The Book Stealers

In the film, the story of Catherine and her friends lacks continuity and narrative coherence. If there is a dominanta that holds the film together, it is not the image but the soundtrack: Lagutenko’s songs connect the clips-shards of the characters’ adventures. It is not a coincidence that the film begins and ends on the sound stage where the group records its songs. The Book Stealers falls apart into several fragments that lead the viewer from one appearance of Lagutenko and his group to another. Through his songs and episodic appearances, Lagutenko gradually turns into the central textual force. Lagutenko’s excessive presence raises a question about the type of text under scrutiny. Are we watching a musical teen-flick that possesses a narrative structure of its own or are we watching a series of Lagutenko’s musical videos that have completely taken over the narrative shell of Rybakov’s film? Not surprisingly, on one of the posters promoting the film, Lagutenko’s portrait occupies the foreground, while the film’s characters are relegated to the background.