Fiona Glascott plays Nadia in Dover Koshashvili's Anton Chekhov adaptation, "The Duel" (2009).
By David D. Robbins Jr. | The Fade Out
“The Duel” (Director: Dover Koshashvili)
High Life Pictures
Dover Koshashvili’s adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s short novella “The Duel”, a period drama about the residents of a seaside town in the Caucuses, correctly finds the tone set by the original. Take it from a Chekhov lover, the best thing about the Russian’s writing is his ability to arrive at a point of discovery without necessarily providing an apotheosis. Like Shakespeare and a handful of other writers, Chekhov’s gift is his unbelievable sense of empathy — being able to understand what is often viewable from the surface is never the full story about another human being. The film centers primarily around two characters, the weak-willed, unemployed and hysteric Layevsky (Andrew Scott), who manages to seduce another man’s wife. He lounges around while complaining about everything from his fortune in life to how repulsive nature is. Then there’s the zoologist, Von Koren (Tobias Menzies), who despises everything Layevsky is, finding Layevsky’s ‘type’ to be the downfall of decent civilization.
But it’s Chekhov who makes no judgments, while all his characters are busy making theirs. Layesvksy judges the zoologist as a snobbish, intellectualizing government lackey. Von Koren sees his job of categorizing animals via Social Darwinism, as the same task as a sociologist — the application of judgment being the same for all species. He is a man of set rules, laws, definitions and decorum. Nadia (played by Fiona Glascott) is Layevsky’s lover, who has caused a minor scandal by living openly with her affair while her husband is away. But Layevsky is cruel to her, using her for physical pleasure and nothing more for most of the story. It seems the harshest judgment of all is reserved for women, especially the unfaithful. Nearly everyone of high social standing has shunned Nadia — and town policeman Samoylenko even tries to blackmail her into sleeping with him. Nadia’s older friend, and one of the only women in town who socializes with her, even critiques her dresses as vulgarities in one gorgeous scene, finally relieving herself of all she’s been holding back about her judgments of her supposed friend.
Most of Chekhov’s stories, including his plays, advance like light precipitation. His tales are introspective, philosophical and exceedingly open-hearted. This isn’t Leo Tolstoy or Fyodor Dostoyevsky with their clear sense of purpose and morality and their insistence that characters find revelation in the end. Chekhov’s stories end with new beginnings, where readers must imagine what happens after the tale has finished. The beauty of great Chekhov, like “The Duel”, is that he catches us making our own judgments about his characters. At the beginning of the film we may be quick to judge Layevsky as a malcontent, but later we see he also has a sort of bravery and spirit to take life head on however destructive and sullen he may be. Von Koren may appear to be the early hero because he’s smart and has a sense of moral exactitude. But he also has shades of self-righteousness and an anachronistic world view that makes him seem unable to understand change or idiosyncrasy. Nadia can be seen as an easy woman, as weak-willed as her lover. She’s also a woman surviving in a man’s world, who’s devotion to Layevsky is as strong and admirable as her cheating is detestable. While we may denigrate her for being unfaithful, her actual husband makes no appearance in the film until a letter arrives announcing his death. Chekhov’s plot shift may be manipulative, but it works to great effect, shaking the ground of our first and perhaps erroneous appraisal of Nadia’s value. What Chekhov understands with great acuity is the peculiar irony of making harsh value judgments, that most people already know their own bad qualities, so pointing them out is simply an act of malevolence. Judgments often tell us more about the one making them than they do the person on which a verdict has been rendered.
In a sense, Chekhov’s conclusion is that to make judgments of people is an almost useless task and no one can know the real truth. Chekhov dismantles the notion of judging by actions. No one has the ability to pass fair judgment on the elemental worth of a person. The actual duel in the story represents the point of departure from which each of the main characters will never be the same. It’s not as revelatory for the characters as it is for the reader of the story or viewer of the film. Unlike the film, Chekhov leaves the reader with a lingering phrase, “no one knows the real truth”. It’s unclear what exactly Layevsky, Von Koren or Nadia learn from this. As Chekhov subtlety punctuates throughout the narrative, people ultimately decide for themselves what they learn from life’s lessons. Note: Cinematographer Paul Sarossy (The Sweet Hereafter) adds a sensuous and passionate backdrop to the film that is as rich visually, at times, as Jane Campion’s “Bright Star”, about 19th century poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne.
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