Original subtitles

Igor Mishin presents

Igor SERGEYEV

Yury TSURILO

Julia AUG

The other day, at a Bird Market,

Victor SUKHORUKOV

I saw buntings.

I seem to have never seen them before.

Strange birds.

Nondescript.

but something in them, from the past - maybe from my childhood, or could be from my dreams -

suddenly glimpsed and enticed me.

The old man who was selling them said in a colorless voice:

"Buntings..."

Buntings...

300 rubles per one pair.

I live in Neya.

is one of those towns, about which no one will even remember these days,

lost somewhere between Vologodsky and Vyatsky forests,

situated on Neya River.

in THE BUNTINGS

Based upon the same name story by Aist Sergeyev

Neya, Unzha, Poksha, Vokhtoma,

Viga, Mera, Vaya, Sogozha -

these are beautiful names, left from Merya -

a Finn tribe, completely assimilated among the Slavs 400 years ago.

Villages-orphans, a couple of rites and rivers with forgotten names -

that's all that's left of them.

Screenplay by Denis OSOKIN

Although, quite a few people continue to consider themselves Merya -

it's their North region here.

North region is always more memorable.

Director of Photography Mikhail KRICHMAN

Our people are somewhat odd... Faces are inexpressive. No storming passions.

Although, a sudden gentleness and divorces are not rare.

Directed by Alexey FEDORCHENKO

Sexual promiscuity... But for the Merya people it is ancient, almost pagan,

like a tradition or a rite.

But if you ask: "why is it so?", - no one will be able to recall that now...

Don't remember when and why this began.

Wanted to know, figure out just who are we?..

Why are we so, and not different?

My father was a local poet. Wrote under a pen-name Vesa Sergeev.

Perhaps, that's why I started collecting and writing down snippets of songs, names...

Was searching for something... Something was always near...

Before didn't get to do any writing, that's why it used to come out badly at first.

But the most important thing was that I didn't know what to write about;

although, my father often said

that if one's soul was yearning, then one had to write about what one saw around.

My name is Aist.

Rare name... Meryan...

I just turned forty. No family.

Work at the Neyan paper mill.

Thank you.

Aist!

Wait a minute.

Miron is calling you.

Director is calling.

It works.

OK. Turn it off.

- Hello. - Hi.

May I?

Hello, Aist Vsevolodovich.

Hello, Miron Alekseyevich!

From Irga.

Good.

My wife passed away - Tanyusha...

Last night...

Yes. I am going to Gorbatov to the factory to sign a contract.

Call me tomorrow evening.

Want some liqueur?

No, thank you.

Won't take her to the mortuary.

Don't want to show her to anyone.

Prefer to do everything together with you.

Don't want to be alone.

Let's go right now.

Please.

Well...

And here I recalled my buntings.

I won't be home for the entire day, maybe, three - who will feed them?...

And overall, it vaguely seemed to me that it was worth including them in our company.

Miron Alekseyevich didn't mind.

We were dressing her as a bride.

The deceased are always prepared that way here.

Just as a happy bride is being prepared and dressed by her girlfriends:

in the morning before the wedding, they bathe her, dry her,

prepare colourful threads...

The bride either sits down or lies down,

her girlfriends surrounding her, tickling, joking, talking...

They tie her feminine hairs with colourful threads -

tomorrow's wife.

That's how she will be given to her husband.

At night, he will take the threads off her hair,

will tie them in a knot...

and hang them on an alder.

We were leaving our beloved Neya.

Long ago I read somewhere...

that a nation is alive for as long as people remember their language,

their traditions.

This rite is the last that connects the Meryan to life.

If it gets forgotten, what will remain then?

We were leaving our beloved Ne�a.

Then we didn't know that it was for good...

I married her when she was 19,

and I was about 40.

She lived in Vokhma.

Was very shy.

She felt embarrassed that she didn't know how to use make-up and dress fashionably.

But she is so....

She always listened to me.

I would tell her: "Take your dress off. Move this way...

Try this... Stand here... Move your hips..."

All three of Tanya's openings were working

and it was I, who opened them...

and everything always happened on my initiative.

Such talks are called "smoke" here.

It is customary to talk that way about a loved one, while his/her body is still on the earth.

Something that a decent person will never tell a stranger, while the loved one is alive.

But it is allowed about a deseased one...

Because the teller's face lights up...

and his mourning turns into tenderness...

Good afternoon. Where are you from?

From Neya.

- Where are you going to? - To the Mesherskaya Grove.

- What do you have in the car? - My lizard. She passed away.

What kind of birds are these?

That's how we refer to a beloved woman.

Buntings.

Of course, the lieutenant knew that.

And it wasn't difficult to see what we had in the car.

Here many people remember that they are Meryans.

So, those are buntings?...

Have never seen them,

but always liked the word.

Tanya's last name sounds just like that.

Back in our youth I always called her "bunting".

Tanyusha loved birds very much,

but never kept them at home because could not bear seeing them in cages.

I thought, maybe I should give her a heron that would be walking around?

20 more.

Large axes - 90. Small birch axes - 200.

Beech axes - 20. Shafts for shovels - 160.

No No beech ones. We'll take the rest.

Help me, please.

Aist Vsevolodovich!

Would you mind if I keep commenting?

Remember, how we were celebrating my anniversary?

I had some wine then and desired Tanya very much.

I looked at her and she understood.

But by the expression in her eyes she let me know that it was not convenient, that we shouldn't...

I got so upset...

that I got a stomach ache.

Miron kept telling me how much he loved his Tanyusha.

But it was unnecessary -

the entire town knew about his passion.

About their hiding in the local hotel...

how he bathed her in vodka...

Rumours had it that Tanya didn't love him,

but Miron was silent about that.

Dear Miron Alekseevich!

Here is a song for you: " A Smell of Summer", lyrics by Ves Sergeev.

To the drugstore in the morning

Went I, and dried cudweed bought,

And some mayrose, too, ashberries,

Mouse-ear and soapwort.

And some cornsilk and some knot-grass,

Many herbs bought I at a time:

Plus some toadflax and some pine-buds

And, of course, my favourite thyme.

Also asked I for mint and tansy And dried cowberry leaves,

And, according to my fancy, Some dogrose, sap of birch trees,

And the roots of dandelion, And Joe's tears I combine

With one hundred and twenty packets Of herbs fragrant of all kind.

All this brought I home and brewed In the cauldron and stirred well.

After this toilsome expedition I...

...inhaled the summer...

...smell!

Tanya worked at the same paper factory.

We liked each other.

Once I was taking her pictures and suddenly, something flashed between us,

sparkled...

and irretrievably sped away somewhere.

Hello.

Please, show me a hedgehog.

- On a leash? - Yes, this blue one.

It blinks.

Here, please. 30 rubles.

Press his belly.

Broken?... Let me exchange it. - No, no... this is what I need.

Won't have to break it myself.

We entered Mesherskaya grove. That's a Meryan name for the city of Gorbatov.

There is a blooming apple tree on its coat of arms. A tender little town on Oka River.

- Why here? - Honey moon...

didn't want to go too far, and it was expensive, too...

Since her school years Tanya loved Oka.

We rented a house and came here after the wedding.

Only for a week, though, not a month.

Beautiful...

Honey moon in Meshera grove....

We scattered Tanya over water.

That's how we always do it.

It's a rule.

Our cemeteries are half empty. It's mostly visitors there,

but water...

water - is a dream of every Meryan.

If one drowns - one'll suffocate in joy, tenderness and longing.

When the drowned is found, he doesn't get cremated,

but is tied to something heavy and is given back to the water.

Water will turn the body into a new, flexible one.

Death by water for a Meryan - immortality.

In Neya River,

lobsters and fish Bear familiar names:

Anna and Alex, Pavel and Kira Water is their new homeplace.

Sleeps under ice the pearl-shell Tatiana, But carp Sergei is awake:

Please, on my fishline the bait do not swallow For it may cause bellyache�

My father's dream was to drown. He was eccentric - Meryan self-taught poet.

He was mocked... sometimes, listened to...

sometimes, beaten up...

His naive poetry was published in newspaper "Lights of Nea".

The newspaper sales always went well -

it was cheap and was quickly used for various household needs.

But my father believed that his poetry was needed.

Once we hammered a hole in the ice and lowered under water the most precious thing he had...

Eccentric he was -

Meryan self-taught poet.

Once a Cuban friend of mine Sent me a Mexican plaything,

Oh, it looketh like a boot Where the water makes it sing.

In the back, inside the heel There's a hole water to pour,

And the toe's like a lassie's face, Very sad it looketh so.

How it worked? I was at a loss, But the friend explained, so wise:

I should fill lassie with water And rock her, looking in her eyes.

And I poured the water in, Rocked her, of the trick aware,

And the lassie gave a moan, And I nearly fell off my chair.

And the tears, and the tears Tears welled up in her eyes...

My mother died in childbirth, when I was in 7th grade.

Since then my father changed very much.

Stopped his eccentricities.

At the funeral he didn't do the "smoke" talks.

Only afterwards...

many times called the river.

Would swim in the cold with heart pains...

Would step on thin ice when drunk...

My mother, along with dead little sister Nina,

was lowered in water.

My father's dream was to drown,

but the Meryans do not drown themselves.

That's immodest -

as if racing to paradise, outrunning others.

River will choose people for herself.

Water - is the ultimate judgement.

Perusing hairs on our legs, our heads askew,

We are little waders In slippers blue.

On our backs we carry knapsacks Full of bluegrass.

Aist, bring the jerrican! Aist!

Maybe we gonna die now, Dancing a Turkish dance...

I was not near when my father died.

He died a bad death - drank ersatz spirit.

But I knew that he died of longing.

On our way back to Nea, we got lost and found ourselves in the town of Malochai.

This town has a very sad and tender meaning for us...

Like Paris for the Europeans.

It's a pity it doesn't exist anymore.

It got dissolved in the outskirts of another big, modern -

live city.

BUS STATION

- Hi. - Hi.

- Do you want us? - We want you very much.

It's so good that you are here.

The girls' names were Yulya and Rimma.

They were ok.

Laughed, when we introduced ourselves - Miron and Aist.

Your wife died?

Yes. Not so long ago.

Rimma!

Rimma! Wait!

They were very grateful to Rimma and Yulya.

Female live bodies are rivers, too.

They take grief away. It's a pity one cannot drown in them.

Press "start".

- Here? - Yes. On the triangle.

I knew that Tanya liked you.

She languished�

I wasn't angry at her... loved very much.

We could not have children. It was hard for her.

What and how I answered him�

Thoughts and memories overwhelmed me...

Suddenly, all at once, rushed me somewhere...

Only after the question "Does he believe that he will see his Tatyana again?",

something broke in him... snapped...

His face changed. He stopped the car.

I felt sorry for him,

and for my eccentric father, mother, Tanya�

Our names will be forgotten, just as the Meryans forgot magic words.

A Meryan doesn not have gods.

Only love for each other.

Only love for Tanya was all that Miron had now.

And he had to believe that would be reunited with her,

when it would be his time to turn into ashes and be given to water.

Faith in this half-forgotten rite was, probably, as naive,

as my desire to regain the lost culture.

If something must disappear, then, so it be...

so it be...

She needs to be let go, Aist Vsevoldovich.

Needs to be let go...

We were on our way back. It was empty and cold,

although, November this year turned out warm.

Miron was quiet. Although, "smoke" talks did not matter now.

We ended up making a detour.

It was clear that we ended up in the same place, where we left Tanya.

We came back to her. As if some unknown power didn't let us leave here.

But it seemed as if Miron didn't notice that.

Strangely, he grew merrier,

and even I felt a bit relieved in my heart.

It was sad and yet, light.

And this sadness wasn't oppressive, but enveloped as a mother.

Your birds must be very smart.

Let's ask them for something.

Immortality?

Yes, perhaps.

Can you hear us?

Yes, they can.

When we turned onto Kineshemsky Bridge,

Miron whispered:

"My Tanya disappeared".

Buntings got quiet.

Even...

too quiet.

We fell of Kineshemsky Bridge right into Volga -

a great Meryan river.

Buntings helped us - dashed with kisses into the driver's eyes.

Miron Alekseevich went looking for Tatyana right away.

But I found the silted type-writer

and typed this book on the sides of dead fish.

As for water...

Water will carry away Meryan secrets.

Where and which ones - everyone will find out when their turn comes..

Only love has no end...

Only love has no end...

�dedicated to the memory of my parents

Producers Igor MISHIN, Maria NAZARI

Directed by Alexey FEDORCHENKO Screenplay by Denis OSOKIN

Director of Photography Mikhail KRICHMAN

Music by Andrey KARASYOV

Starring: Aist - Igor SERGEYEV

Miron - Yury TSURILO Tanya - Julia AUG

Vesa - Victor SUKHORUKOV Birdman - Vyacheslav MELIKHOV

and others

English subtitles by Zora K. and Boris Bulgakov

Translations of poems by Svetlana Chulkova

The End