The film directed by Olga Gorodetskaya “Creature” can be described as a psychological horror. For domestic cinema, this is perhaps a debut. The novelty is also felt in the neutral-national tone of the picture: such a story is universal – it could happen in any country, in any family. This is what makes it multifaceted, catchy, accessible and understandable to everyone. The originality of the picture is in its unconditional relevance.
What is the movie Creature about?
The average Belov family has been unable to come to terms with the fact that their 6-year-old son Vanya has gone missing for three years. He (Igor) is a doctor. She (Polina) is a teacher. A relationship crisis amid the pain of uncertainty leads the couple to consider adoption. In the suburban Orphanage, the Belovs meet a strange boy, whose habits are more like a dog than a man, and who also lives in the basement. Polina decides to adopt this unfortunate “animal”. The family is dissuaded from this venture, but the woman remains adamant.
At first, Igor is wary of the feral boy and his aggressive habits. But he does not want to upset his wife by playing along with her new role. The newly-made mother, on the contrary, completely dissolves in her son: all the accumulated care, love and tenderness splash out on the child at once. The woman gradually sees more and more similarities with her family, the missing Vanya. Igor does not like such an obsession with his wife, about which he informs the family psychologist. He advises to treat the boy as if he were his own. There really is harmony in the house. Until the pregnancy test shows 2 stripes: the parents are happy, but not Vanya.
The long-awaited pregnancy of the main character separates her from her adopted son. At some point, she realizes that the adopted son is trying to harm the unborn child. “Pink glasses” are gradually subsiding – Polina admits to her husband that she is afraid of the boy. The man changes places with his wife: now he is attached to Vanya, protecting him in front of his wife. Once returning home, the man finds his wife with a bloody belly. A woman dies in the hospital after learning that the child could not be saved. Then the man decides to find out the story of the adopted boy from the nun of the orphanage. Her answer that Vanya is not a person at all, but a monster, personifying the pain of loss, horrifies Belov. With the help of a nun, he returns the boy to the basement, handcuffed. But in the finale, the monster returns in the person of the deceased Polina.
The meaning of the movie
The theme of “The Creature” is consonant with “Omen”, and “Pet Sematary”, and “Rosemary’s Baby”. And Zvyagintsev’s “Dislike” is like the prehistory of a new social drama about intra-family relations and about accepting the death of loved ones. But if Hollywood horror is mysticism and a thriller, then the Russian version is also about nightmares happening in human souls.
One of the ideas of the film is the crisis of family values of confused people. He does everything for her, she does everything for her illusions. However, rooted complexes and understatement leave an abyss between close people: a woman cannot forgive her husband for arrogance (which cost them too much) and let her son go. Igor courageously keeps everything in himself for years, but in the end it turns out that he only hears himself. The fact that everyone is pulling the blanket in their own direction, projecting their pain onto the other, does not give a chance for a happy ending. The boat of love once again breaks not about everyday life, but about mental deafness and about the desire to change your neighbor, but not yourself.
Another meaning lies in the relationship with death, with the acceptance of it in connection with the departure of the closest people. Almost everyone with whom “Vanya” contacts does not subside the pain of loss. Belova, the watchman, the investigator are fixated on inner emptiness and hopelessness. Devaluing the meaning of life, they merge with the departed. Absorbed by their experiences, the characters in the film see only their own illusions. The meaning lies in the fact that it is not an ephemeral creature that destroys a person, but the person himself. And not an external demon – the root of evil, but an internal one – one’s own, lured by years and passions.
The meaning of the movie’s ending
A psychologist comes to the Belovs’ dacha to offer condolences to a friend on the death of his wife. Belov, without explanation, closes the door to his friend, not wanting to let him inside. He looks into the crack of the house and sees the living Polina.
In the penultimate frame, the nun nods affirmatively to her adoptive father: “You have overcome the pain of loss.” She made no mistake about her own child. He bore this grief on an equal footing with his mother. Igor coped with the death of his son, but the departure of his beloved woman was beyond his power.
Belov – is the main character of the picture, flint, leading an unequal battle. But to him, such a “steel”, the right one is the key. Loneliness without a wife, covering without a trace, disarmed the once strong-willed man. Pain, like acid, corroded all willpower, making it a slave.
By the end of the film, the director emphasizes that the most enduring person has his own “creature”, his own paralyzing black emptiness, the opposition of which sometimes costs life.
