Watch Sacredly For Free

Am I Missing Something?

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

This film is a unique document of interest to psychologists and parents. Its theoretical basis is the discovery by the French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan, presented in a paper first in 1936, of what he termed the mirror stage of development. His discovery and the concept was a genuine addition to Freud's theory of early development. We see the little Russian boy use a mirror for the first time. He sees the mirror image as an other being but then relates it to his own body and by that route to his self or "I". Lacan's observation established that from this point on the child first has a self and that it has been acquired by way of an other. Throughout life the self is assessed and validated by way of the other.

(film seen at SheffDocFest, at the Showroom, in Sheffield, UK) As with most short documentaries, the summary for "Svyato" really tells you all you need to know about the plot. Better examples of this genre - like the excellent Danish piece "De sidste døgn" - give you content over the odds, packing expression and feeling into their brief length. "Svyato" takes the opposite tack, with a somewhat bland result.The documentary uses a promising mix of techniques: a fairytale book frame, and a countryside panorama before we find ourselves in Svyato's house, looking at first unawares into his mirror. Svyato himself is a lively little fellow, and it is funny watching him see The Other in the mirror, run up to him and trigger his sound-reactive, singing toy frog by joyously bashing at the reflection with a toy brush. (The frog toy knows "Oh Susanna," "Frère Jacques" and dozens of other corkers.) And then he gets confused, and cries, before Daddy swoops in to help clarify things.The problem is that these activities bring enough novelty to last for about twelve minutes. Look at the runtime and go figure. One ironic asset to the film is that Svyato is very, very ordinary looking. You gain a sense of Everyman achievement from seeing him, through a second camera from the other side of the one-way mirror, staring forthrightly into it and happily recognizing himself, accepting himself. Not every blonde moppet can hope to grow into Brad Pitt. The fact that he doesn't need to is brought across very nicely.That said, I still dearly wished for a zapper in hand, for the longueurs. A DVD or cassette would also help moderate the soundtrack; the treble singing (voice-over) was earsplittingly tinny in the cinema.