Valeriya Dudinskaya was 14 years old when she decided to become Valeriya Gai Germanika. She also considers it as the beginning of her artistic career. Zhanna, Vika, and Katya of Everyone Dies but Me were the same age when the school principal announced an upcoming school party - an ultimate event which would be a life-defining moment for girls. They prepared their best looks, planned on how to get alcohol and cigarettes, and most importantly - were desperate for boys' attention. And they did get all of that... Except for the fact that they pictured it a bit differently.
Germanika's straightforward look into the Russian reality puts the viewer in an uncomfortable position. At first, we see an average post-Soviet setting - adolescence in Soviet-built apartments, neglected parks, garages, and families of middle or less-than-average income. That all, however, gets darker, as Germanika incorporates violence as a part of the daily life of a Russian teenager. Katya is thrown down to the floor by her father for wearing vulgar clothes. Zhanna makes a suicide attempt because of being scared of getting beaten up by her father for killing his fishes. Kids are fighting outside the school on a regular basis. So, why does Germanika puts such an accent on violence, both physical and moral?
To answer this question, we may refer to the concept of negative identity as it can help us with the interpretation of Germanika's narrative. Negative identity refers to the identification that opposes any kind of societal expectations. In Everyone Dies but Me, the ultimate desire of girls to defy the status quo that the society assigns to them is a key element of the film. Their decisions reflect their will to prove everyone wrong: "It's you who is an excess. Moron", says Katya to her teacher. By doing so, they treat every other person - parents, peers, senior students - as an enemy. This hatred is the main cause of the violence we see in this film. Referring to Beumers and Lipovetsky, we see that the negative identification causes any kind of communication to be violent, since every Other is a potential enemy.
As regards the technical part of the film, I have to mention that the camera work of Alisher Khamidkhodzhayev plays a crucial role in the viewer's perception of the film. Khamidkhodzhayev ensures that the viewer is involved in the film as much as possible. He holds the camera predominantly on the level of actors' eyes and in a close range, placing us on the same level with them and allowing us into their personal space. That is also one of the key components of Germanika's filmmaking - she is a peer to her heroines. With the help of camerawork, she is able to tell the story about the girls while being with them, as if she was a tailor that sews from within. Germanika's omnipresence in this film is what, I believe, critics in Cannes found interesting about her approach.
Another remarkable point about Khamidkhodzhayev's work is that he picks his camera angles so that there is always a prolonged space, whether it is the school hall, playground, or an alley. And here, we are getting involved with the concept of liminal spaces in this film. When assessing girls' physical location, it is important to notice that they spend most of the time somewhere in between their homes and school. The stairs, the landings, the taxi cab are the places that are supposed to take you from point A to point B. The girls, of course, refuse to be in either of those - they run away from classes with the same enthusiasm as when they run away from their parents. Therefore, Germanika shows that this age is all about being transient - first, Katya, Zhanna, and Vika swear to be friends till the ends of their lives, and two days after we see them doing exactly the opposite.
Speaking of Germanika's previous works, many critics mention that Everyone Dies but Me is reminiscent of Germanika's documentary The Girls. There, she depicts the lives of three real girls during their summer holidays. In both films, we see the usual urban setting, the young female characters, and their vulnerability toward the things that adolescence exposes them to - romantic relationships, alcohol, and body experiments. However, the key difference between these films is that Germanika keeps her distance in The Girls - we can only see what the characters allow us to. Zhanna, Vika, and Katya, on the contrary, are much closer to us. Germanika makes a great effort to share the most intimate of their experiences with us, as was discussed earlier.
Summing up, Everyone Dies but Me is Germanika's detailed answer to the question of: "What does it mean to be a teenage girl in Russia?". She picks average characters, puts them into the usual Russian setting, and depicts the way they interact with the world surrounding them. It is also interesting that Germanika is known to be very compassionate about demonstrating the world through the eyes of young women. A perspective that she delivers successfully, and that is still so much needed in the male-dominated world of film.
Review of Everybody Dies But Me
