Producer
Svetlana Voloshina
with the participation of
Lenfilm Studios
Alexander Sokurov
CONFESSlON
from the diary
of a ship Commander
A cinematographic narrative
in five parts
Part Four
The plot and the characters
of this film
are creations of
the author's imagination.
Move further off!
Make room!
Move in!
Still more!
Move over there too!
Stand closer!
The Commander often recalled
how the conscripts were brought
to the base.
Sit down,
comfortably, as it were.
Some of the conscripts
will stay on his ship,
others will go elsewhere.
Twilight, deserted shores.
lt's good the young conscripts
don't see these landscapes.
Why should we need the North,
if the North doesn't need us,
the Commander thought.
Of course, one can live here
and look...
at the white and the grey
without distress.
Only that means
reading thick books
by writers of the past.
One can trust them.
They are our only hope.
One should live a life
of imagination, of fancy,
not the life of the grey sky
and cold air.
They kept silent.
They were tired.
They were hungry
and they wanted
to get somewhere at last.
Nobody could help them
bear the waiting.
They had to stand it.
The ship moved on,
but they did not even feel it.
Listen to me!
Now the midshipman
will come,
he will call out names,
five or so at a time.
The man whose name is called
strips down
to his underwear and boots,
and goes into the corridor
to be examined.
When did you wash?
Tuesday.
- When?
- Tuesday.
Tuesday? That's a week ago.
ls anybody sick?
Any problems?
Has anybody felt ill on the journey?
Any contusions?
Now when we call your name
you undress...
we examine you,
then you get dressed again.
Any questions?
- Listen to the roll call. Teplov.
- Present.
How do you say this?
Syk-tyk-barov.
- Well... Kapustin!
- Present.
lvanov!
Sokolov...
Serguei Aleksandrovich.
- Your name?
- Krassin.
Any problems?
Lower, lower.
About turn.
Get dressed.
Next!
- Any problems?
- No.
What's this?
What kind of scar?
l've been operated.
You have been operated?
- And your finger?
- l cut it.
With a knife?
Did it itch?
- No.
- Any perspiration?
Rudder 5 to the right.
5 to the right.
To the right 5.
Distance 2 cables.
- Your name ?
- Chernyaev.
Any problems?
- No.
- Good.
About turn.
Turn yourself round!
Further.
Military service
allows no privacy,
wrote the Commander
in his diary,
and then he remembered
how, quite recently,
he had argued bitterly
with a civilian friend of his.
The civilian had said that the army
was no more than a big school.
Nobody knew, he said,
whether the army would ever have
to go into combat.
But making thousands of people
learn something useful
is necessary.
Only why do you,
the military,
use such cruel methods
of teaching?
Why are you so cruel,
asked the civilian.
lf you are cruel,
you will get cruelty
in return.
Cruelty makes people foolish,
insisted the civilian.
Krasnov!
Kalugin!
Fadeev!
Konkin! Where is he?
The Commander knew
that in a certain way
his civilian friend was right.
The only thing
he could answer to this
was that it was not the military
who were guilty.
We are compelled
to behave like this.
The military are only as cruel
as the nation as a whole.
He was particularly displeased
with these last lines
in his diary.
What's this scratch
on your buttock?
On your right buttock.
l scratched it on something
here in the toilet.
Note.
Scratch on the right buttock.
lsn't this the same?
No. On the other,
it's an old scar.
Scratch on the right buttock.
Wait,
l'll take your name.
You may go.
That's all?
Two more cards.
- 2 more?
- l have 3.
- Have you called them?
- No, l've just got the cards.
l'll look at the cards first.
How many have we done?
15?
You know, the most important
is to paraphrase,
how do you call it...
in the medical way.
Sorry, l am only a mechanic.
We must see
they don't have any lice,