Celestial wives of Meadow Mari

As in his previous film, the internationally successful Silent Souls (Ovsyanki), Alexey Fedorchenko, one of Russia’s most distinctive contemporary directors, sets out for the Volga region to reveal to viewers the way of life of the Mari, a Finno-Ugric nation that still maintains a number of traditional rituals originating from paganism. While Silent Souls is a meditation on the last things of man and a portrayal of this people’s burial ritual, Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari is an energetic celebration of love, of womanhood and of the joy of life. This mosaic of twenty-two short tales about Mari women, which the director himself has described as a “Mari Decameron,” sees Fedorchenko blending reality with folklore and fairytale motifs with erotica in a playful style all his own. Twenty-two stories about twenty-two different women, all exuding an infectious energy... (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)