Documentary Review: 'The Village Detective: A Song Cycle'

Filmmaker Bill Morrison and I share a fascination with old movies, specifically those that have been mostly lost to time. His remarkable found footage documentary Dawson City Frozen Time explored the decaying beauty of silent films found buried in a former gold mining outpost. Some of the films were far too gone to be restored while others were remarkably well kept in that frozen tomb. Morrison shared both the decayed and well preserved, edited together to tell the story of Dawson City, a place with a very unique history all its own.

For his latest feature, Bill Morrison has an equally unique subject. In 2016 an Icelandic fishing trawler found something very strange in its net. The find was a large, metal, film canister. Upon hearing about the remarkable discovery, Oscar nominated composer Johann Johannson contacted his friend, Bill Morrison, and the two held out hope that what was found might be a long lost silent era movie. Film preservationists in Iceland immediately went to work and what they found was surprising and possibly a little disappointing.

Instead of recovering a long lost hidden gem of the silent picture era, the movie turned out to be a Russian comedy from the late 1960’s called The Village Detective. The Village Detective is part of a series of movies starring famed Russian actor Mikhail Zharov. It was made near the end of Zharov’s career and was quite popular when it was released in Russia in 1969. That said, there are many clean and well preserved copies of The Village Detective, even one you can find on YouTube.

So this strange find isn’t very notable in and of itself, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hold a strange fascination. As was the case with his Dawson City documentary, the found footage is a jumping off point for a unique work of art all its own. Through this film found at the bottom of the ocean, Morrison takes us on a journey through the career of Russian actor Mikhail Zharov which began in the silent era when he worked for the legendary Sergei Eisenstein and then touches on other aspects of his career, such as his becoming the first Russian actor to sing on film. Zharov’s resume is a like trip through the history of Russian film both the propaganda and the works of genuine artistry.

Zharov was an accomplished musician, his favored instrument was the accordion which, interestingly enough, plays a central role in The Village Detective. The Village Detective has Zharov in the title role, a detective who is tasked with finding an expensive accordion that was stolen from a local nightclub. It doesn’t sound like much of a plot but I was rather surprised to find myself intrigued by the odd interplay between Zharov and the owner of the accordion. The movie is accompanied by an accordion score by composer David Lang and the score is absolutely gorgeous, it sets a unique tone for this very unique documentary.

There is no sound left on these film reels and they are badly degraded by time, the rusty film canister, and the ocean. That said, the floor of the ocean has a unique chemistry that actually makes it not a terrible place to store a film reel. The elements of the bottom of the Atlantic, near Iceland, are very cold and chemically, aside from rusting out the canister, they are somehow ideal to preserve film. Thus, it is fascinating to watch this 50 plus year old version of The Village Detective, badly degraded but just viable enough to make out.

The Village Detective: A Song Cycle treats The Village Detective movie like a silent film. Morrison and composer David Lang use captions clipped from the film’s translation to help you understand the story and fill out the soundtrack with this beautifully hypnotic and soothing accordion music. The captions give us a rather intriguing mystery about the missing accordion but it is the odd rhythm of The Village Detective, the way one character uses another character’s full name when he refers to him, the clever ways in which the detective draws a story from the people he is talking to, it’s fascinating and so very simple at the same time.

Zharov reminds me of the great character actors of modern Hollywood, like Danny Aiello or Chazz Palmintieri. He has a load of charisma and the brief looks at his filmography from the silent era, through World War 2 and into the early 1970s back up my assertion that he was the kind of actor that directors love, a utility man who can play any role and make the role sing. The Village Detective was his very own serial, a character he played in several popular and low budget films very late in his career. Even through the degraded version of the film in this documentary, you get a good sense of why Zharov was beloved in Russia.

There is something haunting and hypnotic about the degraded and damaged images, these frames of film where you can hardly make out the people in the scene. Morrison makes the choice to let the footage roll, even the most damaged portions where we see nothing but broken, atrophied film stock, play on for long periods of time with only the accordion music and the captions on. The effect, for me, was mesmerizing and strangely beautiful. That said, I know others might not have a similar fascination with this aesthetic.

Indeed, some might find The Village Detective: A Song Cycle boring. It’s certainly not for anyone who has a short attention span. You have to allow yourself to be immersed in a movie like this and let it take you in and carry your imagination. There are very few traditional elements of a documentary film in The Village Detective: A Song Cycle. There are a few talking heads in the movie, an Icelandic film restorer and a Russian film expert lend context to the discovery, but more than anything, The Village Detective: A Song Cycle, is an experiment in sight and sound, memory and curiosity.

The Village Detective: A Song Cycle opened on September 22nd, 2021 at the IFC Center in New York City and will be in a limited run theatrical release after that. Go to KinoLorber.com for more information on how you can experience The Village Detective: A Song Cycle. Be sure to stay through the credits wherever you watch The Village Detective: A Song Cycle. The haunting and breathtakingly beautiful song I Cross the Field by Shara Nova plays over the credits and it's so amazing.