Rashomon, in which multiple people describe the same violent crime, has become the archetypal simile for people trying to describe the problems of subjective perception in establishing truth. Russian film The Bottomless Bag adapts the same short story that inspired Kurosawa’s classic, “In a Grove” by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, but to a very different end. The variations in the retelling of the murder story become the keys to discerning the different characters’ selves and souls. The relativity of truth and the elasticity of time (especially in pre-Soviet Russia) are understood. It’s everything else that tells the real story. I have no idea if or how this connects to the nature of “the Russians” as we conspicuously fail to understand them today, but I do know the black-and-white cinematography is jaw-droppingly gorgeous and relentlessly allusive (Chekhov, Ophuls, Tarkovsky, and Kurosawa are in the mix), which makes the world feel both bigger and smaller, which is one of cinema’s best tricks.
The Bottomless Bag has its final screening today at 4:30 p.m., at the 44th annual Seattle International Film Festival, which is happening now through June 10. More recommended SIFF films here; and all SIFF films here.
