“Amateurism ruined cinema”: cameraman Klebanov called the cause of troubles in culture

In St. Petersburg, one of the oldest domestic festivals “Vivat Cinema of Russia!” is coming to an end. Several paintings in his competition are dedicated to great love – to the fatherland and a woman. And the oldest filmmakers do not cease to be surprised that the cinema flies into the abyss, and amateurs reign in it.

Eight paintings are participating in the competition: “Amanat” by Anton Sievers and Rauf Kubaev, “1941. Wings over Berlin” by Konstantin Buslov, “Doctor” by Artem Temnikov, “Healthy Man” by Pyotr Todorovsky, “Flood” by Ivan Tverdovsky, “Garden” by Larisa Sadilova, “Syrian Sonata” by Oleg Pogodin, “Peter I. The Last Tsar and First Emperor” by Andrey Kravchuk. This colorful set perfectly illustrates the whole bunch of problems and achievements of the domestic film industry.

In the documentary and feature film by Andrei Kravchuk, an attempt was made to analyze the scale of the personality of the Russian autocrat. The picture is positioned as a complete reboot of the historical documentary genre, a global reconstruction of events and the creation of an actual psychological portrait of Peter I. The off-screen voice of Konstantin Khabensky explains everything in detail and insistently.

Among the experts are specialists from various fields – up to Sergei Shoigu. All of them evaluate the activities of Peter, whose role at different stages of life was played by actors Daniil Muravyov – in childhood, Alexei Lukin – in his youth and Ivan Kolesnikov – in his mature years. Andrey Kravchuk, who began his career with the touching “Italian”, for which he was loved by critics and festivals, and then also soon fell out of love for further work on large-scale projects “Admiral”, “Viking”, “Union of Salvation”, “Once Upon a Desert”. He is a talented and subtle person, but his new film has nothing to do with serious documentaries, no matter how much we are convinced of this.

The historical military drama “Amanat” refers to the events of the first half of the 19th century, to the decline of the Nikolaev era. Against the backdrop of dramatic events in the life of the country, the story of the love of the eldest son of the Imam of Dagestan and Chechnya Shamil Jamalutdin, called the great hostage, and his Russian chosen one, the daughter of a retired Major General Liza Olenina, is told. Jamalutdin was played by an actor from St. Petersburg Amin Khuratov. Lisa is the blond beauty Varvara Komarova, as if she had come out of a modern hairdressing salon.

Jamalutdin was nine years old when his father made him a symbolic hostage and amanat for the sake of a truce between the Russian Empire and Dagestan. The boy is taken care of by Nicholas I (Andrey Sokolov played his role). He diligently studies in St. Petersburg in the cadet corps. And his father continues to strife, attacks Russian troops in the Caucasus, leaves no hope of exchanging his son for one of the significant hostages. And now the newly-made officer of the Russian army, Jamalutdin, is returning home. He is well educated, knows foreign languages, is trained in good manners and dreams of the reign of peace.

Amin Khuratov finds parallels with his hero: “I also grew up in the Caucasus. My mother is Russian, my father is Adyghe. I was my own among strangers, a stranger among my own. Despite the talk of loyalty, people love their own and do not like someone else’s. This is how the world works. And it was interesting to play this borderline state.”

Oleg Pogodin, known for his films The House and The Little Humpbacked Horse, shot The Syrian Sonata about yet another intersection of the personal and the global. His hero – the famous conductor Viktor Fevralev with a symphony orchestra goes to perform in a dangerous country. His role was played by Konstantin Lavronenko, our only actor who received the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for Zvyagintsev’s The Expulsion. Now, wherever he shoots, the countdown starts from there.

In the role of a conductor, he makes a strange impression: it is clear that he has not been trained in much in this sense. On board his plane, Fevralev almost at first sight falls in love with his fellow traveler, a journalist with experience in hot spots Tatyana Stebeltsova, played by Elena Sever. They find themselves in a hotel seized by terrorists, and the ex-husband of the heroine, lieutenant colonel, commander of the MTR detachment Sergey, performed by Gosha Kutsenko, will carry out the rescue operation.

Tatyana went through more than one war zone and switched to culture. No one here has any understanding of the profession. Musicians and military will laugh, journalists too. Syria was filmed in the Crimea. There they found suitable landscapes. They attracted such powerful artists as Igor Gordin and Vladimir Ilyin. Did not help.

What is happening is reminiscent of a bad vaudeville, a make-believe game. It is surprising that all this was filmed by an experienced and talented director Oleg Pogodin, and his producers do not understand what they have actually done. “Lavronenko is dubious in Liquidation, but here he is a hero,” that was what was said. What kind of hero? Comic character. This is how another story of love for the Motherland and a woman turned out.

During one of the festival discussions on the state of Russian cinema, which is very sad, judging by some of the films, cameraman Igor Klebanov recalled Soviet cinema, talked about how “Hollywoods studied with us,” since any profession in cinema was distinguished by high professionalism. “Amateurs are working today,” he said. – I’m not being ironic. The producer invites hairdressers as a make-up artist. We shot a movie with Pavel Chukhrai, and people from the hairdresser worked for us. They go from picture to picture.

Love has ruined the cinema. We have lost everything – Goskino, the most authoritative organization, the Union of Cinematographers of the USSR, which stood for creativity and helped filmmakers. And now we have one producer. I would like to appeal to film schools: “Produce deputy directors of films.”

A veteran of domestic film distribution, Lyudmila Tomskaya, recalled the 90s: “We bought foreign equipment: the country lived like a consumer. It was believed that it was easier to buy than to invest in development.

If some kind of projector flew off, then everything is over, I can’t show a movie. Until I find the right lamp, until they bring it to me, and they will bring it for crazy money, because it has skyrocketed in price ten times. Moreover, they will bring them through third countries … Of course, we will get out somehow.

St. Petersburg director Vyacheslav Sorokin, who directed The Totalitarian Romance and many other worthy films, has been deprived of the opportunity to work in recent years. As did many of his colleagues. He posed the eternal St. Petersburg question: “We are always talking about Moscow cinema. Three St. Petersburg studios are destroyed. One of them is sold, and the second is almost. Everything that happens in our sphere is the destruction of life and love, artistic principles.

I came to the opening of the festival and saw so many actors and directors. Where are they all? Who destroyed it all? Producers work for their own pocket and amaze with their primitiveness and untrainedness. What he saw on the screen once again confirmed the truth of these words.