Khabensky Portrays Disabled Man in 'Yura Was Here'

On February 5, the film «Yura Was Here» (18+) hits theaters. Its main character is an adult man with mental disabilities, he cannot speak and behaves like a young child. A journalist from 59.RU has already seen the film. What follows are her first-person impressions.

The film tells about young people — musicians Oleg and Sergei — living in a rented communal apartment. The mother of one of them asks the guys to temporarily take in Oleg«s uncle Yura and look after him. The man cannot be left alone due to his helplessness.

From the very first minutes, the viewer gets the impression that they themselves have stepped into the frame and live together with the characters in their dilapidated communal apartment. The camera moves behind the characters« backs, then switches to their faces and shows them in close-up, not in a perfectly composed frame but as if randomly snatched. Many scenes are shot not from a tripod but handheld, so the viewer never loses the feeling of the moment»s immediacy.

At a meeting with Perm residents after the premiere, director Sergei Malkin admitted his interest in documentary cinema, in which he had worked since his time at the institute. Cinematographer Filipp Zadorozhny, who worked on the film, also shot documentaries, and his interest in live footage is felt in the film.

The main character — Uncle Yura — does not appear immediately in the film. According to the plot, the young people come to pick him up from a police station, where he ended up by mistake with his tipsy brother.

I did not immediately recognize Konstantin Khabensky as the main character, so different is he in this film. Partly due to the makeup, partly due to the characteristic movement plasticity of people with mental disabilities, which he adopted. The actor so deeply immersed himself in the character and became the role that even you, a person in the audience, involuntarily want to hand him the TV remote and help him open the door.

At first, the friends cautiously accept the new adult companion into their group. They do not know how to behave with him, how to explain basic household things, but then their relationship becomes more natural, they begin to consider him their friend and even throw Yura a modest birthday party.

In order not to leave Uncle Yura alone, they take him everywhere, even to interviews and their own concert. During the performance, when the guys are on stage, Yura leaves the club and gets lost. Oleg rushes to search for him. He finds his uncle, huddled and hiding behind a trash can. At that moment, you almost physically feel Yura«s fear of this loud and incomprehensible world.

After this comes a touching scene where Oleg tries to warm and calm his uncle by drawing a warm bath and seating him in it. In the naked, stooped figure, the helplessness of a child inside an adult body is especially evident. He shivers and cannot get warm, and you shiver with him. This is one of the strongest scenes in the film. I believe it takes great acting courage to not be afraid to play such a character — ugly on the outside, strange and absurd.

The young musician guys are talentedly played by Denis Paramonov and Kuzma Kotrelev. The friends« relationships are touching and sincere, and the dialogues are spontaneous and lively. The characters easily befriend each other — even if they quarrel, they immediately laugh and become inseparable again. Against the backdrop of the old dilapidated communal apartment, their friendship seems a true treasure, filled with light.

This film is only about an episode, a slice of life of young people. But it is precisely during this time spent with Yura that something changes in them. As if they begin to see the world through his eyes — unhurried, captivating with beauty, love, and light.