pulling teeth
by
Douglas Messerli
Aleksandr
Volodin (screenplay, based on his stage play), Elem Klimov (director) Пoхoждения
зубногo врача (Pokhozhdyeniya zubnovo vracha) (Adventures of a
Dentist) / 1965
Soviet
direct Elem Klimov’s second feature, Adventures of a Dentist, is a kind
of mix between early American comedies such as those of Charles Chaplin and W.
C. Fields (obviously Max Sennett’s The Dentist comes to mind) and the
absurd Eastern European traditions of storytelling. Even Gorky’s The Overcoat
seems to be hovering in the background of this dark comedy.
Unfortunately, until the recent Criterion
release very few moviegoers outside of the festival-going aficionados have had
the opportunity to see this wonderful work. Because of early censorship problems,
it was allowed only a very limited audience in the Soviet Union off 1965 and
has long been completely unavailable on DVD.
Too bad, because is one of the most
likeable Russian comedies since Aleksandr Medvedkin’s 1935 Happiness.
Except here the young likeable oversensitive hero, Sergey Petrovich Chesnokov (Andrey
Myagkov) is far more likeable and charming that any of Medvedkin’s figures.
This young dentist, fresh out of dental
school studies, arrives in a provincial Soviet city to take a position in the
local clinic, but having given a great deal of pain to one of his school-day
patients, is absolutely terrified of his new position, and shows up on his
first day of work late, sitting in the waiting-room with his patients instead
of joining his new colleagues.
In this town, however, everyone knows
everything, as one doctor suggests, and he is soon drawn into the back rooms of
the clinic, garbed in a doctor’s white gown, and assigned a patient.
Evidently
in this period, the major activity of Soviet dentists was simply tooth
extraction instead of any filling of cavities or root canals. And you read the
depths of fear that most of the waiting patients feel simply through the expressions
on their faces.
After a few attempts at postponement of
the extraction, Chesnokov picks up the dental tool and amazingly extracts the
tooth of his patient without any pain. It is almost as if the dental forceps behaves
like magnet, the tooth suddenly appearing in his hand without the patient even
perceiving it has been removed.
In such a small, gossipy world, the
wonder of his technique immediately makes him a beloved hero, as soon after
everyone in the clinic flocks to him, ignoring the older and more established
dentists. One dentist, who truly loves his city, Yakov Vasilyevich Rubakhin (Yevgeniy
Perov) determines to leave, having lost most of his former patients to
Chesnokov. Dentist Lyudmila Ivanovna Lastochkina (Vera Vasilyeva) is about to
follow, particularly—after confronting Chesnokov about his new popularity and near
hero-status—the handsome young dentist seems to be so clueless he cannot
imagine the uproar he has caused or even why he has become so very popular with
the people. His entire goal has simply been to cause no one any pain.
By this time, however, Chesnoko perceives
that he is in jeopardy, as a committee suddenly appears in his office to
oversee his “controversial” methods. Finally waking up to the other dentist’s
concerns, he correctly identifies her tooth’s problem, and instead of doing his
miracle extraction, sends her to another clinic, claiming that he cannot help
her. The committee concur with his evaluation, but in the process his
reputation is immediately deflated, and because of her visit to the clinic
Masha, like her would-be husband’s former fiancé cannot show up to attend the
wedding.
A few townspeople recognizing how the bureaucratic
system gradually has beaten down anyone with exceptional talents, try to save
him by arranging a demonstration of an old man, suffering clearly from many
diseases. But not only has the young talented dentist lost his will but also
his magic. The old man only suffers as he pulls on the tooth just as the comic
Fields might have working of the poor elderly woman who dares to visit his
office.
Retiring from dental work, Chesnokov
half-heartedly and quite strictly teaches dentistry to students, rushing off
the moment the bell rings to live in a new life with a wife, self-admittedly in
a new happy existence made possible by pretending he is living in another place
within his own imagination.
A final patient appears, in dire need of
his “magical” abilities, despite the fact that he claims he is no longer able
to operate; not only has he lost his “touch,” but he has abandoned his former
career. His pupils gather round him to prove that he, at the very least, is a
capable teacher; yet the one to whom he assigns the extraction, seems quite
incapable. As he is forced now to prove his teaching abilities, another young
female student suddenly steps up and, just as magically as her teacher in his
former life, extracts the tooth, even while we must now predict she will
certainly face the same difficulties in the future as her teacher has in his
past.
Klimov’s own life seems to prove that.
Married to another great filmmaker Larisa Shepitko, after this film, he made 3
other movies, including his masterpiece Come and See. Yet after her
death through a car accident in 1979, he gradually gave up his filmmaking, and
eventually, his role as the First Secretary of the Filmmakers' Union. Although
he suggested he might what to return to being a director, in 2000 he commented:
"I've lost interest in making films. Everything that was possible I felt I
had already done."
He died in 2003, mostly unknown, even in
his home country. Like the hero of his film, it is as if, near the end of his
life, he was worn down; as he say in the English-language metaphor film-making
was“like pulling teeth,” said of something that is especially difficult,
tedious, and requires an extreme amount of effort, or is done in the most
difficult or unpleasant way possible.
December,
July 5, 2019
Reprinted
from World Cinema Review (July 2019).
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