Like a Loaded Weapon. See Felix Umarov’s "Eden" 07.09.2020

The brief story told by Eden transposes a well-known Bible parable and sets it in the modern world, showing Adam and Eve as residents of a world rich in night clubs and parties. The film was released last year and is finally being made available online today. 

The director himself admitted that he’d have trouble calling his work a “movie” in the traditional sense. It’s more of a visual sketch, devoid of dialogue and drawing on video art and techno musicals. 

“I didn’t try to moralize or impose my vision on anyone. I simply ask questions and play with my audience a little. If God made all living things, made Adam and Eve, and even made the snake that tempted and deceived them, did he not foresee how this whole story would lead to the fall of man?” the director asks. “Personally, I think that introducing a creature adept at tempting naïve, nascent mankind into the Garden of Eden is like putting a loaded pistol into a child’s crib. Here, however, it’s every man for himself,” Umarov continues. 

The filmmaker sees the visuals, rhythm, and editing as essential elements of the finished product. “I wanted the film to flicker in the audience’s eyes, to look as if shot in one go.” In reality, however, Eden is a seven-and-a-half-minute-long visual punch. 

Read the entire conversation with the director that we published alongside the film’s release.