Cinema of a healthy person – Newspaper Kommersant No. 162 (7363) of 09/03/2022

The 44th Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF) ended on September 2. The jury chaired by Yevgeny Mironov chose the drama of the Iranian director Behruz Shoaibi “Without a preliminary agreement” about the return of the family to their homeland as the best film. The jury headed by Sergei Ursulyak announced the painting by Pyotr Todorovsky “Healthy Man” as the winner of the “Russian Premieres” competition. About the films of this competition, shown at the end of the festival, tells Julia Shagelman.

“Russian premieres” arranged at the MIFF for the first time, became, perhaps, one of the few really interesting events of the film review, held this year in a tense environment. The films here were, as usual, of different levels and quality, but they represented Russian cinema in all its diversity, from purely author’s exercises to films oriented, as they say, to a wide audience.

For example, Jeanne directed by Konstantin Statsky, who used to shoot mainly serials, is a melodrama in the immortal genre “a strong woman cries at the window.” This picture would organically fit into the air of some TV channel, and it will certainly be a success on streaming. The character of the main character (Ksenia Rappoport) was tempered in the “dashing nineties” so beloved by our filmmakers. Before that, there was a betrayal of her father and the hardships of life in a remote province, so Jeanne grew into a heartless bitch. She also earned millions, manages a huge business with an iron fist and, without the slightest sentiment, exposes a young lover (Alexander Novin), having learned that he will have a child from another woman. Zhanna herself never became a mother, and this, according to the authors, explains everything both in her character and in the fact that she is deeply unhappy, despite all her money. The talent of Ksenia Rappoport in some places still overcomes the vulgarity of the script, but not the misogyny that deeply permeated it. However, the men get no less: all of them, from Jeanne’s father to the failed lover and old friend performed by the chairman of the MIFF jury Yevgeny Mironov, look small and pathetic in the film.

Fortunately, the repertoire of the Russian Premiers was not limited to the soap-opera ordeals of the business elite. One of the strong and non-standard pictures of this competition is “Mikulai” by Ilshat Rakhimbay. The heroes of his film were the Kryashens, the Volga Orthodox Tatars, whose depiction of life and folklore the authors approached with great respect. The Mikulai genre is declared as a “psychological ethnothriller”, and at first you expect something like the Tatar “Solstice” or Shyamalan’s “Mysterious Forest” from it, but in reality the picture turns out to be a poignant drama about how the human psyche tries to cope with the horrors of war, separation, loss, loneliness and, unable to bear it, breaks down.

The heap of misfortunes that befell Mikulai (the incredible Viktor Sukhorukov) may even seem excessive, but the tape does not pretend to realism. In fact, the history of the lost Kryashen village where he lives is a metaphor for the history of the whole country, and there is plenty of grief and misfortune in it.

Instead of fighting the injustices of life, Mikulai chooses to escape into the world of his own fantasies. Yegor (Nikita Efremov) from Healthy Man has a different approach. One night, after hearing cries for help in the yard, he goes out to intervene, although his wife Maya (Irina Starshenbaum) says it’s enough to call the police. Yegor saves an unfamiliar girl from a drunk with a knife, his wife and work colleagues (and he works as a presenter on a sports TV channel) call him a hero, but the next evening the bastard released by the police still kills the girl. From that moment on, Yegor’s own prosperous life begins to seem empty and meaningless. In order to fill this void, he goes to volunteer at the children’s oncology hospital, and then to the Liza Alert squad.

At the same time, Yegor himself does not fully understand what in his actions comes from sincere empathy, and what is dictated by the desire to get rid of the guilt that torments him. Meanwhile, those around him, at first on duty praising him, begin to consider him not quite normal. He breaks up and reconnects with his wife, loses and gets a job again, falls into self-pity, but still gets out. And a professionally staged film with excellent works by Efremov and other actors proves that even at the MIFF in its current version, there is still a movie of a healthy person.