SALADE RUSSE

The story of Russian Perestroika laid on the table in a smart documentary that recently premiered at Visions du Reel, Nyon.

Synopsis

Six people, four men and two women, gathered around a table, in search of a shared story over the course of a meal. Over perojki and Plombir ice-cream (the equivalent of a Proustian madeleine), without forgetting the glasses of vodka, all reminisce about their childhood in the Soviet Union. They have been ‘united’, received the same education, a Soviet one, but are now natives of six different countries. And they wonder if they still talk the same ‘language’. Like a dining companion specially invited for the occasion, the fluid camera of Eileen Hofer films this Salade russe that is skilfully composed of memories, melancholy, verbal jousts and laughter. The filmmaker captures faces-landscapes that rebuild, through words, a lost mental territory.