ENTROPIYA
(энтропия)
dir. Maria Saakyan, 2012
Russia. 76 min.
In Russian with English subtitles.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14 – 10 PM
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23 – 10 PM
Saakyan’s final film is a steep departure from her previous forays into arthouse cinema. Experimental, largely improvised and featuring a cast of Russian stars/influencers playing satirical versions of their tabloid personas, ENTROPIYA (Entropy) prophesizes the end of the world, and it will in fact be televised. Heavily influenced by Russia’s Dom-2—the self-proclaimed “longest running and most popular show in the world”—also Russia’s answer to the hit reality show Big Brother, which has been on the air longer—the film finds the young, wild cast holding out in an abandoned house and awaiting the apocalypse.
Gone is the subtlety of Maria’s past films; ENTROPIYA is at war with the Arthouse. “At some point I came to exactly this feeling…Arthouse cinema, of course, can be poetic and beautiful, but it is boring.” the late Saakyan surmised, in complete opposition to her own past work. How will this film be received in the west? “It will be incomprehensible to the European viewer.”
For context, meet the players, most of whom play themselves(?):
KSENIYA SOBCHAK is the real-life host of Dom-2, the reality show in which the film is heavily based upon. Shortly after the film’s release in 2012, she left behind host-duties of the show and began a career in politics, culminating in her presidential candidacy in 2018, wherein she opposed Vladimir Putin in the general election, garnering 1.4% of the vote.
VALERIYA GAY GERMANIKA is a director with a number of films under her belt, as well as a popular yet controversial 2010 series entitled Shkola (school), which depicts the “true nature of schooling in Russia,” to many public and political figures’ chagrin.
DIANA DELL in her own words: “I’m a risky person, I ride a motorcycle, and sometimes I shoot.” She caught the big-screen acting bug while playing a small role in an Italian film and has since found herself gracing tabloids as the mysterious star who enjoys her solitude, who believes feminism to be a “relic of the past”, and who unequivocally loves animals. In a brief aside in an interview in 2012, Masha stated “By the way, it’s been proven that if you don’t mix foods and eat in bowls, you won’t gain weight at all.”
DANILA POLYAKOV is a model who burned bright and fast in the 2000’s. Gliding across global runways, Danila’s debaucherous antics in the public eye culminated in an ebb to his career by the time ENTROPIYA was filmed. Russia’s distinct hate for anything queer also did Polyakov—who would occasionally don drag in Russian suburbs—no favors.
YEVGENI TSYGANOV, who plays “Veggie”, is an actor from Russia’s “New Generation”. Simultaneously the straight man and the most blatant character of the bunch, Tsyganov boasts one of the tamer lifestyles of the cast. All that to say, he was in a band once…
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Screening as the last film in our “Post-Panic” series showcasing Saakyan’s filmography, this is one of the stranger instances of a final film. If the post-panic genre focuses on youth’s stolen future, relentlessly haunted past, and their suffocating struggle in the present, ENTROPIYA and its relation to Maria is a true praxis of revolt. It screens in Brooklyn this December at the goth bodega.
