Movies

Documentary explores world of Russian art collectors

It takes a good 15 minutes of throat-clearing for this documentary to get under way. At the opening and for a long while after that, Ilya Kabakov is shown walking (and walking and walking) through the crowds at a Moscow exhibit, while he and his wife and collaborator Emilia talk about — well, not much. At last, Kabakov starts speaking about the Stalinist world into which he was born in 1933, and interest perks up–for a while, until it’s back to filler.

Why on earth should this documentary about important artists include so many scenes of Emilia answering her cellphone? Why, when the movie has access to the wrenching memoir of Ilya’s mother, does an actress read the same sentence in voiceover, at least five different times? If collector Dasha Shushkov must be interviewed (and she has nothing all that illuminating to say), can her far more famous billionaire husband, Roman Abramovich, at least get a mention? The fact that this oligarch couple collects the art of a man who couldn’t exhibit in the old Russia is surely worth examining.

It’s immensely frustrating, because around the 50-minute mark, when Kabakov’s Soviet life begins to be described in detail, and the art is shown more fully, it’s clear that this is a fascinating subject. The couple’s installations give vivid glimpses of their lives and intellect; this digressive, poorly organized film does so only sporadically.