Een persoonlijke odyssee over carrièrevrouwen in de jaren negentig
en hun woelige strijd met de andere sekse – Lagestee film i.s.m. IKON.
FATAL REACTION: MOSKOU
'Women can do everything, men can do the rest'
The main character Larisa Bravitskaja (40) is looking for a strong man who will take care of her. Someone with guts, who can solve his own problems as well as hers. He shouldn't be an illusion, like so many men she knew in the past. In confrontations with her ex-husband, her current boyfriend, her thirteen-year-old daughter, her mother and ex-mother-in-law we are given an insight into the dilemmas she faces as a single mother in the new Russia.
Fatal Reaction Moskou is the final episode of the four-part personal odyssey of Marijke Jongbloed about career women and their longing for an equal partner. As was the case in the previous parts FATAL REACTION-New York, Singapore and Bombay, this part examines the existing gap between highly educated men and women in a satirical, realistic and funny manner.
Galina Dutkina, author of Moscow Days: "Fatal reaction, that is exactly what society is experiencing now after the fall of the system with which we were so familiar. Trust, love, mutual understanding, they are all gone. No one trusts anyone. People use one another. Unfortunately, also in relationships between men and women."
Moscow is reigned by chaos. The Mafia flourishes while politics doesn't have an adequate answer to the post-communist situation. In the past, powerful state organisations propagated the social ideology. Despite 70 years of state propaganda, which also propagated equality for men and women, Fatal Reaction Moscow shows how superficially the ideology has taken root. In the current ideological vacuum everybody is busy restructuring ideas and views. In a confused state they cling to extreme stereotypes of the roles of men and women.
Editor- Denise Janzee
Script & Director- Marijke Jongbloed
Line producer - Iris Hogendijk
Music composer - Harry de Wit
Producers - Martin Lagestee
Marijke Jongbloed
The main character Larisa Bravitskaja (40) is looking for a strong man who will take care of her. Someone with guts, who can solve his own problems as well as hers. He shouldn't be an illusion, like so many men she knew in the past. In confrontations with her ex-husband, her current boyfriend, her thirteen-year-old daughter, her mother and ex-mother-in-law we are given an insight into the dilemmas she faces as a single mother in the new Russia.
In the film, Marijke Jongbloed uses scenes from The Marriage by Gogol (1830). This classic provides an historical perspective to the man-woman relationship and at the same time gives a comical picture of the matchmaker, an important social phenomenon. Jongbloed also looks behind the scenes of the Russian State Circus of today, where Tatjana Filatova tames her world-famous bears into a worthy symbol of the Russian man. In the film these scenes are used as metaphors for male and female roles and are set against images of the increasingly popular strip clubs "for women only", where the traditional roles are reversed.
When a woman wants to marry, she will have to learn to coddle her husband. Tamara Sjkoenova blames the many wars and alcoholism for the shortage of men (40 million men killed since the revolution up to Stalin, another 20 million during W.W.II). Antonina Starostova has many women in her database who already have everything. They speak various languages, have several degrees and are comfortable in material terms.
Now all they want is to get married! But what do men really want? Most important is the woman's body, she has to be beautiful, intelligent, attractive and insecure. Antonina wonders which Russian men actually want a confident woman.....
