Review of Roman Karimov’s film “Breath”

Roman Karimov’s “Breath” is coming out – a production drama about the everyday life of doctors and patients in the first weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, more, however, it looks like unscience fiction. If the filmmakers had not been in such a hurry to work out a topic that was rapidly losing relevance, the result of their labors could have turned out not so discouragingly helpless, he believes Yulia Shagelman.

The pandemic, which turned the usual life of people all over the world three years ago, could not but affect the film process. And it was reflected not only in purely production moments, such as the closure of film sets and the introduction of covid protocols. Films made in isolation have appeared, with a minimum of characters and locations, for the most part this very isolation and comprehending, whether in the form of a philosophical parable, family drama, horror, rom-com or even an action movie about a robbery. Now, it seems, the time has come for larger stories about how it was.

Roman Karimov, however, has never been a master of large forms. His specialty is melodrama, like Inadequate People (2010), which made him famous, and their sequel that came out ten years later, or comedies, for example, Walk, Vasya! (2016) with the continuation of “Walk, Vasya! Date in Bali “(2021) or” Birthday! (2018), so far without a sequel. But the author of the idea of ​​”Breath” was not him, but producer Alexei Trotsyuk, who had a hand in the heavyweights of the Russian box office: “Cheburashka” (2022) and “Challenge” (2023). Obviously, his participation was supposed to provide a picture about heroic doctors with scope, and directing – sincerity. But both of them are lacking in Breathing just as much as the hospital depicted in it lacks ventilators. Yes, the authors are not afraid to point out individual, in some places sometimes occurring shortcomings of domestic healthcare, but, as is usually the case in our cinema, all of them are overcome through local initiative and the willingness of the characters to circumvent the rules, instructions and protocols issued from above, if very necessary.

Take, for example, the main character of the film, Viktor (Anton Batyrev): he used to work as a surgeon, but quit because doctors were underpaid, and went into the near-medical business, selling imported equipment to hospitals. Big money did not have a very good effect on the human qualities of Victor and his friend and business partner Mikhail (Daniil Vorobyov): they allow themselves to rage on airplanes, and Misha also cheats on his wife (Evgenia Khrapovitskaya). However, when Victor’s mother (Galina Sazonova) ends up in the hospital, and as a result of a series of accidents, the hero is locked up there along with the team and patients, friends quickly mobilize and begin to help people.

This help consists, for example, in obtaining PCR tests (of course, they are not available in the hospital), throwing bags with them, disguised as garbage ones, over the fence and performing successful operations by Viktor, who has not taken a scalpel in his hands for several years, despite protests chief physician-bureaucrat (Sergey Lysov), as well as inventing ways to connect patients to mechanical ventilation without intubation. For some reason, this quite routine procedure evokes sacred horror among the authors and heroes, professional medical workers. Oh yes, among other things, Mikhail, having rushed between his legal wife and mistress (Vera Shpak), rethinks his behavior and returns to the bosom of the family.

All this, probably, should show the characters not just as heroes who save lives, but first of all as people – imperfect, like all of us, but capable of overcoming for the common good. However, you involuntarily think about something else. For example, about where the logical connections between events have gone – and whether “Breath” will later turn, as usual, into a series, where they may be found, or maybe not. Or why fantasize about tests in trash bags and swimming masks for patients when the work of doctors during the days of a pandemic can already provide enough amazing material for a movie. But, apparently, it will not be removed soon.