Vasily Sigarev's film "To Live" was released in Russia on August 30, 2012. By this time, the film had already received the main prize of the Wiesbaden Film Festival, at the Kinotavr festival it was recognized as the best director's work.
The picture consists of three short stories, tightly tied on top of each other. The director draws the viewer's attention to three different types of love - the love of a son to a father, a mother to a daughter, and a woman to a man. These three stories share a common theme - the loss of a loved one. It is not customary to talk about death in such detail, but Vasily Sigarev is not afraid to discuss this topic, and the viewer clearly sees and shares with the heroes the real tragedy of human life.
The events take place in the Russian outback, the film was filmed in the city of Suvorov, Tula region. Small people of a small town, gloomy landscapes of late autumn - early winter, modest interiors, painful funeral processions, commemoration and condolences. It is against this background that events take place that can happen to anyone at any moment.
A woman who has overcome a strong alcohol addiction is trying to restore her lost parental rights and return her twin daughters. Finally, she succeeds and all that remains is to wait for her daughters, who are traveling by bus from an orphanage in another city. The accident negates all plans - children die on the way home.
The boy is waiting for his father and cannot believe in his suicide. The mother hates the boy and forbade him to see his father, but he still looks out the window, waiting. His father, having run into debt due to an addiction to slot machines, unlucky and poor, once got on a bicycle and left for good.
The third story is about a couple of informals who decided to start from scratch and get married in a church. They are HIV positive, but not discouraged. However, on the way home in the train, they inadvertently show money and the young man is beaten to death.
The surviving people after the death of their relatives fall into the abyss of despair and grief. Everyone experiences loss in different ways - someone loses touch with reality and wants to die, someone understands the need to go through all the tests and live on.
In the picture there is both tenderness and compassion for people, because we are talking about tests that can fall on everyone. The director of the film "To Live" does not at all claim that everyone must survive, but after watching it, you understand best of all - you are alive and you want to live.
