Everybody Dies But Me
2008 · Directed by Valeriya Gai Germanika
Original language: Russian
- drama
The story
One Monday morning Katya, Vika and Zhanna learn that there will be a school disco, their first disco, on the coming Saturday night. The girls feverishly start preparing for the event, which rapidly becomes the most important moment ever in their universe, and looks like the ideal way to escape their daily lives...
What it’s like
Cold, flat daylight through drab provincial windows, handheld camera that stays close to three teenage girls in school corridors, bedrooms and cramped apartments, and a palette of muted greys, faded blues and washed-out browns. The film is naturalistic and observational, with an unhurried rhythm that lets awkward silences and small gestures play out fully. Its mood is wistful and quietly melancholy, with flickers of giddy anticipation, the kind of feeling that suits a slow weekday afternoon or a late evening alone. The emotional register stays tender and unsentimental: adolescent hope pressing against a dull, constrained daily life, and the friendships among the girls shifting under the pull of a single imagined event. Intensity is low. There is no gore and no sexual content, but there is some teenage cruelty, social exclusion and sharp emotional friction that can sting. Expect dread-free discomfort rather than threat. It is for viewers who appreciate patient, character-led realism, the textures of growing up in an ordinary place, and bittersweet coming-of-age stories told without flourish.
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