Translated material
Moscow. How much
Yuri Gladilshchikov
The third of the famous “long-term construction” films of the 90s is coming out - “Moscow” by Alexander Zeldovich and Vladimir Sorokin
The third of the famous “long-term construction” films of the 90s is coming out - “Moscow” by Alexander Zeldovich and Vladimir Sorokin
The film by Alexander Zeldovich is beautiful with a coldish beauty. Even episodes that would look naturalistic in any other film seem not entirely everyday here. For example, the seduction of the youngest of the “three sisters,” played by Tatyana Drubich, by the most “newly moral” of the male heroes, Stanislav Pavlov (who is almost invisible behind her) (“Telekino”)
They've been talking about "Moscow" for a long time. Alexander Zeldovich (who gained fame as a promising director by the early 90s) conjured over it, of course, not for as endlessly long as Herman over “Khrustalev”, and Panfilov over “Romanovs”, but still much longer than they suffer over their films. something like Verhoeven or von Trier. The script by Zeldovich and Sorokin, full of Sorokin’s tricks (torture by pumping air through the anus, etc.), was published four years ago. It was then that it became known that the film had six equal main characters: three men and three women. And that these “six characters in search of an author” (and the “author” is the city of Moscow itself) are depicted by the flower of the acting profession of the 80s - 90s: Apeksimova - Drubich - Kolyakanova - Baluev - Gvozditsky - Sukhanov (Apeksimova was soon replaced by another star - Dapkunaite, and then Sukhanov dropped out of the project, fearing that the episode with torture through the anus would damage his acting image. Sukhanov's place was taken by debutant Stanislav Pavlov).
It was obvious that Zeldovich and Sorokin decided to make the first ambitious attempt to express in cinema the “features of the national time.” Understand and explain new heroes, new morality, new Moscow. Not in the way journalists or political scientists explain, but by soaring above the situation. Many expected that the biggest movie of the 90s was finally coming. Not old, but new songs about the main thing. Sung not by the “old guard”, but by a newfangled director, a newfangled writer and (almost newfangled) actors. The shocking “chernukha” and obscenities in the script also testified to the fact that Sorokin & Zeldovich want to set a national film record for coolness.
The film was expected both the year before and last year. But it seemed like there wasn’t enough money for dubbing, or the director didn’t want to shorten the film, although - according to the same behind-the-scenes information - it lasted about three hours, which is unacceptable both for distribution and for festivals. Suspicions began to arise that the film would become outdated before release. In the end, Zeldovich backed down and made cuts - to two twenty. Finally you can evaluate the result. It is unexpected and (although “Moscow” has already been scolded in the press for its coldness), without a doubt, interesting. Coldness, by the way, is conceptual.
“Moscow” is a film about the life and conversations of those “new Russians” who were previously members of the seventies. Kolyakanova portrays the mother of the heroines Drubich and Dapkunaite, not much (in real life) surpassing them in age. But for the authors of the film, apparently, it was important to emphasize that all the characters in the mental sense are people of the same (their, authors!) generation. The heroines even have the same haircut. Not mother and daughters, but three sisters (the reference to Chekhov is obvious), only completely strange. Each existing in its own emptiness (Drubich plays an almost autistic woman), but sometimes wildly aggressive towards each other. Equally strange, lonely and psychotic are the “New Russian” suitors who come to them, who in Chekhov’s Russia, by origin and the logic of their destinies, would probably have been officers. The restaurant owned by the heroines is located in a garden that is clearly reminiscent of a cherry tree, but the garden is uncomfortable because it is shown in the cold autumn, and right above it is the steel structure of the springboard on the Sparrow Hills. Almost all conversations revolve around money - yet (amazingly!) Chekhov's intonations are still felt.
The press has already voiced a version that “Moscow” is a story about how the new Russian reality breaks even those who seem to have managed to fit into it. Yes, you can understand the film that way. In general, "Moscow" seems to be the darkest film of the 90s. The humor is super black, Sorokinsky. For example, the film begins with a detailed story about mink breeding and why American mink cannot be mated with Russian ones. (It turns out because the American fucks the Russian to death during a love act.) The only optimistic monologue is put into the mouth of the hero Gvozditsky, a psychiatrist, a kind of New Tuzenbach, who suddenly, having arrived at the hospital emergency room, begins to say that Russia has a good future, the ice will fall off, etc. The monologue, however, ends with the famous (even according to the script) moment when two brothers burst into the hospital and drag in a third - with a scalped lower jaw. In the fight, his lip was bitten off. Right there, in a transparent bag, is the lip itself. “It’s true, it’s not his, but the donor’s,” explains one of the bros, “but don’t worry, doctor, the donor was a healthy person.” Wow, what an encouraging turnaround!
But another interpretation of “Moscow” is also acceptable - a less pessimistic one. Perhaps the film is not at all about the fact that everything is bad, and it will be even worse, but only about the fact that in life - from the 70s to the 90s - there was a shift in concepts, morality, ideas about meaning and goals. That Russia has already become unaccustomed to too rapid changes, and therefore the changes of the 90s, which mainly affected Moscow, did not shake the foundations of life, but simply destroyed them.
Of the three main male characters, only one will remain alive by the end of the film. But it is he who will fulfill his duty by marrying two sisters at the same time (“Telekino”)
It is not for nothing that the heroes - former intellectuals - have almost no past in the film: for example, there are slight hints of certain memories. 30-40 year olds burst into life as if out of nowhere, the past has been repressed from consciousness. How could he not be ousted? There is a well-known phrase: if Chekhov’s intellectuals knew that Russia would soon turn into a camp, and millions of people would be oppressed, they would all go crazy. But if the intellectuals and intellectual children of the 70s were told that some of them would soon create cooperatives, open restaurants, and then, lo and behold, they would start talking only about “grandma” and sticking a car pump up the ass of a debtor friend, they too would, like at least they were very surprised. “Moscow” shows these former intellectuals who, according to their previous concepts, began to behave, of course, strangely and therefore went a little crazy. Past goals have been abandoned, there are practically no prospects (except for nine grams in the forehead), so the heroes are trying to cling to some other past and come up with new prospects for themselves. One (Gvozditsky’s character) is kept in life only by long-standing secret love. The other (Baluev’s character), although capable of inserting a pump into a friend’s ass, clings to the old Russian traditions of philanthropy, donates to the temple (that’s absolutely wild for a kitchen intellectual), tries to build a ballet school and theater, assures himself that he has everything this is necessary, and he himself is necessary for Russia.
Another thing is logical: it’s not for nothing that the heroes act as if the concept of morality had disappeared. That is, it’s not that it completely disappeared, but ideas about it have changed, everyone has their own, and there is no longer that morality that is common to all, which was previously called universal. The same hero of Baluev still tries to cling to faith in the old morality: in his soul he knows that it was not someone who cheated him, but a friend, but he does not allow himself to believe it, since a friend can never cheat him. But my friend is a person of a completely different formation. Although he is the same age, he has no past at all (he rejected it completely), a completely new, blank sheet of paper. He is not bad, not immoral, he just has that very “own morality”, according to which it is quite possible to deceive a friend, even knowing that he can be killed.
According to the film, we are not even talking about a crisis of identification - about its complete absence among those people who can be considered leaders of the generation. In a non-edifying film, where all conclusions must be drawn by the viewer himself, a couple of establishing phrases still sound. Both were put into the mouth of the psychiatrist Gvozditsky. He says that he now feels like an adult among children. And that modern society reminds him of a lump of undercooked dumplings. To the question: “And before?” - answers that the dumplings used to be frozen.
The emptiness and disharmony in “Moscow” are best conveyed by songs. The heroine Drubich (let me remind you that she is almost autistic) sings in her mother’s restaurant “Enemies burned down her home” and other hits that were once equally dear. But composer Leonid Desyatnikov remade them in such a way that they became dissonant. The autistic woman performs them, enjoying the sounds, the modulations, the taste of individual words, but completely failing to grasp the overall meaning. And rightly so: a phase shift has occurred, and there is no longer a common meaning for everyone. This situation, according to the film, is primarily Moscow. The film is not about living destinies. He is an abstraction, a defamiliarized conceptual statement about the 90s. He is beautiful with a filigree artificial cold beauty, and cold, beautiful Moscow itself seems like a decoration in it. Therefore, it is likely that for Zeldovich and Sorokin, contrary to Luzhkov, Moscow is indeed a scenery, where dilapidated monumentality coexists with new glass-concrete unfinished construction. This is a city for which, in principle, it does not matter whether there is a temple in it (even a Temple) or not. But this is the place where for some reason all the new energy is concentrated. In the future, it is unclear what kind, maybe very creative, but for now it is destroying specific people and the destinies of a generation.
According to the film (in full accordance with crime reports), only men die. Nervous, lonely, indifferent women still somehow get out, but they no longer have partners for life - for each of them. Therefore, in the finale, the only survivor of the male heroes, fulfilling his male duty, marries two sisters at the same time. In a typical registry office. To the question: “What is the main idea of the film?” - writer Sorokin usually answers: “Polygamy.”
(Photo: Igor Mukhin )