12

This is not your father's 12 ANGRY MEN.

The Russian drama, 12, uses the American play/movie as a jumping off point, but what happens after the leap is nothing like the 1957 original movie, 12 ANGRY MEN. Although the Russian version of 12 comes from a culture rich in drama and history, the story weaves in threads from current social, political, and economic conditions.

Once upon a time twelve men were locked into an old Russian school gymnasium to determine the fate of a Chechen teenager accused of killing his Russian stepfather. This is not a story about the deliberations of a dozen people who would rather be doing anything than jury duty. This is twelve stories--stories of each of the men who would rather be doing anything than jury duty. As the jurors first take their seats around the large table to deliberate, there is a homogeny of civility between and among the jurors. Individual personalities are kept hidden and they politely take their first poll of the jury. It seems the deliberations will be finished quickly, because there can be no doubt of the teen's guilt.

And then there is the one dissenting "not guilty" vote. And the veneer of civility starts peeling up at the corners.

The names are different, but the political and racial problems of Russia are not so different from our own. Each of the jurors carries into the room their lives, lives that mirror those of our own; it would be hard to find one of these twelve stories that could not be our own. These stories are told so well that each character--first referred to by his juror number, then by his profession--could be the focus of his own movie. The acting has such depth and life that you could spin these stories off, playing them out in living colour on the big screen. But here, the jurors' stories are told in narrative. The characters are rendered so perfectly and passionately that the way a cigarette is lit and the way it hangs from a hand tells you more than what the person is saying. The halt and hiss of a word plays out a scene that might be a complete act in an American film. The catch in the throat or the brushing of an eyebrow combined with the dramatic hard light from above makes words obsolete. This is a well-rendered work that starts from a familiar plot and folds back upon itself so many times that the end of the film comes too soon--even at 150 minutes after the opening credits.

Pictures, not words, narrate the sequence of events leading up to the accused boy sitting in the courtroom. He is the only person who doesn't speak during this legal process. 12 is rated PG-13. It earns this rating not from the language of the jurors, but from the on-screen depiction of the events surrounding the defendant's life. The life that presupposes his guilt.

The quiet man who offers the first not-guilty vote poses it with the request, "I want to talk, at least." They hold the fate of a young man. There should be some discussion pushed around the table before this kid is sent to a small cell for the rest of his life. The discussions evolve into something more personal--about how their lives didn't turn out the way they had planned--more than the guilt or innocence of the boy. And this complicates what seemed like an open and shut case that would be quickly voted upon so they can all get back to their lives.  

Inevitably the civility between the jurors fades. As they grow more familiar, the power struggle begins. We see a wide range of personalities, each employing his tactics to coerce the rest of the room to see things his way. When the anti-Semite, racist cab driver crosses into physical bullying, we see the strengths and weaknesses of the very different jurors. They come from the full spectrum of the Russian culture and they bring with them their own set of coping skills. It is the crossover between the assumed place of each juror that flexes the dramatic muscle of 12.

This movie had very little attendance during the first week at the Darkside. Maybe people think sitting through a two-and-a-half-hour Russian drama is not squealing good fun. The fact is, the movie is the perfect length. It takes as long as it needs to tell the story. When this happens, the viewer is engaged by the story, not the clock. (The movie is going to play another week. Who knows what happens after that; make sure you see it before the studio yanks it due to poor ticket sales.)

The sound of the Russian language is still in my head. The intensity of a non-romance tongue lashes out from the story and ensnares those not familiar with the sounds. In the darkened auditorium, when I looked down to scribble a note for this review I didn't need to see the subtitles to know what was happening on the screen. A huge part of this story is told in the sounds of the serious voices, but also in the other sounds: the steaming pipe, the badly played school piano, the bird stuck in the room, the violent light switches, the machine guns, the reverberating silences. Do not miss the chance to hear this story on the big screen.