Review of the film “Truth” by Maxim Kuznetsov

“Pravda” by Maxim Kuznetsov, a participant in the directorial debut program of the last festival “In Short”, is being released – a drama from provincial life, not very convincingly pretending to be criminal, but also not reaching the level of social. Tells Julia Shagelman.

Before starting to make films, Maxim Kuznetsov worked for eight years as an investigator for the prosecutor’s office and the Investigative Committee, including solving murders, so it is not surprising that for his feature-length directorial debut he chose a topic that was well known to him. Perhaps the film’s twists and turns are even borrowed from some real-life cases, although from Pravda you shouldn’t expect either a gripping detective plot or precise details of investigative work, except for one scene of an ordinary day at the police station, in which you really feel that the author is in pain . The creators of the film (the script was written by another novice filmmaker Alexey Kamynin with the participation of the more experienced Alexander Rodionov) are more interested in the internal experiences of a person who finds himself in a situation of a crime that he did not commit and a punishment that he did not deserve.

It all starts quite routinely. A student party on the river bank in a small town, future teacher Zhenya (Kuzma Kotrelev) in clumsy poetry confesses his love to his girlfriend Katya (Alexandra Drozdova), who will also soon become a teacher. The young people have known each other since childhood and are already planning a wedding, but it is not destined to take place: on the way home they are stopped by a police patrol and Zhenya is detained under the “people’s” Article 228 for possession of drugs (apparently planted, although For some reason Katya doesn’t believe this). On the way to the police station, he hears a message on the police radio about the disappearance of a five-year-old girl, but, of course, at that moment no one cares.

Two years later, Zhenya is released from prison and returns home, where no one is waiting for him: his father has died, they don’t hire him to work at school, of course, and Katya is dating another man (Mikhail Troynik). The neighbors whisper when he appears, and in general, the attitude towards the guy as a former prisoner is as if they do not live in every entrance of such sleepy courtyards. The only one who shows some sympathy for Zhenya is his father’s old friend Uncle Kolya (Sergei Muravyov), who, naturally, also served time on some minor charge. It is with him that our hero gets drunk to an almost insane state exactly on the evening when Katya’s five-year-old sister Mashenka (Maria Bubenshchikova) disappears. And it was he who was the last to see the girl alive.

“Pravda”, in general, does not pretend to be a thriller about catching a maniac, although for the audience there are at least two suspects. This is Zhenya himself, who vaguely remembers the events of the fateful evening and himself, it seems, is not too sure that he did not touch Masha, and Katya’s new fiancé, who is trying to take advantage of this situation in order to finally squeeze his ex out of the girl’s life and strengthen his control over her. And in general he is kind of unpleasant. In addition, there is a mysterious man, whose face we do not see, who has a nasty habit of calling people and whistling into a whistle in the shape of a bird, but if you really try to get into the intrigue, you can convince yourself that he could be either of the two.

However, it’s not very easy to penetrate. Firstly, with all the claims to pure realism, the film takes place in some strange world, where there is Article 228 and computers, but for some reason there are no mobile phones, and the characters call landline phones from payphones. It’s impossible to ignore this oddity, since several important plot twists are tied to the calls. Because of this sloppiness in details, the social issue, which in itself is really important (yes, people really are imprisoned on trumped-up charges, yes, it is really difficult for former prisoners to fit into normal life after release), begins to smack of falsehood.

Secondly, Zhenya, whom the audience is supposed to sympathize with as the main character, behaves more and more illogically as time goes on, as if begging to be blamed for kidnapping the child. Here, of course, another important idea is expressed: that a person whom no one believes also ceases to believe both those around him and himself, but this is written and played rather unclearly. And even the anti-happy ending, which was quite expected from the first frames, gives the impression of a hastily staged and promising nothing.