The canceled film “Brother 3” turned out to be a pure art house and brought nothing but losses to the authors

The canceled film “Brother 3” turned out to be a pure art house and brought nothing but losses to the authors

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The Ministry of Culture refused to issue a distribution certificate for the film “Brother-3” without explanation. The premiere, scheduled for November 18, did not take place. Spectators are promised a refund for tickets, but the money spent on renting the capital’s hall is unlikely to be reimbursed. One can only guess why this happened.

The ban in itself is a bad omen, and not a single director is immune from it, even an outstanding one with a worldwide reputation like Alexander Sokurov. His “Fairy Tale” is shown all over the world, but in Russia it was denied a distribution certificate. And this becomes the norm, just like the recall of previously issued “rentals”. One of the officials dreamed of something, even if there was no trace of it, as was the case with “Aita” by Stepan Burnashev, and the fate of the painting was decided. Putting an unwanted painting on a shelf – we already went through this in Soviet times.

Yes, “Brother-3” raises questions with its title alone, but this is not a reason to deny it access to the viewer. Those who have seen the film say that it is an art film, interesting in its own way. It was created without government support using the modest funds of a patron.

Director Valery Pereverzev says that he was repeatedly threatened, even with physical violence. But he stubbornly insists on the chosen name and unconvincingly explains why he decided to keep it. One of the reasons is due to the fact that the film was remembered under this name in its homeland in Tambov, where the filming took place, and the director does not want to disappoint the people who took part in the creation of the film.

St. Petersburg producer Vladislav Pasternak was the first to announce the cancellation of the premiere. He studied with Sergei Selyanov, the producer of Balabanov’s famous duology “Brother” and “Brother-2”, worked a lot with auteur cinema and also convinced Valery Pereverzev to abandon the name “Brother-3”, but achieved nothing. However, he agreed to further cooperation, and this gives us hope that the film is at least not hopeless. By the way, actor Yuri Torsuev, when he told MK that he and his brother Vladimir were working in two unusual projects, was optimistic: “We are filming the continuation of the film “The Adventures of Electronics,” where our heroes have matured, and in “Brother-3.” Valeria Pereverzeva. They say a lot about him, they criticize him in advance, but the work is very interesting. We will surprise you again.”

From the very first days, the authors of the new project declared that their film had nothing to do with Alexei Balabanov’s duology, and on the eve of the failed premiere, they sent out an invitation where this was also announced. Then why duplicate the name? It seemed like a crazy PR was being launched on someone else’s success.

Valery Pereverzev is primarily an artist, the creator of private museums (corporal punishment and prostitution, for example). Ten years ago he began filming, but did not claim to be a cinematographer. His documentary Panopticon: Island Prison won the top prize at the 2016 Honolulu Film Festival. “For a long time I was essentially making films, but I perceived them as popular science videos and auxiliary lecture material,” says Valery Pereverzev. This continued until, at one of the festivals in the USA, Jim Jarmusch told him that he was a director.

Valery wrote the script for “Brother-3” together with his wife Yulia Pereverzeva, a graduate of the production department of VGIK. She is also the producer of the film and played one of the roles. This is a story about failed robbers, the everyday life of a criminal gang, a general’s daughter and her love for a street artist. The film has chases, eroticism, anatomical theater and female corpses, a criminal squint, as the director says, even a nuclear explosion. At the same time, it is meditative, according to the authors’ definition.

In addition to the residents of Tambov and the Torsuev brothers, the film featured Hollywood actor Eric Roberts in the role of the general, as well as French actor Olivier Siu, who received Russian citizenship and managed to star in “Cheburashka,” David Nuriev, aka Ptah, and debutante Alexandra Voznesenskaya, who played the general’s daughter. The film features Mozart performed by an orchestra and Marina Yudina, as emphasized, Stalin’s favorite pianist, songs by Yegor Letov. Valery Pereverzev himself wrote something.

“I would like you to sing and dance with this film. “They sang along,” says the director. – I would like you not to understand everything at once – it makes you better. And then, having figured it out, understand, give birth to new meaning, new associations, and so on indefinitely. One small object, a cake tied with cut stripes, can give rise to a thousand associations – an endless number of meanings. This is a work of art. We must create works of art and consume works of art, otherwise all our great buildings, fast cars, fashionable clothes are meaningless.”

One can only guess what confused the censors in this phantasmagoric project. Perhaps its madness, an explosive mixture of an anatomical theater installation with a nuclear explosion, or associations with the current agenda. Someone suggested that the powerful Sergei Selyanov had his say, but he did not take seriously any attempts by outsiders to make a continuation of the duology. True, then he did not know that this was not a sequel, but something from a different opera. The Ministry of Culture promised to explain its decision to the authors of “Brother-3” in the near future.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 29160 dated November 20, 2023

Newspaper headline:
You are not my “Brother”

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