Building a State of Fear in “Extremist”

On November 16, 2023, Sasha Skochilenko, a thirty-three-year-old artist, poet, and musician, stood successful tribunal to springiness what is known successful the Russian judicial strategy arsenic the “last word”—final remarks of the accused earlier the justice delivers a verdict. Skochilenko, from wrong a metallic cage, wherever defendants are confined during courtroom hearings, said her lawsuit was truthful “strange and ridiculous” that it felt similar an April Fools’ joke, arsenic if “confetti volition commencement falling from above.”

A mentation of the code appears adjacent the extremity of “Extremist,” a abbreviated movie by the Russian manager Alexander Molochnikov, who present lives successful New York. The movie reimagines the alleged transgression that made Skochilenko famous, an avatar for some the cruelty of Putin’s system, and the bravery of the fewer who would hazard their fates and state to reason it. “Even though I americium down bars, I americium freer than you,” Skochilenko tells the judge. “I tin marque my ain decisions and accidental what I think.” She adds, “Maybe that is wherefore the authorities fears maine and others similar maine truthful overmuch and keeps maine successful a cage similar a unsafe animal.”

Nearly 2 years earlier, pursuing Russia’s full-scale penetration of Ukraine, Skochilenko had replaced the terms tags successful a St. Petersburg supermarket with assorted antiwar messages: “The Russian Army bombed an creation schoolhouse successful Mariupol wherever astir 400 radical were seeking shelter,” and “Putin has been lying to you from the tv surface for 20 years. The effect of these lies is our willingness to judge warfare and senseless deaths.”

That enactment of guerrilla show creation was noticed by a shopper astatine the store, a seventy-six-year-old retiree, who reported the caller tags to police. (The woman, Galina Baranova, told a Russian quality site, “I’m arrogant of what I did. Isn’t it a existent disgrace to spot a transgression and conscionable crook away?”) An probe worthy of an extremist ensued: officers examined surveillance footage from the store and tracked down Skochilenko, charging her with the transgression of disseminating “knowingly mendacious information” astir the actions of the Russian equipped forces. After she delivered her past connection successful court, the justice sentenced her to 7 years successful prison.

Molochnikov told maine that the movie does not purport to beryllium a documentary, oregon adjacent based connected Skochilenko’s story, but, rather, helium said, “inspired” by it. One cardinal creator reinterpretation is that, successful the film, Skochilenko—who lives with her partner, Sonya—resides successful the aforesaid flat gathering arsenic Baranova. The 3 of them person pleasant, neighborly relations, saying hullo and discussing, successful 1 scene, an day of mushroom picking successful the woods. At archetypal Baranova doesn’t cognize who she has denounced; erstwhile she learns it’s Skochilenko, she feels a pang of remorse, telling police, “They’re decent girls.” But her cognition toward them yet hardens. The price-tag stunt, she says successful court, was a “well-planned and cynical” attack. “She is guilty.”

The proximity of Skochilenko and her accuser heightens the film’s consciousness of tragedy, the astir accidental mode that lives collide and shatter—a improvement that tin hap with terrifying easiness successful wartime Russia. “The incautious actions of 1 person, and past a second, unneurotic pb to disaster,” Molochnikov told me.

That feeling of closeness, a carnal proximity paired with a heavy motivation disconnect, is simply a broader metaphor for those successful Russia with antiwar views. Molochnikov told maine of how, successful the days pursuing the invasion, helium was filming a tv bid successful a tiny municipality successful the Vologda region, hundreds of miles from Moscow. He got on good with the locals. “We drank beverage together, talking astir each sorts of things, not connected to warfare oregon politics—it was rather pleasant and warm.” But helium could spot they supported the war. The affable receptionist successful the edifice listened to Vladimir Solovyov, a peculiarly noxious pro-war media property and propagandist, each day. “We had truthful overmuch successful common,” Molochnikov recalled. “But determination was a immense abyss betwixt america each the same.”

The fates of the manager and his protagonist person taken a fig of unexpected turns successful the past fewer years. When Molochnikov wrote the script, Skochilenko was down bars successful Russia. But successful August, 2024, a week earlier helium travelled to Riga to sprout the film, she was released successful a large-scale captive speech betwixt Russia and respective Western countries. (Russia freed much than a twelve governmental prisoners, including the American writer Evan Gershkovich.)