Creative team
Written by Icchokas Meras, Raimondas Vabalas
Cinematography by Algirdas Araminas, Jonas Abaronas
Music by Algimantas Apanavičius
Art director Juzefa Čeičytė
Costume design Valentinas Antanavičius
Cast
Vytautas Tomkus, Gediminas Karka, Elvyra Žebertavičiūtė, Kazimiera Kymantaitė, Danutė Juronytė, Juozas Budraitis, Audris Chadaravičius, Aldona Jodkaitė, Julija Kavaliauskaitė, Algimantas Masiulis, Steponas Kosmauskas, Lilija Mulevičiūtė, Povilas Gaidys, Algirdas Šemeškevičius, Juozas Jaruševičius.
About the film
June, the Beginning of Summer by director Raimondas Vabalas is one of the most significant and original Lithuanian pictures of the end of the 1960s. It suggestively reflects the mood of the end of the decade, that is, the trampling of hopes associated with ‘the Thaw’.
In the heat of the accelerating summer, a Lithuanian provincial town shimmers near the river Nemunas. Its inhabitants, as if trapped in the everyday life of the town, face an unchanging reality, anxious stagnation and unmeasured aspirations. How to fully reveal yourself in this unreal world, what to choose when you are limited by an upbringing based on illusions and the secret knowledge that "nothing will change"?
R. Vabalas and screenwriter Icchokas Meras seem to be talking about the problems of the provincial sawmill and its production development, while in fact, not shying away from light, and sometimes bitter, irony, they are commenting on the society at that time, the fear of change, the swamp-like present, the general disinterest in the future, the moral and professional fatigue or even cynicism.
June, the Beginning of Summer stands out with its unusual at the time modern and free narrative structure, realistic acting, open plot lines, and fragmented dramaturgy, in which every element, every deliberately incomplete character forms a part of a coherent and connected picture.
The film was criticized by Moscow editors and critics for portraying the mood of decline. It was not shown in the Soviet Union. In Lithuania, the film was understood and loved by the audience due to its original depiction of a well-known reality.
More about the film
June, the Beginning of Summer (1970) by director Raimondas Vabalas is one of the most significant and original Lithuanian pictures of the end of the 1960s. Lithuanian cinema of that decade stood out in the Soviet context, recognisable primarily for films which unequivocally, without strict adherence to ideological canons, and compellingly from the artistic point of view, interpreted the then recent post-war history and were forming the Lithuanian cinematic identity. However, among the features produced at the time, exceptional were films of artistic value that explored the present, the ‘now’ as it was lived, and Vabalas’ feature June, the Beginning of Summer is such an exception. This film, open in terms of form and the questions it posed, reflects, probably in the most memorable way, the mood of the end of the 1960s, that is, the trampling of hopes associated with ‘the Thaw’. Like a sensitive sensor, it picked up on the intensifying symptoms of stagnation in society and mirrored the signs of moral and ethical degradation. Those signs were underlined by the character of Stasys Jurgaitis, manager of the sawmill, compellingly embodied by actor Vytautas Tomkus, as he resists the inertia of spiritual and social life.
The action of the film takes place somewhere in a small provincial Lithuanian town, the choice of the location perfectly reflecting Vabalas’ desire to portray the typical Lithuania of that time, its generalised social context and the psychological state of the people. In the film, summer is picking up speed: it is hot and stuffy, there are few shadows and very few moments of respite from the heat, which augments the mostly stifled states of the characters.
At first glance, life in the town seems to be nothing if not eventful. The sawmill is operating at full capacity, yet there is talk of slowing down its development. Its personnel department is busy with requests to find an employee file here or stamp some document there. An actress of the drama theatre that has arrived in the town has broken her leg, and a replacement for the main role in Jean Anouilh’s play Lark, that of Joan of Arc, needs to be found. School-leaver Sigutė (Julija Kavaliauskaitė) is rehearsing intensively as she is preparing for admission exams for the conservatory and, of course, for the school graduation party that is to crown the culmination of the film. A beautiful monument was erected at the town cemetery, the stone from none other but Mosėdis… All the male and female protagonists in the film are experiencing the personal drama of a relationship without any prospects, their feelings as if stuck in limbo, none of them having the courage to neither continue nor end it. Even the relationship of the priest (Algimantas Masiulis) with God is complicated and filled with doubt... It seems that, for the authors of the film, there are no more or less important characters because their goal is to show how the bitter feeling of the meaninglessness of life and the sense of time standing still affects each and every one. The sawmill employee who does not believe that the development of the sawmill has been stopped only temporarily is as significant for the film’s culmination as the actress Laima (Elvyra Žebertavičiūtė) not believing in her future in the province with Jurgaitis and lacking self-confidence, who will have to play Joan of Arc. Theatre in the film is an important element that renders the action universal.
Utilising the genre of the production film popular in the Soviet era, on the surface of it, director Vabalas and screenwriter Icchokas Meras seem to be talking about the problems of the provincial sawmill and its production development, while in fact, not shying away from light, and sometimes bitter, irony, they are commenting on the society at that time, the fear of change, the swamp-like present, the general disinterest in the future, the moral and professional fatigue or even cynicism. The surgeon, played brilliantly by actor Audris Chadaravičius, suffers most vividly from that symptom: his addiction to alcohol prevents him from fulfilling his professional duty to operate on a worker injured in the sawmill. Someone trying to resist the quagmires of dailiness is Jurgaitis, as he attempts to persuade his boss Naujokaitis that the expansion of the factory should be contained, that the goal is ‘not the man for a factory, but a factory for the man’. However, half of the town has ‘already been wiped out’ in the top dogs’ plans for the new production plant. One scene, in particular, has become a sign of the government’s indifference to the people, the country’s heritage, and culture. As Naujokaitis is showing where various factory departments will be located, his palm slides over the church visible in the distance: there are plans to build warehouses in its place.
June, the Beginning of Summer stands out with its unusual at the time modern and free narrative structure, realistic acting, open plot lines, and fragmented dramaturgy, in which every element, every deliberately incomplete character forms a part of a coherent and connected picture.
The film appeared on Lithuanian screens in 1970 and was attacked by Moscow editors and critics for portraying the mood of recession, but it was understood and became loved in Lithuania. Anxiety about the inertia of dailiness that pervades the film and the meaning of the ironic anecdote Jurgaitis told the journalist about the worst that can happen (‘nothing will change’) remain relevant even today.
– Film critic Rasa Paukštytė
