''Delirium'' is a 2013 Ukrainian

psychological drama Psychological drama or psychodrama is a sub-genre of drama that places emphasis on psychological elements. It often overlaps with other genres such as crime, fantasy, black comedy, and science fiction, and it is closely related with the psychologic ...

film produced and directed by Ihor Podolchak, premiered in Director's Week Competition in

Fantasporto Fantasporto, also known as Fantas, is an international film festival, annually organized since 1981 in Porto, Portugal. Giving screen space to fantasy/science fiction/ horror-oriented commercial feature films, auteur films and experimental proje ...

(Portugal, 2013), awarded with the "First Prize" at

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...

International Film Festival (2013). ''Delirium'' is the second Podolchak feature film. The screenplay is based on the novel ''Inductor'' by Ukrainian writer Dmytro Belyansky.

Plot

A family asks a young psychiatrist to be their guest for a while and help look after their father who's developed a suicidal fixation for ropes and knots among other things. It is also entirely possible that the mental health of the guest that is the real cause for concern.

Cast

* Volodymyr Khimyak as Guest, Psychiatrist * Lesya Voynevych as Mother * Petro Rybka as Father, Professor * Olha Horbach as Daughter * Olha Bakus as Maid * Vasyl Kostenko as Son, Son in Law * Ivan Kostenko as Priest

Production

Work on the script had begun in the spring of 2008 and was completed on the eve of filming. The director's development and preparatory period were financially supported by the Hubert Balls Foundation (The Netherlands). In search of locations for filming, the film group carried out a long expedition on the Carpathians and Transcarpathians of Ukraine. The first stage of filming took place from August 1 to September 15, 2008, in the suburbs of

Lviv Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukrain ...

Briukhovychi Briukhovychi (; ) is an urban-type settlement in Lviv Raion, Lviv Oblast of Ukraine. It belongs to Lviv urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. Between 1939 and 1942, and again from 1944 to 1957, Briukhovychi was the center of Briukhovychi ...

and Horodok, the second stage was held in

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Kyi ...

in late 2009 - early 2010. In total. The shooting was conducted on a digital Red One camera. Almost the whole film, with the exception of the first and last scene, was shot with the help of the Tilt- Shift lenses, which made it possible to create a specific image with uneven focus distribution along the frame, plane and various geometric distortions of the frame content. In the scene, which was filmed in Gorodok church, an Oscar-winning ''Garmoshka'' crane and a gyrostabilized panoramic head ''Flight Head'' of the renowned Ukrainian company
Filmotechnik
' were used. Editing, color correction, and sound design were made on

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

hardware and Apple software: Final Cut Studio, and

Logic Pro Logic Pro is a digital audio workstation (DAW) and MIDI sequencer software application for the macOS platform. It was originally created in the early 1990s as Notator Logic, or Logic, by German software developer C-Lab which later went by E ...

. Visual effects were made in

Adobe After Effects Adobe After Effects is a digital visual effects, motion graphics, and compositing application developed by Adobe Inc., and used in the post-production process of film making, video games and television production. Among other things, After Eff ...

. The sounds from the set were not used. The voices of three male characters - the Father, the Guest, the Son - was performed by the Kiev actor Vitaly Linetsky. The sound design of the film was performed by well-known Ukrainian musician and TV showman - Miroslav Kuvaldin. The final edition of the sound was made by Igor Podolchak and Igor Durych in 2011.

Music

The score was written and performed by Alexander Schetinsky. Initially, the director and composer planned to use the traditional musical genre Dies irae, which is part of the Catholic Mass. Were written six completed instrumental parts, named according to the sections of the Latin mass: Dies irae, Quantus tremor,

Mors stupebit Mors may refer to: * Mors (mythology), the personification of death in Roman mythology *Mors, Latin for death * Mors (automobile), a French car manufacturer from 1895 to 1925 :* American Mors, Mors vehicles produced under licence in America by the ...

, Ingemisco, Tuba mirum,

Lacrimosa The ''Lacrimosa'' (Latin for " weeping/tearful"), also a name that derives from ''Our Lady of Sorrows'', a title given to The Virgin Mary, is part of the Dies Irae sequence in the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass. Its text comes from the Latin 18th an ...

. The composer limited himself to the means of the symphony orchestra and did not use any text or vocals. The music does not contain direct illustrations, and, in particular, thanks to avant-garde style techniques, paradoxically combined with names, appealing to the surrealism principles, which fully corresponded to the aesthetics of the film. However, during the work the authors decided to use only two musical parts - Mors stupebit at the beginning of the film (initial titles) and Dies irae on the final credits. During the unfolding of the film, music does not sound at all. Thanks to this, the initial and final musical fragments acquired additional dramatic significance: an introduction to the "problematic" of the film (the effect of tuning on the corresponding aesthetic "wave") and a semantic generalization.

Interpretations

Like in his first film ''

Las Meninas ''Las Meninas'' (; ) is a 1656 painting in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age. It has become one of the most widely analyzed works in Western painting, due to the way its complex an ...

'', ''Deliriu'' appeals to the intricate family sagas, which appear in the novels by

Witold Gombrowicz Witold Marian Gombrowicz (August 4, 1904 – July 24, 1969) was a Polish writer and playwright. His works are characterised by deep psychological analysis, a certain sense of paradox and absurd, anti-nationalist flavor. In 1937 he published his ...

Milorad Pavic Milorad (Cyrillic script: Милорад; Polish: Miłorad) is an old Serbian masculine given name derived from the Slavic elements: ''milo'' meaning "gracious, dear" and ''rad'' meaning "work, care, joy". The feminine form is Milorada. Nicknames: ...

, and

Bruno Schulz Bruno Schulz (12 July 1892 – 19 November 1942) was a Polish writer, fine artist, literary critic and art teacher. He is regarded as one of the great Polish-language prose stylists of the 20th century. In 1938, he was awarded the Polish Academ ...

. Unlike the sagas

Luchino Visconti Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo (; 2 November 1906 – 17 March 1976) was an Italian filmmaker, stage director, and screenwriter. A major figure of Italian art and culture in the mid-20th century, Visconti was one of the ...

('' The Damned'') or Ingmar Bergman (''

Fanny and Alexander ''Fanny and Alexander'' ( sv, Fanny och Alexander) is a 1982 period drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. The plot focuses on two siblings and their large family in Uppsala, Sweden during the first decade of the twentieth century. ...

''), Podol'chak avoids

narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional ( fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc. ...

but everything happens outside the space-time continuum with a focus on psychological states. His characters are arbitrary, which is emphasized by archetypal names: Father, Mother, Daughter. Developing the themes set in his first film ''Las Meninas'', Podolchak in ''Delirium'' somewhat modifies the "family" structure - introduces into the hermetic nightmare the "other" character - the person from the side. But this "stranger" (the main character is the Psychiatrist, a kind of heir to the narrator from ''

The Fall of the House of Usher "The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1839 in ''Burton's Gentleman's Magazine'', then included in the collection ''Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque'' in 1840. The short story ...

'' by

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...

) shows himself not as an alien body. His invasion does not cause any changes in the "family organism". The family absorbs the "alien", turning him into a full participant of a strange game, the exit of which does not exist.Підгороа-Ґвяздовский, Я
''Фільтр для марень''Український тиждень
1 октября, 2010, Retrieved April 1, 2013 From the point of view of cinematic genres, more accurately subgenres, ''Delirium'' can be attributed to the so-called "stories about the house with no way out" or "stories of houses with ghosts." From the films of the first category, the closest is '' Singapore Sling'' and '' See You in Hell, My Darling'' by

Nikos Nikolaidis Nikos Georgiou Nikolaidis ( el, Νίκος Γεωργίου Νικολαΐδης; 25 October 1939 – 5 September 2007) was a Greek film director, screenwriter, film producer, writer, theatre director, assistant director, record producer, televi ...

. From the films of the second category, you can, for comparison, recall '' The House on Telegraph Hill'' by

Robert Wise Robert Earl Wise (September 10, 1914 – September 14, 2005) was an American film director, producer, and editor. He won the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture for his musical films ''West Side Story'' (1961) and ''The Sound of ...

and '' The Others'' by

Alejandro Amenábar Alejandro Fernando Amenábar Cantos (born March 31, 1972) is a Spanish-Chilean film director, screenwriter and composer. He has won nine Goyas—including a Goya Award for Best Director for his 2001 film '' The Others''— two European Film A ...

. But unlike the films by Wise and Amenabar, in Podolchak's ''Delirium'' the spectator encounters the concept of "erroneous suspense" when the director seems to create an atmosphere of anxious anticipation, but these premonitions of something terrible are being destroyed by the characters' inadequate reaction on them. Suspense, performed by Podolchak, is self-destructing. It has no point of view "from the outside", there is no coordinate of "normality", relating to which the viewer is able to oppose herself/himself to screen suspense. The viewer becomes this obscurity. Thus Podolchak provokes a feeling of acute

claustrophobia Claustrophobia is the fear of confined spaces. It can be triggered by many situations or stimuli, including elevators, especially when crowded to capacity, windowless rooms, and hotel rooms with closed doors and sealed windows. Even bedrooms wit ...

Купінська, А
''Сьомий день Одеського фестивалю: перші підсумки, непрості фільми Кіри Муратової та Ігоря Подольчака''life.pravda.com.ua
20.07.2013 Retrieved September 20, 2013 - there is no way out from Podolchak's "home-world". The spectator, like the characters, does not know is there anything beyond the boundaries of the place where she/he is at the moment. Since "this moment" has the ability to loop, then the flight "from here" becomes simply impossible.

Award and Nominations

Award * 2013 - First Prize. Baghdad International Film Festival, Iraq Nominations * 2013 - Best Director Award. Fantasporo, 33rd Oporto International Film Festival.

Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...

, Portugal * 2013 - National Ukrainian Film Award".

Odesa International Film Festival The Odesa International Film Festival ( uk, Оде́ський міжнаро́дний кінофестива́ль) is an annual film festival held in the middle of July in Odesa. Since 2016 the festival program has consisted of three parts: ...

. Ukraine * 2013 - Grand-Prix. Zerkalo, Tarkovsky International Film Festival. Ples, RussiaZerkalo, Tarkovsky International Film Festival
. Retrieved June 29, 2013 * 2013 - Prize.

Tirana Tirana ( , ; aln, Tirona) is the capital and largest city of Albania. It is located in the centre of the country, enclosed by mountains and hills with Dajti rising to the east and a slight valley to the northwest overlooking the Adriatic Sea ...

International Film Festival. Albania

Literature and sources

International Film Guide
2010: the definitive annual review of world cinema, edited by Haydn Smith. 46th Edition. London & New York: Wallflower Press, 2010, p. 298 * Nogueira, C
O Cinéfilo Invertebrado
05.03.201. Retrieved March 22, 2013

ttp://www.20khvylyn 20хвилин 20 лютого, 2013. Retrieved March 7, 2013
«Игорь Подольчак: „Я хотел сделать фильм-бред“»
Retrieved July 18, 2012 * Белянский, Д
''Игорь Подольчак. Зеркало для Я''
Art Ukraine, 5(24) вересень-жовтень. Retrieved July 18, 2012 * Институт Горшенина

ttp://www.lb.ua/ LB.ua 27 лютого 2013. Retrieved March 7, 2013 * Олтаржевська, Л
''У мене зараз інші пензлики''.Україна молода
No. 030 за 26.02.2013. Retrieved March, 2013 * Підгороа-Ґвяздовский, Я

ttp://dt.ua/ «Дзеркало тижня» No. 37 (765) 3 — 9 жовтня 2009. Retrieved July 18, 2012 * Підгора-Ґвяздовський, Я
''Фільтр для марень''
Український тиждень. 1 жовтня, 2010. Retrieved July 18, 2012 * Підгора-Ґвяздовський, Я
''Таблетка деліріуму''

Що
1-2, январь-февраль, 2012, стор. 22-31. Retrieved July 18, 2012 * Філатов, А
''"Своїм фільмом "Delirium" хочу роздратувати глядача" - режисер Ігор Подольчак''.Gazeta.ua
22.02.2013. Retrieved March 7, 2013
Що дивитися: нові українські фільми/DELIRIUM
// Inspired — 17 жовтня 2014

External links

Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Delirium 2013 films 2013 independent films Ukrainian drama films Films shot in Ukraine Films directed by Ihor Podolchak 2010s psychological drama films Neo-noir Nonlinear narrative films Surrealist films Psychodrama 2013 drama films