"I Stay" - between the two worlds

“I Stay” is a new film which opens this week in cinemas across Russia. Director Karen Oganesyan put his characters in coma, and this state of suspension between life and death helps them to understand something important in life.

Director Karen Oganesyan tried to give the state a philosophical interpretation.

“A film should ask questions and not answer them. That's why the two hours of my film are a pause, which we don't usually make in everyday life to ask ourselves what do we do in our life and where we will go,” says Karen Oganesyan.

Film critics have already started describing Oganesyan's debut as an attempt to challenge Federico Fellini's and Luis Bunuel's works.

“I've been reading different reviews which compare my film with others – ones which I like. But I think our ”coma“ is different as it's more life-like,” comments Karen.

The film depicts two worlds: one which is real and is shown in full colour and the other black and white. It is the things they left unfinished in their lives the problems of human existence that worry the inhabitants of this “other” world.

But the director treats these major problems in somewhat light and even humorous manner.

“There's just the right amount of humor that the film and the script need. We were trying to make neither comedy nor drama,” expands the film director.

Karen Oganesyan says that it is not working on the characters that was the most difficult thing but finding a location to shoot the in-coma episodes. Finally, one was found in an old chalk pit.

The film does not give answers to existential problems. Instead, it offers a light and positive view of the modern world. And that is exactly what a viewer tired of visual violence needs.