Cinema and homeland are one – Weekend

Film critic Nikita Kartsev, who recently headed the Art of Cinema magazine, decided to try his hand at directing and shot for the Premier platform, part of the Gazprommedia holding, a three-part documentary Kino 3.0, telling an alternative history of Russian cinema over 30 years. What came out of this is being sorted out Zinaida Pronchenko.

Russian cinema was born in 1992—it was in this year that the word “USSR” was no longer written on the credits. Nevertheless, Kartsev’s film begins with evidence of slightly more ancient times, namely with a monologue by Svetlana Druzhinina, the author of the late Soviet hit “Midshipmen, Forward!” (1987). Druzhinina, in a sincere manner, tells the camera under what circumstances she met with the writer Nina Sorotokina, who actually invented the brave midshipmen, how difficult it was in terms of budget, how far from the filming site and from her aspirations some reformers and some reforms. And in general, she did not delve into what was happening in the country in those years. The next respondent, Sergei Ursulyak, who was just beginning his creative career in the late eighties, partly echoes her. There was no money. There was nothing to do. However, he clarifies that he did not want to say goodbye to the Soviets. The Soviet taught good things. Ursulyak is replaced by much younger characters – Alexey Nuzhny (“I’m Losing Weight,” 2018), Zhora Kryzhovnikov (“Bitter!”, 2013) and Klim Shipenko (“Challenge,” 2023). They all talk about money too. However, occasionally being distracted by childhood memories – about the repertoires of video salons and about the sincere warmth that emanated from the fatherly figure of Nikita Mikhalkov in “Burnt by the Sun” (1994).

In parallel with the interview, as planned by Kartsev, there are television footage telling about what remained beyond the attention of Druzhinina, Ursulyak and many, many other interlocutors – that is, Russia with its ongoing tragedies and cataclysms. The storming of the White House, the murder of Listyev, the first Chechen, “Kursk”, “Nord-Ost”, Beslan… The announcers of “First” and “Second” keep count of the dead, the first and second persons of the state offer their condolences and promise that this will not happen again . Dates flash at the bottom of the screen – 1993, 1998, 2008, and the filmmakers continue to talk about money. Surprisingly, no one shares the secrets of their craft or even funny incidents from filming. Fyodor Bondarchuk makes a few jokes, Gosha Kutsenko grins at something. Yegor Konchalovsky, with a baseball bat in his hands, demonstrates how he was wronged by bandits – of course, in the nineties, there was no one else on the streets except them. Sergei Selyanov silently looks at Sergei Bodrov and Alexei Balabanov, talking at the bar, on the other side of Lethe. It seems that Kartsev is interviewing accountants rather than filmmakers. It seems that Kartsev’s film was shown to the censorship committee several times before reaching the viewer.

Is this the reason for the lapses in memory of the historiographer who undertook to document the history of Russian cinema, who chose as his avatar a wonderful girl in futuristic armor, looking at the boxes with film on the interruptions? The 2000s are already coming to an end, and not a word was said about the work of Kirill Serebrennikov and Renata Litvinova, Avdotya Smirnova and Alexander Sokurov, the “new quiet ones” – Boris Khlebnikov and Alexey Popogrebsky, Nikolai Khomeriki and Vasily Sigarev – have disappeared somewhere. And the most important director of the 2000s and 1900s, Andrei Zvyagintsev, is modestly presented with footage from Leviathan. His name is not spoken. But actress Elena Lyadova, who starred twice with Zvyagintsev, reports that soon we will be watching good films and foreign ones, but now I want to support the audience with comedies. What happens to the audience is not specified. Perhaps the works of the above-mentioned directors or producers no longer reach her? So, for example, it turns out that Fyodor Bondarchuk’s projects were realized only by Elena Yatsura, and no one else. Or Timur Bekmambetov – in this new version of events, he took almost no part in the development of Russian cinema.

Director Alexander Zeldovich (Moscow, 2000) is trying to hint at something to us, commenting on the success of Brother 2: “This film called for something that I don’t like.” But he seems to be pulled back by Klim Shipenko, who convincingly declares that politics is not needed in cinema; everyone can engage in politics in Russia and say what they think completely freely.

As if in confirmation of these uplifting words, Yulia Peresild is sent into space before our eyes. Her flight in the dream that cinema is is a strange postscript to what has been happening to us these 30 years in reality. The curve of history is slowing down, bashfully stopping at 2021. For the beauty of the gesture, for the sake of harmony, Nikita Kartsev could loop the thirty-year story with the same Svetlana Druzhinina, whose sequel “Midshipmen” – about the original Russian Crimea – is now in theaters. I could have, but I didn’t. It is possible that he was simply embarrassed.

Look: Premier

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