An Analysis of Piter FM (2006)
Summary
While crossing the street in a busy crowd, Masha drops the phone her fiancé gifted her without realizing, and Maxim picks it up, not knowing whom it belongs to. When Masha realizes she lost her phone and calls it using her fiancé’s cell phone, Maxim answers. This starts a series of events leading to Maxim and Masha meeting each other in the midst of their unhappy lives, where Maxim is an architect set to study and work in Germany, but it is clear he does not want to follow through. Similarly, Masha is unsatisfied with her fiancé and finds herself breaking up with him in the middle of the film. In the midst of their depression, Masha finds comfort in calling Maxim and chatting into the early hours of the morning as well as throughout the day, and by the time, Maxim loses Masha's phone in a river, they are determined to find one another, regardless of Masha's forever lost phone.Analysis
Although this rom-com takes viewers through a rollercoaster of events leading up to Maxim and Masha finding each other, the use of energy, regardless of its importance, is taken for granted. Without the need for everyone to have cellphones, both characters would have no basis to know each other exists. Even when Maxim accidentally drops Masha’s phone into the river, they only find each other when Maxim calls Masha’s radio show to ask for advice on how to find her, without realizing who the host of his favorite radio station has always been.
Every time Masha and Maxim cross paths, they never recognize each other for who they are, even when they are actively looking for each other. When Masha takes the escalator up to meet Maxim, they stare at each other as he goes down the escalator after waiting hours for Masha to turn up where they planned to meet. Again, towards the end of the movie, they walk past each other crossing a bridge, each looking back at one another as if knowing who they were, yet they still missed the opportunity to interact and meet in person. Without Masha’s job at the radio station, their budding relationship would be completely lost. More importantly, without the reliance of technology, Masha would continue to prepare for a marriage she never wanted, and Maxim would begrudgingly move to Germany away from the architecture he loves admiring in St. Petersburg.
When the movie ends, Maxim and Masha have yet to meet in person, but since this is a romantic comedy, it is safe to assume they find one another. After all, the only happiness they could find within their unhappy lives were when Masha called Maxim. In a perfect world, their lives together will be fulfilling and they will live together in love, unlike the phones they grew to love each other on. Like many phones that are discarded in landfills every year, Masha's phone will deteriorate in the river Maxim dropped it in; it takes hundreds of years for e-waste to break down, not to mention the glass used with an estimated 1-2 million decay period (ERI). Let's say a couple years down the line, Maxim wants to upgrade his cell phone and get rid of his old phone by recycling it with his cellular provider, like many cell phone consumers do. The process of smelting precious metals releases toxic vapors into the atmosphere. According to Holgate, micro-entrepreneurs, who cook circuit boards to retrieve valuable scraps, search the many e-graveyards where collecting organizations largely based throughout the developing world collect unwanted e-waste for profit. This process exposes them to nickel and mercury fumes, which often leak into the surrounding environment's air, ground, and drinking water, causing a range of health problems. When anyone watches lighthearted movies, namely rom-coms, continuity oftentimes escapes the viewers. In reality, regular consumers of the developed world seldom think about where their garbage ends up after they no longer have use for what they throw out, leading to an overwhelming ignorance towards how our need to live comfortably, with an endless supply of amenities at our disposals, impacts those we give our garbage to.
Reflection & Data Physicalization
The first time I watched this movie, my main focus was being able to understand what was being said in Russian, let alone the energy afterlives associated with Masha and Maxim’s relationship. Even when I did understand the movie, energy was not presented as a major plot point, yet it is crucial to the course of the film. In general, the interconnectedness of people became shockingly clear, either through radio, phone calls, and even being in the same environment as thousands of people. It made me realize how I see people who I never recognize and will most likely never get to know, yet we live in the same town, take classes in the same buildings, eat in the same dining halls, shop at the same grocery stores, live in the same buildings, and live without knowing of each other.Putting together this physicalized graph was a really fun process; as I watched the movie, I kept track of when Masha and Maxim interacted and kept my attention on the importance of phone calls between Masha and Maxim based on what they shared with each other. Recognizing the uselessness of in-person interactions was an important distinction, as the only productive occurrences developing their relationship was on the phone or over radio, especially at the end of the movie. Aside from these two main dependencies on energy use, if I had the time and space, I could expand my analysis by measuring the reliance of both characters using public transit, such as buses and the metro, and maybe the aforementioned escalator’s energy usage. Even more so, I could attempt to consider the energy used in their daily lives in St. Petersburg.
Bibliography
ERI. "How Long Does It Take Electronic Waste to Decompose?" ERI, 3 Nov. 2015, eridirect.com/blog/2015/11/how-long-does-it-take-electronic-waste-to-decompose/.Holgate, Peter. “The Model for Recycling Our Old Smartphones Is Actually Causing Massive Pollution.” Vox, Vox, 8 Nov. 2017, www.vox.com/2017/11/8/16621512/where-does-my-smartphone-iphone-8-x-go-recycling-afterlife-toxic-waste-environment.
Piter FM. Oksana Bychkova, Yevgeny Tsyganov, & Ekaterina Fedulova, 2006.