"12"

12 is a 2007 crime film by Russian director and actor Nikita Mikhalkov. Mikhalkov was awarded the Special Lion at the 64th Venice International Film Festival for his work on the film, which also received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. It is an adaptation of Reginald Rose's play Twelve Angry Men and a remake of Sidney Lumet's film 12 Angry Men.

The jury decides whether a young Chechen boy is guilty of the murder of his stepfather, a Russian military officer. Initially it seems that the boy was the murderer. However, one of the jurors (Sergei Makovetsky) votes in favour of acquittal. Since the verdict must be rendered unanimously, the jurors review the case, and one by one come to the conclusion that the boy was framed. The murder was performed by criminals involved in the construction business. The discussion is repeatedly interrupted by flashbacks from the boy's wartime childhood.

In the end the foreman states that he was sure the boy did not commit the crime but he will not vote in favour of acquittal since the acquitted boy will be subsequently killed by the same criminals. In addition, the foreman reveals that he is a former intelligence agency officer. After a brief argument, the foreman agrees to join the majority. Later the foreman tells the boy that he will find the murderers.

 

On 8 September 2007, the film received a special Golden Lion for the "consistent brilliance" of its work and was praised by many critics at the 64th Venice International Film Festival. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

...

Russian director Nikita Makhalkov has created a riveting adaptation of 12 Angry Men, the 1957 American film directed by Sidney Lumet with a screenplay by Reginald Rose. Although there are certain similarities, this telling of the tale has specific changes that relate to the Moscow setting.

 

A young Chechen man (Apti Magamaev) has been accused of stabbing to death his adoptive father, a Russian military officer. A jury of twelve men retire to a gymnasium in a run-down high school that contains a long table, a piano, basketball hoops, and exercise mats. They have been told that "the decision must be unanimous." The bailiff takes away their cell phones and says to them, "You'll be done in twenty minutes." The group selects a foreman (Nikita Mikhalkov) and the busy men around the table are all convinced that their proceedings together will not take very long. A vote is taken to see whether or not they will send the defendant to prison for the rest of his life. Eleven choose to convict and one votes to acquit. An engineer (Sergey Makovetsky) is convinced that they have acted too fast given that the Chechen youth's entire life is in their hands.

An angry cabbie (Sergey Garmash) wants to know why mercy should be shown the "stinking Chechen dog." When a pensive Jewish man (Valentin Gaft) decides to go along with the engineer, he notes that the defendant's lawyer did a poor job. The group is mesmerized by the engineer's account of his alcoholism and personal transformation. But the poison of prejudice raises its ugly head again when a disgruntled transit worker (Alexey Petrenko) spews his distrust of non-Russians and the cabbie laments that he feels "like an alien in my own city."

The Jewish man shares a story that shows that anything is possible: it revolves around his father's love for a Nazi SS officer's wife and then the transit worker tells a bizarre tale of his uncle and a hostage crisis. A surgeon (Sergey Gazarov) clashes with the cabbie and an actor decides to vote to acquit. Now there are seven still upholding a guilty verdict. A TV producer (Yuri Stoyanov) is scared out of his wits by a dramatic vignette delivered by the cabbie, and a traveling actor (Mikhail Efremov) adds his own little contribution to the ongoing dialogue about the case.

Director Mikhalkov (Burnt by the Sun) has created a multidimensional and very theatrical film about the poignancies and flaws in human nature when it comes to judging others, especially those who are viewed as strangers or outsiders. The flashbacks in the drama depict the battles between the Russians and the Chechens as a source of mutual hatred.

The engineer, as an individual who has experienced a second chance, is a heroic figure of empathy and insight. Although even he falters in the surprising finale when a new standard of caring and compassion is introduced from an unlikely character in the story. A final treat is that some of the speeches of the jurors convey the prejudices, incivilities, professional ineptitude and corruption afoot in Moscow at the time of the trial. 12 was a 2008 Academy Award Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film.

...

The penultimate entry screened in-competition at this year's Venice Film Festival, it was for many the surprise non-winner of the Golden Lion for Best Film. The jury did, however, award Mikhalkov an ad-hoc Special Lion in recognition of his mastery as a filmmaker both in this and his previous works. (His "Urga" won the Golden Lion in 1991.)

Mikhalkov's latest production, which he directed, co-wrote and acts in, coincides with the 50th anniversary of Sydney Lumet's "12 Angry Men." Although inspired by the classic Hollywood courthouse drama, it is very different in many ways.

The initial situation of "12" is similar to Lumet's film, in which a young Puerto Rican boy is on trial for murdering his father. His guilt seems obvious, the witnesses reliable enough and everybody on the jury inclined to reach a rapid verdict - until a sole juror courageously suggests that they discuss the case further, and at least consider the possibility of innocence.

In Mikhalkov's film a Chechen youth (Apti Magamaev) stands accused of stabbing to death his adoptive father, a Russian special forces officer, who rescued the boy after his parents were killed in the fighting, and brought him back to live with him in his Moscow apartment.

The story opens when the 12 jurors, all male, retire to an improvised jury room set up in a school gymnasium. As in Lumet's movie, the case seems an open and shut one, but a lone juror raises doubts. The jurors begin to argue, to talk, to reveal more about themselves and gradually, as darkness falls and snow settles in the streets outside, reexamine and even physically rehearse the evidence.

The jurors (whose names, as in "12 Angry Men," we never learn) include a chauvinist anti-Semitic taxi-driver (Sergei Garmash); a charming old Jewish gentleman (Valentin Gaft); a neurotic variety show performer (Michail Efremov); a scientist with a tragic past (Sergei Makovetsky); a successful surgeon, who is himself from the Caucasus (Sergei Gazarov); and an entrepreneur and owner of cable television stations (Yuri Stoyanov), who is so indecisive that he has to be reminded of the last way he voted. What gradually emerges from their deliberations is a panoramic view of Russia today, with its disappointments, multiple ills, corruption, violent internecine struggles, black humor, sentimentality and enduring hopes.

Cumulatively "12" is reminiscent of a kind of sprawling Russian novel, played out in dramatic form. The many-sided narrative that unfolds in the gymnasium is punctuated by a vivid series of flashbacks of the accused boy's experience of the Chechen wars (in which Apti Magamaev's younger self is poignantly played by his own 7-year-old brother, Abdi). These fragmentary, haunting images of violence are momentary, rather than morbidly and exploitatively graphic, but suggestive of the ferocity of the conflict and the countless personal tragedies suffered by those caught up in it.

The Russian Federation does not have a jury system on British and American lines, so this aspect of the film is imaginary, or perhaps futuristic, given the underlying suggestion that it might indeed benefit from one, as much as it would from confronting its entrenched prejudices with a wider and more open debate. But Mikhalkov is not a didactic filmmaker, always seeking to deal with historical events and social developments through the lives of plausible individuals with all their virtues, faults and contradictions.

Andrei Konchalovsky, Mikhalkov's elder brother (they decided to divide the Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky family name between them some years ago to avoid confusion) made "Dom Durakov" (House of Fools) dealing with the Chechen wars, which also had its premiere at Venice in 2002. This engaging and daring film was attacked in Russia for being too sympathetic to the Chechen rebels. It will be interesting to see the domestic response to Mikhalkov's treatment of the subject. "12" is a very "Russian" film, but with universal implications. The drama could, for example, equally involve an Iraqi orphan, adopted by an American officer, facing a court in the United States.

Mikhalkov's "12" has a remarkable and unexpected twist at the end. It suggests two different conclusions: one in the style of Hollywood, another perhaps more in keeping with Russian realities, but not in the manner of, say, Peter Howitt's "Sliding Doors" - since, strangely and subtly, Mikhalkov's endings are not entirely incompatible, challenging the audience to continue to ponder the issues.