SOVIET DIRECTOR BASKS IN THE GLOW OF <i> GLASNOST</i>

Once-ostracized Soviet film-maker Alexei Gherman sat in his $250-a-day suite at the St. Moritz Hotel, marveling at his abrupt change of fortune, and toasted Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost (openness) over croissants and coffee. The celebrated director was branded “anti-Soviet” with the banning in 1982 of his film “My Friend Ivan Lapshin.” But he’s now visiting the United States basking in the glow of his restored favoritism. But he says he doesn’t know exactly why he’s here.

“When the authorities from Goshinko (the State Committee for Motion Pictures) told me I was to travel to the United States--I was stunned,” he said.

The 49-year-old director, disheveled and chain-smoking Marlboros, spoke guardedly through an interpreter who introduced herself as Elena Cherniaevsky, a teacher of Russian who also works for the Cultural Department of the Soviet Mission to the United Nations.

As we sat down to breakfast, Gherman and his interpreter quizzed the reporter about her reactions to “Ivan Lapshin.” She hesitated, explaining that she was there to interview him. They persisted, as if they were taking the reporter’s political temperature. She replied, “It’s complicated.”

The profoundly ambiguous film depicts the dreariness and confusion of a small Russian town in 1935. The hero, affable police chief Ivan Lapshin, shares a crowded apartment with a family and three other policemen. Lapshin, a member of the NKVD (the murderous forerunner of the KGB), “has unshakable faith in Stalin,” says Gherman, “but at night he weeps. There is something ominous in the air.

“My characters think happiness will arrive the next year, but it was a long, somber route,” he went on. “Lapshin is beginning to comprehend what’s going on beneath the surface--but without his unshakable faith in Stalin, he has nothing to live for. My father (noted writer Yuri Gherman) was the same--he even dined with Stalin. I based ‘Lapshin’ on his novella (written in 1938 and banned for 30 years). I wanted to understand why people like my parents were applauding Stalin.”

His oblique film “tactfully” neglects to take into account Stalin’s forced collectivization of 125 million peasants, the widespread starvation and the purges in which 20 million Soviets were eventually murdered. Imagine “The Killing Fields” without corpses--just peasants, rice paddies and a few threatening storm clouds.

(“Ivan Lapshin” is scheduled to open May 22 at the Fox International Theater in Venice.)

Soviets still argue over Stalin. When the reporter’s questions turned to his mountain of crimes, Gherman fell silent and left the room for a few moments. The interpreter reached over and grasped the reporter’s arm. “You cannot continue questioning him like this,” she warned, “or it will be a mess. And the interview will be over.”

According to Sovietologist Jonathan Sanders of Columbia University, “For many Soviets raised on the myths of the 1930s, where everything was right and necessary, ‘Ivan Lapshin’ evokes some subtle, but nevertheless painful insights.”

“For some, Stalin was the greatest criminal who ever lived; for others, he was the greatest leader of the 20th Century,” noted Princeton University political scientist Stephen Cohen. “The Stalin question remains the most tenacious and divisive issue in Soviet political life--a dreadful and bloody wound.”

During the Brezhnev regime, film industry leaders kept all references to the Great Terror off celluloid--the 1930s were sanitized.

When asked about the official censorship that has deprived Soviet citizens of the full account of Stalin’s 25-year reign, Gherman answered defensively: “I examined thousands of archival documents about the period.” The film maker successfully re-created a visually authentic portrait of the ‘30s--the shabby clothes, battered furniture, proletarian anthems--but the only sign of Stalin is one poster. Gherman kept Stalin’s activities out of camera range.

Although he’s only made four films in his 20-year career, Gherman is touted as one of the major figures in Soviet cinema today. He’s prominently figured in the current issue of the prestigious Novy Mir magazine and two books are being written about him. His career has been a roller-coaster ride controlled by the changing occupants in the Kremlin. His now-celebrated earlier film, “Trial on the Road,” a sympathetic portrait of a Soviet soldier who went over to the Nazis and then came back, was completed in 1971--and not released for 15 years.

“My colleagues were cheering and congratulating me,” remembered Gherman when “Lapshin”--made for 800,000 rubles (about $1 million)--was first screened at the Leningrad Artists’ Union in 1982. “But within a few hours, I was told all who were guilty in making it were to be punished.

“Those who had praised me suddenly forgot their words. I was branded a failure. The authorities told me I gave a distorted picture of the time,” explained the director bitterly.

“There were certain permissible stereotypes of how to portray the 1930s--people have to be jolly and singing songs. My film showed ‘certain problems,’ so it was banned.

“We received hard reprimands. We weren’t paid a kopeck for the film, no one got paid. The principal crew members were discharged from the studio and I was told I would not work again.

“On each of my birthdays, about 50 people used to celebrate at my dacha-- suddenly no one came,” he recalled. “The empty zone around me widened. I stayed at home writing scripts. I wish no one such pages in their biography.”

Then, three years later, with the beginnings of a new openness, “I was sitting in the cafe of the studio when someone announced that ‘Lapshin’ was going to be released. Again it happened--my colleagues cheered and broke open bottles of Champagne for ‘Lapshin’ and me.”

Gherman was awarded the State Medal at the Moscow Film Festival in 1985 and “My Friend Ivan Lapshin” was shown in movie theaters and on TV. “But,” he sighed, “I still hear countless accusations about how I slandered the glorious 1930s. Some people curse me and say I’m trying to diminish the accomplishments of socialism; some say I should be jailed and the film burned publicly. Others accused me of creating an unrealistic town of small streets, a dingy cramped apartment, depressing police barracks. There was no set--everything was real, but many don’t want to accept it. Even Lapshin’s apartment is just like ours in Leningrad.”

Ironically, Gherman claims one person criticized him for not showing enough. “‘Only one man,” Gherman emphasized. What did he say? “He said a police officer like Lapshin killed his family.”

While Soviet audiences found the movie unsettling, even explosive, knowledgeable American audiences are likely to consider it a case of historical amnesia.

Gherman conceded that the audience at the New Director Series sponsored by the New York Museum of Modern Art seemed confused. “Most Americans don’t know what it was like in my country during that period,” he insisted. “And there’s no way for them to understand the subtle references in my film.”

The times are changing, Gherman emphasized. “Forbidden directors are returning; there is money for experimental films, and I’m in New York having breakfast with an American reporter. I can now make the films that I want, but this scares me. We are so used to looking over our shoulders expecting someone to stop us.

“ Glasnost is real,” he repeated several times, “and the changes are tremendous. I love my country and I’m thankful I live in such a wonderful time.”

The interview was over. Gherman whispered to the interpreter and inadvertently into the tape recorder, “Did I answer correctly and intelligently?”

“Yes,” the interpreter said sourly. “But who knows what she’ll write?”