Finding Tatu - a Film of Coming of Age Problems and Solutions

The rights of coming-of-age were always well defined in most cultures and religions throughout the history of mankind. In today’s fast moving world, with mega-exposure to masses of people, people are left to find their own solutions. Nothing could graphically explain this phenomenon more than a new film being shot in Moscow, called Finding Tatu.

The director, the eminent Roland Joffe, is no stranger to difficult and novel subjects (Mission, The Killing Fields, Mario Bros, Captivity), and this new film is no exception.

The film describes in detail a young American girl (played by Shantal VanStaten) who finds herself transplanted to Moscow (the first crisis condition in the coming-of-age condition, displacement in society), where she meets another girl (played by Misha Barton)on the internet. The other girl represents to her, her own feelings of loneliness and disaffection with her environment.

Both girls are unified by the singing duo t.A.T.u. which act out a defiant anti-establishment gay image, and thus represent for the two girls, some form of independence; again, a key coming-of-age quality. Another character in the film is a man who represents to the girls the responsibility and consequences of independence. He is played by Igor Desyatnikov, who both tempts and rescues the girls during the pivotal moment in the coming-of-age drama.

Both girls are faced with a great many elements of today’s society that can lead to ruin and death. The use of drugs and keeping of bad company have very well-known consequences. Sex for the sake of demonstrating one’s independence often leads to both disappointment and disillusionment. These features are examined in both the book from which the film was based (‘t.A.T.u. Come Back’, by A.Mitropanov), and the screenplay, carefully guided by the film’s producer, Serge Konov (RAMCO, Captivity, The Konov Principle).

Solutions to the coming-of-age condition are to be found in the film, if the advance notice of the script and story line is to be believed. The analogies formed by the cross-cultural film demonstrate the issues are neither American nor Russian in nature, but universal. This is why the story and film are important; not for the plot, but for the principles that underlie it.

Further to the plot in the film, and in keeping with the coming-of-age issues, the characters find the consequences of their actions are not to their anticipation or expectations, and highly negative in nature. If the film is done well, the girls will treat this as a character building experience, and gain from it. Certainly a great deal of the young people in their position; finding themselves deeply mired in the consequences of their actions, are deeply affected.

The story goes so far as to suggest imprisonment for serious offences, and the viewer at least is faced with the consideration, “what price personal freedom?”

The producers of the film have targeted Finding t.A.T.u. for release in 2008, with both Russian and English versions. The final outcome of the girls is still unknown, but one can hope that as Roland Joffe is directing, there will be some well-defined and satisfying conclusion. Nevertheless, the coming-of-age experience is known to usually be painful and distressing. This film may help many young girls and boys to avoid certain lines of activity and pursue others.