Silent Souls trailer 2010

Silent Souls (Russian: Овся́нки, "The Buntings") is a 2010 Russian road drama film that was nominated for the Golden Lion at the 67th Venice Film Festival. It is based on a 2008 novella by Denis Osokin.

Plot
Aist is a middle-aged bachelor who leads a lonely life in the northern town of Neya. Like many of his neighbours, he identifies as a Meryan and strives to keep alive the reconstructed traditions of that culture. He acquires two Bunting birds. One day his boss, Miron, informs Aist of the death of his wife Tanya, and demands his help disposing of the body without an autopsy. The pair spend quite some time washing her body and putting colored threads in her pubic hair. (In their culture, the same ritual is performed on brides-to-be). Taking the birds and Tanya's naked body with them, the two men travel to Gorbatov, the site of her honeymoon and the smallest town in Russia, in order to perform cremation rites on the banks of the #Oka River. In a tradition of "smoking" or sexually recounting the dead, Miron boasts of his wife's strictly enforced submissiveness. Aist recalls that Tanya was unhappy. A policeman sees the dead body in their car but chalks it up to Meryan custom. On their way back to Neya, they get lost and are approached by two prostitutes, with whom they have sex. Thinking back on Tanya Miron laments that he should have "let her go" implying that her death was a murder to prevent her departure. Afterward, while traversing the Kineshma Bridge, they are caused to crash into "the great Meryan river" (The #Volga: there to drown) when the Buntings get loose in the car to peck at their eyes.

The Merya people (Russian: меря; also Merä) inhabited a territory corresponding roughly to the present-day area of the Golden Ring or Zalesye regions of Russia, including the modern-day Moscow, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Ivanovo, and Vladimir Oblasts. The fact is that by origin the basis of “shim” is Meryan In the modern Vepsian language, the word meri means "sea" In the 6th century Jordanes mentioned them briefly (as #Merens); later the Primary Chronicle described them in more detail. Soviet archaeologists believed that the capital of the Merya was Sarskoe Gorodishche near the bank of the Nero Lake to the south of Rostov. It is likely that they were peacefully assimilated by the East Slavs after their territory became incorporated into Rus' in the 10th century.