Credit WAMC
Beanpole or Dylda is a Russian feature film shot in St. Petersburg. It was theatrically released a little more than a year ago. It is available for home-viewing on DVD and Blu-ray, as well as on MUBI on Prime Video and Prime Video itself. It is the second feature directed by Kantemir Balagov, and he was still in his twenties when he co-wrote and helmed the production. Beanpole takes place in Leningrad in 1945 at the tail-end and end of World War II.
It’s about devastation, loss of hope, physical and mental disintegration. The two lead characters are young women who have been through hell, and are not back from it! They are Iya, or Beanpole as she is called, a very tall, very slim, washed-out blonde who is post-concussive, and her dear friend Masha who looks pretty healthy until seen naked. She has an ugly scar under her belly from a shrapnel attack that took out her reproductive organs. The two women served together as anti-aircraft gunners. Now they