choice—she unclenches her fists and lets her bag go.
