Sasha’s tears – Weekend – Kommersant

“Aurora” is a new series by Roman Volobuev, the main character of which, an unsuccessful actress, is trying to remember how she spent the last weeks of summer. Filming in the summer of 2022, Roman Volobuev is trying to tell about cynical Moscow, homeless life and debauchery of the 2021 model.

Text: Vasily Stepanov

Muscovite Sasha Zorina (Lena Tronina), desperately living in her third decade, wakes up in a bath with a hangover. After the birthday, something came up – at least go to the shrink. Clothes are scattered on the floor, a lemon has dried up in the refrigerator, bottles are crowded by the sink, and, most importantly, it is difficult to remember when and how it all ended. There are dozens of unanswered messages on the phone: a girlfriend is pretending to worry, a landlady demands a rent, a colleague from work clarifies that she should lie to her boss. Having once played the main role in the crime hit “Aurora” (a gloomy hybrid of “Leon” and “Sisters”) in childhood, Sasha after school out of spite went not to actresses, but to veterinarians. But she did not particularly succeed in aibolites and now she works in the emergency psychological assistance service, while simultaneously waiting for the chance of a lifetime. Sits on the phone, urging callers not to hang themselves and cut their veins. It turns out not bad, because Sasha doesn’t give a damn about anyone, and indifference in such a matter is a great skill. So thinks the boss, played by many who loved after “Last Minister” Sergei Epishev: “They understand that you don’t give a damn, and they don’t do anything.” However, is it worth listening to the boss who locks himself in his office and salivates over his collection of suicidal audio recordings?

Yes, Sasha’s life is pure chaos. When in the first episode she falls out onto a cold autumn street in a summer red dress and Mexican boots from someone else’s leg (she stole it from the heroine Anna Chipovskaya), Krylov’s unforgettable “summer sang red” climbs into her head. There is no stable money, the cat of the former IT guy walks around the apartment, she does not show up for rare screen tests, and then, unfortunately, a stranger starts calling, calling to remember what she so wanted to forget.

The telephone for Aurora is the most important means of generating events. And therefore, probably, the series of Roman Volobuev should be identified as a noir, in this case, a distinctly comedic one. Alcoholism and lapses in the memory of the main character are also typical noir tropes. Therefore, probably, the asphalt jungle, through which Sasha fearlessly rolls on someone else’s bike, is described with such boundless cynicism. Poisonous dialogues, domestic anger and total indifference – should the most comfortable city in Russia be like this? The author, it seems, is not going to inspire the viewer with a drop of sympathy for the fallen souls of Moscow, who have a cat’s corpse on their bicycle trunk, and a bottle of Macdon’s whiskey, obviously named after the famous Irish filmmakers, in the desktop drawer.

There are more than enough touching details, outlining the range of the author’s quivering interests and predilections, in Aurora. When a cat squints at you, as in The Fifth Element, you inevitably get touched. You are touched when you see a plush pig in the frame, the names Borisevich (producer of the first films of Popogrebsky and Khlebnikov), Syringe (producer of anime about pioneer heroes) or Vanina (screenwriter of The Last Minister and Optimists) or you suddenly hear about Balabanov and Shmykova, watching the tricks that the editors of the Art of Cinema magazine go to in order to make an interview for a special issue. Does this smoke screen of namedropping help you understand and accept the main character and those around her even a little bit better? Or is it just a decent way to distance ourselves from what we see on the screen (as well as in ourselves and in life)?

The filming of Aurora, which seems to be about Moscow in 2021, ended in the summer of 2022, and what is happening in the frame clearly bears the stamp of modernity with all its silences, doublethink, fatigue from ourselves and that whirlpool of everyday life, in which, nevertheless, the inhabitant of the capital has to exist. Not to jump into the bathtub with the hair dryer on, like the clients of the psychological emergency service? Volobuev, who never showed the last episode of The Last Minister in anticipation of changes, of course, does not say anything directly (the script was written in other circumstances and about something else), but the psychoses of the outside world involuntarily intrude into last year’s life of the Moscow creative class. You cannot run away from yourself and responsibility for yourself. Even a not very good person must put himself on a firm footing, deal with the inner world, remember how he came to such a life. Only then can we expect improvements from the outside world. It seems that the authors of the series want to tell the viewer about this – I would like to think so, at least.

Watch: more.tv

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