Original subtitles

The State Film Committee of Russia

Nadezhda Productions St. Petersburg

Producer Svetlana Voloshina

with the participation of Lenfilm Studios

Alexander Sokurov CONFESSION

from the diary of a ship Commander

A cinematographic narrative in five parts

Part Four

The plot and the characters of this film

are creations of the author's imagination.

Move further off! Make room!

Move in!

Still more!

Move over there too!

Stand closer!

The Commander often recalled

how the conscripts were brought

to the base.

Sit down,

comfortably, as it were.

Some of the conscripts

will stay on his ship,

others will go elsewhere.

Twilight, deserted shores.

It's good the young conscripts

don't see these landscapes.

Why should we need the North,

if the North doesn't need us,

the Commander thought.

Of course, one can live here and look...

at the white and the grey without distress.

Only that means

reading thick books

by writers of the past.

One can trust them.

They are our only hope.

One should live a life of imagination, of fancy,

not the life of the grey sky and cold air.

They kept silent.

They were tired.

They were hungry

and they wanted to get somewhere at last.

Nobody could help them bear the waiting.

They had to stand it.

The ship moved on,

but they did not even feel it.

Listen to me!

Now the midshipman will come,

he will call out names, five or so at a time.

The man whose name is called strips down

to his underwear and boots,

and goes into the corridor to be examined.

When did you wash?

Tuesday.

- When? - Tuesday.

Tuesday? That's a week ago.

Is anybody sick? Any problems?

Has anybody felt ill on the journey?

Any contusions?

Now when we call your name you undress...

we examine you, then you get dressed again.

Any questions?

- Listen to the roll call. Teplov. - Present.

How do you say this? Syk-tyk-barov.

- Well... Kapustin! - Present.

Ivanov!

Sokolov... Serguei Aleksandrovich.

- Your name? - Krassin.

Any problems?

Lower, lower.

About turn.

Get dressed.

Next!

- Any problems? - No.

What's this? What kind of scar?

I've been operated.

You have been operated?

- And your finger? - I cut it.

With a knife?

Did it itch?

- No. - Any perspiration?

Rudder 5 to the right.

5 to the right.

To the right 5. Distance 2 cables.

- Your name? - Chernyaev.

Any problems?

- No. - Good.

About turn. Turn yourself round!

Further.

Military service allows no privacy,

wrote the Commander in his diary,

and then he remembered

how, quite recently,

he had argued bitterly with a civilian friend of his.

The civilian had said that the army

was no more than a big school.

Nobody knew, he said,

whether the army would ever have to go into combat.

But making thousands of people learn something useful

is necessary.

Only why do you, the military,

use such cruel methods

of teaching?

Why are you so cruel,

asked the civilian.

If you are cruel,

you will get cruelty in return.

Cruelty makes people foolish, insisted the civilian.

Krasnov!

Kalugin!

Fadeev!

Konkin! Where is he?

The Commander knew that in a certain way

his civilian friend was right.

The only thing he could answer to this

was that it was not the military

who were guilty.

We are compelled to behave like this.

The military are only as cruel

as the nation as a whole.

He was particularly displeased

with these last lines in his diary.

What's this scratch on your buttock?

On your right buttock.

I scratched it on something here in the toilet.

Note.

Scratch on the right buttock.

Isn't this the same?

No. On the other, it's an old scar.

Scratch on the right buttock.

Wait, I'll take your name.

You may go.

That's all?

Two more cards.

- 2 more? - I have 3.

- Have you called them? - No, I've just got the cards.

I'll look at the cards first.

How many have we done? 15?

You know, the most important is to paraphrase,

how do you call it... in the medical way.

Sorry, I am only a mechanic.

We must see

they don't have any lice, infections, injuries

or subjects of complaint.

And that other thing we spoke of.

The person who accompanied them has already checked it.

So our examination is perfunctory.

- Your name? - Ossipov.

Come into the light.

Get dressed.

Why does no one have underwear? Wasn't it issued?

What's this?

A waistband from my mother.

Treated for how long?

When did the spots go?

A week ago.

And when did you fall ill?

I'll tell you. I left the hospital on the...

- Did you wash? - 2 weeks ago.

When I asked, you lads told me a week.

I understand, but practically every second one...

Pants down.

Lower.

Turn.

Get dressed.

- Polivyakov? - Polevikov.

Po-le-vi... Ah!

- Baladski. - Present.

And Zaytsev.

The 54th. Do you hear me? The 54th.

Was there more? Or less?

Andrey, note. Scratch on the right shoulder.

Yamanov, Antonov...

and Bukhanov.

Zorin!

OK, are you undressed?

- Your name? - Yamanov.

Any problems?

Why so dirty?

I was on duty.

- Has it always been like this? - Yes.

Turn around.

Take them down.

Turn.

Still lower, down to your boots.

Turn around.

He was asking himself,

why have I got to bear all this?

What on earth brought me here?

But then he remembered he was only 18,

and in this life,

he was just a nobody.

Form a semi-circle.

The second row further to the right, boys.

Put your bags down.

We're ready.

Some are missing, however.

The Commander watched them disembarking

and it seemed to him that the young seamen

did not see anything.

The dark Arctic life,

officialdom.

Who knows, the Commander wrote in his diary,

whether they will remember this quay,

this night,

or whether in the young men's lives

there will be many other events

of such cruelty

that even the darkness

and emptiness of the Arctic will be supplanted in their memories.

They kept silent.

They were tired.

On my order, you take your bags.

To the right!

Form two columns.

Keep the spacing.

Keep your bags inside.

Column, formation.

Keep formation! Attention!

March!

Smaller steps!

On the gangway change the pace!

Andrei Mikhailovich,

you know what, let's separate them.

When we returned from Navy Day,

everything reverberated.

On the gangway change the pace!

Serguei Bakai The Commander

Camera Alexei Fiodorov

Editor Leda Semionova

Sound Serguei Moshkov

Alexander Sokurov CONFESSION

from the diary of a ship Commander

End of Part Four

� Nadezhda 1998

Subtitles: Alexei Jankowsky

Subtitling by TVS - TITRA FILM