Crushed Classics – Weekend – Kommersant

Kinopoisk Plus and more.tv are releasing the first season of the animated Anthology of Russian Horror — our answer to the anthology Love. Death. Robots”, six series created by different artists based on classical Russian literature. The “Red Composition” spared no one, not even Pushkin himself.

Text: Ivan Davydov

As a child, I had a dream. Or not, it’s not. As a child, I came across the book “Crocodile – 60 years old”, published for the anniversary of the magazine of the same name. Texts, cartoons are mostly, of course, not funny. But one unnerved the soul. Children in front of the cinema somewhere in hell. That is, in the USA. Dirty paws of a cowboy in a sombrero, a gangster in a half-mask and some incomprehensible humanoid monster with sharp fangs are pulled towards them from the poster. Probably a vampire. Children from monsters are trying to escape. And at the bottom, in small print, something about how the so-called westerns and horror films destroy the psyche of teenagers in the West.

“Here are the fools,” I sincerely thought, “let me have at least one eye …” But we had Goiko Mitich (whom we loved) responsible for westerns, and Viy, with Kuravlev in the role of Khoma Brut, who did not frighten And it wasn’t even much fun.

Later, of course, I had a chance to join and it turned out that the so-called westerns, as well as horror films, are mostly junk. But not without exceptions. Not without major exceptions.

And by the way – laugh snobs – the love of horror films has remained in me to this day. That cartoon is probably the culprit. And there was still a question – why don’t they shoot them in Russia? Well, good ones, I mean. Now, it would seem, just turn on the camera – even in the subway, even in front of the supermarket checkout – and in an hour you don’t even have to mount anything. Saturn Award for Best Pocket Horror Film.

But no. Only shameful secondary rubbish, chewing gum, incoherent plots, flawed dialogues, feeble-minded characters. I saw a lot, I answer for the words. It was all the more interesting, of course, to look at what would come out of the project “Anthology of Russian Horror: Red Composition” by Alyosha Klimov and Yuri Stepanov (don’t take it for familiarity – it’s written in the credits: “Alyosha”).

Secondly, these are six short films. The longest is 20 minutes. Already a plus. Thirdly, these are not just films, but cartoons. And we are strong in animation! Uncle Fedor, a cat and a dog, as well as a hedgehog and a horse, will not let you lie. And firstly, the scenarios are based on the texts of the classics. Green, Alexey K. Tolstoy, Pushkin, Zhukovsky, plus two contemporaries – Dmitry Bykov (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia) and Dmitry Tikhonov (there is such a popular fantasy writer among fans; he is also the author of scripts for comics about Major Grom, although for the film of the same name does not seem to be related). And what Russian is not proud of Russian literature? Even the illiterate – and he is proud.

At about the same time, when I came across the anniversary collection about “Crocodile”, I, a simple Soviet child from a small town, saw an olive for the first time in a metropolitan restaurant. The berry lay modestly on the edge of the plate, promising abyss of pleasure. I decided to eat it last, I was playing for time, I was waiting, I was looking forward to it … A small bomb exploded in my mouth with bitterness and sourness. I nearly burst into tears at the time.

It’s the same here. Honestly, I do not want to prolong the intrigue. This is monstrous. Not scary, not interesting, not even funny. Awesome and depressing.

Without pity mutilated texts. Primitive animation. Naive frontal references – sometimes to “Mad Max”, then to the “Black Mirror”. Hope, however, is a tenacious lady, as you know, and a conscientious (or just kind) viewer is always trying to find at least something good in the Red Cast.

They seem to be able to: they found a very non-trivial move to turn Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky’s “Forest Tsar” into a cartoon. A belated rider rushes in an ambulance under the cold haze of the city of the future, a young son in VR glasses dies in his arms … But for some reason, flat morality from a boring fable was shoved into a terrible ballad. Screwed with some rusty bolts. And that’s it, and there is no mystery, no charm.

“The Undertaker”, Pushkin’s “The Undertaker”! And again – they can, if they want: the visual solutions are even refined in their own way, Moscow turned out to be special, recognizable, terrible for the animators. But this is Pushkin. Pushkin is our everything, not because a dull teacher at school rattled something like that to you. No, because his texts are like the Platonic idea of ​​the Russian language. That’s how the words stand somewhere up there in the sky. In the only way possible. “The last belongings of the undertaker Adrian Prokhorov were heaped onto the funeral dross, and for the fourth time the skinny couple dragged themselves with Basmanna to Nikitskaya, where the undertaker moved with his whole house.” Well, you either understand that this is perfection, or don’t write. Don’t try for words. You never know in the world of other, worthy and monetary professions.

But no. “The Undertaker” retells us … What can we compare it with? Well, let’s say, a taxi driver fed by monsters from YouTube, who has already managed to share his innermost. He told how to clean the kettle from scale with sparrow droppings, said that the Earth is flat and that the first nuclear war was in the 18th century. And he took up the defenseless classic.

There, even at the level of intonation, it is felt that the authors of the script are trying to bring down the pathos due to irony, but for this, in addition to arrogance, at least a hint of literary talent is needed. At least half a gram of this very talent, at least a quarter of the track.

I honestly waited for the credits to find out the names of the writers. Matthew Lyon and Sergei Kibus. Okay, what a demand with Matthew, but you, Sergey, seem to be from the locals. Ashamed.

The rest is not something that I don’t want to remember, the rest I want to forget forever.

There is, in general, the feeling that the authors wanted to show how terrible great Russian literature can be. And they succeeded in something, I must admit, although I suspect that they were seeking something else. You look and decide that you need to stay away from Russian writers. Terrible people, dull, perhaps mentally retarded.

Don’t believe. Recently, I have heard that our classics are responsible for everything – for our aggressiveness, for our arrogance, for our empire, for our colonial habits … Maybe it is so, or maybe not, but for the series “Red Cast” the classics are definitely not the answer.

Read books. And if you really want to be scared – read the news. It affects the psyche of adolescents of all ages no less destructive than the so-called westerns and horror films.

Look: more.tv, “Kinopoisk Plus”