SPC:
Your last film, "Adam's Rib," was widely acclaimed in 1991 at the Directors' Fortnight of the Cannes Film Festival. Why did it take you six years to return with another film?

Krishtofovich:
This six-year hiatus was not something I chose. It is simply a reflection of the economic and moral disarray the Ukraine and its cinema have gone through. It was simply not possible to direct a film during that time--the studios more or less stopped making films, and filmmakers stopped shooting them. There was no longer any demand for cinema-- or even culture as a whole. This is the main subject of this film: the inability of an intelligent, refined, cultured, but weak man to find his place in the new society that is emerging after the break-up of the Soviet Union.

This film was made possible thanks to French co-producers who, in a way, gave our studios the will to fight again and helped them obtain the necessary funds from the Ukrainian State.

SPC:
How did you come upon the screenplay?

Krishtofovich:
I have a writer friend, Andreï Kourkov, and at one point he gave me a novel which I read and liked. So I talked to the producers in France who were putting up the money for my next film. I told them how much I liked it and they agreed to do the film. After that the script was written very, very quickly, and then we looked for Ukranian financing for almost a year. Finding the French financing was much quicker.

SPC:
What was it that you liked about the story?

Krishtofovich:
I was intrigued by the idea of a person, like Anatoli, who can't find his way in this new situation-- where all of a sudden you are free and have all these things you could do, an endless number of possibilities, and yet you don't know what to do, that type of thing. And also the idea that he's someone who actually loses himself, the person he thought he was. He feels that the time now in Ukraine, the way things are, they won't forgive people that are pitied or that aren't strong-willed people. They won't forgive people who are weak--and not everyone can be strong.

SPC:
In the film, one of the characters, Dima, remarks that the feelings of friendship that existed in the Soviet era have become a thing of the past, that now in Ukraine the only relations between people are business relations. Do you miss the Soviet period?

Krishtofovich:
I don't regret the absence of freedom of course, the nit-picking censorship, the police control. Where I would agree with the character in my film is that the pseudo-liberalism which has replaced socialism in our country has also produced a disintegration in human relations. True, we weren't as free before, but this absence of freedom made people behave more warmly to one another. Real solidarity was apparent at every level of society. A joyous, underground society enabled us to bear the oppression. Anatoli, the main character in the film, is an intellectual who is unable to give up the luxuries of the Soviet period: conversations between friends, reading, and pure, selfless research.

SPC:
Do you think that Anatoli's inability to adapt and to make decisions ultimately makes him an unsympathetic character?

Krishtofovich:
We can ask a lot of people--that they be sincere, that they do not behave badly--but we can't ask them to behave like heroes. That is a deeply-held conviction of mine. It takes strength to live in Ukraine today. It takes strength to be able to change oneself, to force oneself to live differently. A 15-year-old adolescent who has never experienced anything else will have less trouble developing this strength than a 35-year-old man. At 15, you dream of a different life, but at 35, when a good part of your life is already over, it's hard to have to break the habits of a lifetime so you can compete with other people. In France, for example, an intelligent, refined, cultured man can earn a good living teaching Romance philology. In our country, that is no longer possible. One can no longer survive on a university professor's salary! And the things one has to do to survive are not always compatible with one's beliefs.

I didn't want to portray any of the characters unsympathetically. All the characters were nice looking people--they weren't portrayed as hard characters, not even the killer himself. I didn't want to show people grotesque or disfigured--they're all just trying to survive in a world that's new to them. I feel we shouldn't judge them for that.

SPC:
At the beginning of the movie we see Anatoli working very hard-- making phone calls and trying very hard to make it. He is putting a lot of effort into it, and yet he's getting nowhere.

Krishtofovich:
Yes, he is looking for a job or work, something that he would like to do, such as writing or translating. Obviously he could get money some other way, but he is looking for something he would be happy with. Before he was needed because of the work he was doing. Now all of a sudden, he isn't.

SPC:
But he's not prepared to shed his identity as an intellectual.

Krishtofovich:
Right, he could always take a job loading cars or something like that, but he doesn't want to. He wants to do something creative, something he likes doing.

SPC:
Why does he finally decide to send his picture to the hit man?

Krishtofovich:
Everything was sort of building up to that point, but seeing his wife leave is the last straw. It's the moment of insanity where you say "Okay this is it, I want to stop everything." He can't do it himself, but in a moment of weakness, so to speak, he decides he'll let someone else do it. In this society he is like an artist and he wants to have a beautiful death.

SPC:
So then why does he change his mind, decide to go on living?

Krishtofovich:
He suddenly realizes as bad as things are, things are changing for him and are even looking up, looking better. When he gets drunk and meets Vika, the prostitute, he feels there are still things to live for.

SPC:
But why can't Anatoli call off the hit man at that point?

Krishtofovich:
Two reasons. First of all, his friend who recommended he hire a hit man explained to him that you can't stop this in the middle. And secondly, he would rather die than admit to his friend that it was him, that he put out a contract on himself.

SPC:
Why does he go to the hit man's wife?

Krishtofovich:
He feels guilty. He caused a tragedy, a death, and feels very badly about the fact that, because of his decision not to kill himself, he caused the death of an innocent person. And having the money from the wallet of the man who was killed, Anatoli wants to cleanse himself by returning that money to the man's family. I use these sorts of acts of contrition quite often in my films, and they occur a lot in Ukrainian and Russian literature. It's the sense that you have to do something to cleanse yourself from some action and wipe the slate clean.

SPC:
But she also turns out to be a very beautiful woman, so Anatoli appears to be getting something out of the situation...

Krishtofovich:
He may feel that he could fall in love with her. But then again, he could fall into the same situation he had with his wife, and so perhaps he is a little bit scared as well.

SPC:
Is he also on a mission to make amends when he approaches the businessman and tells him that his life is in danger?

Krishtofovich:
He is trying to find balance, to do something good. But at the same time he saves the businessman, he also takes out another contract. So he saves one and kills another.

SPC:
But Anatoli thinks of that contract as another good deed, to help Vika, the prostitute.

Krishtofovich:
Yes. Exactly. He helps in one way, but he is killing a person for her and making it worse for her. It's good and bad. And if you think about it, you won't understand good if you don't have bad.

SPC:
At the end of the movie Anatoli has a home and a family. It seems like he's got a life, which he didn't seem to have before.

Krishtofovich:
What life? The life he got certainly isn't the life he wanted originally. He's no longer the person he was before, he's not writing or using his education. I don't know. I just know he became different, he changed, and I'm not sure if that will be for the better.

SPC:
Is this the change the whole country has to make? I mean he is obviously in a way metaphoric for all the kinds of prices people have to pay.

Krishtofovich:
I don't really think of Anatoli's life as a grand metaphor. For me, it's just a story about one weak person trying to make his way in a world that has gone through enormous changes in a very short time. But, then, most people are weak, and Anatoli isn't an isolated case.