A new film about Ivan Vasilyevich made me believe in Russian cinema

Yes, I know, everyone turned up their noses in advance, made faces, scary to say, spat… And I thought with them: the television remake of Gaidai’s legendary comedy under the nickname “Ivan Vasilyevich Changes Everything” is another Comedy Club creation, meaningless and merciless. All these previous remakes like “Good Luck Gentlemen”, “Office Romance. Our time” and even “The Irony of Fate. Continuation” under the strict direction of comrade Bekmambetov, with the same artists, albeit very aged, but without Liya Akhedzhakova, looked like a discrediting of the wonderful original.

And this only provokes conversations that now they don’t know how to film at all (a comparison with the classics suggests itself), and that sense of humor, subtle, intelligent, intricate, is missing as a class, that Ryazanov, Danelia, Zakharov, Gaidai are space and for them, the current ones, never get there.

Occasionally (well, very rarely!) some witty, sharpened reprises were heard from “Comedy,” but they quickly disappeared, because again it was necessary to compromise and make money.

During the New Year holidays, the much-hyped film was shown three times, and on the third time the client, that is, I finally matured, watched it. And I received incredible pleasure.

They can, if they want… They gathered their brains into a bunch and produced a super comedy. This is not some kind of “Slave” or “Cheburashka”, which collected an extraordinary box office. “Our people love all kinds of g…o,” the unforgettable Shnur once sang. “You simply don’t know how to make dolma,” Frunzik Mkrtchyan said to Vakhtang Kikabidze in Mimino. “You just don’t know how to make movies,” someone from there might tell us here. Individual wonderful people like Balabanov, Ursulyak, Khlebnikov and Zvyagintsev do not make a difference.

But it worked out here. Directors: Mikhail Semichev and Roman Kim. Have you known these before? Me not. Their main feature is their extraordinary respect for Leonid Gaidai, whose centenary we celebrated last year. Unlike all previous remakes of the great Soviet comedies, where no one showed any reverence for the masters (“oh, they offended such a good man!”), here they were so scrupulous and attentive to every mise-en-scène, to Zatsepin’s magnificent music, to every to the artist. Look how Marina Kravets, like a twin, looks like Natalya Selezneva (Zina), how Pavel Derevyanko, pulling on a wig, plays Pugovkin (yes, that same notorious Yakin), how Maxim Kiselyov manages to simultaneously look like Peskov’s press secretary and Savelia Kramarova… Here even Buzova differs little from Krachkovskaya herself, playing Bunsha’s wife.

The plot moves through times and years (that’s why the legendary “Time Machine”). Here you have the 90s (the dashing ones, for which there is already nostalgia), which, brilliantly laughing at themselves, presented “Ivanushki International” (Red, the “Matvienkovsky bandit”, how matured!), here is Grozny, of course (Timur Batrutdinov), and then immediately – and Louis’s France! Who is our Louis? There was a change in the team: instead of Philip Kirkorov (Peter I), who dropped out of the game, Nikolai Kologrivy, already the star of “The Boy’s Word”, entered the field – the same Louis XVI. This is how the intrigue is resolved. And then Lazarev gave “Grey Night” in French – and this was to the point of sobbing, in memory of Yura Shatunov. This is laughter through tears, aerobatics. And the jokes are fresh, relevant, modern, about today and yesterday, where we all came from, some earlier, some later. And the best of them: “You stop thinking about how to change the past, and better start building our wonderful future.” And immediately after Bast he played “Beautiful Far Away” in the rap style from “Guest from the Future.” From our childhood, so joyful and happy. Again to tears!

And at the very end, Tarantino (alive!) suddenly appears and in Mikhail Pugovkin-Yakin’s chair watches our artists dance his famous dance from “Pulp Fiction” (Uma Thurman – John Travolta). This is already just super! After such a comedy, you want to live and hope remains. Isn’t that the purpose of art?!

Thus, we showed that a country that is now in no time for laughter still retains the ability to laugh. And How! How in 1934 everyone saw that the USSR, having gone through incredible cataclysms, experimented on itself, finally filmed “Jolly Fellows.”

And finally, as a TV critic: “Ivan Vasilyevich changes everything” will remain for a very long time. Because time shows and transforms. Like “Old Songs about the Main Thing”, “First Ambulance”, “Unblue Light” on REN-TV. Remember my words again!

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 29191 dated January 10, 2024

Newspaper headline:
Ivan Vasilievich, you are the best!