Cinema for two fronts

The new film by Vladimir Borto film critics are mainly scolded: they say, and there is little from Gogol, and it is poorly shot. I, as a viewer of Taras Bulba, rather liked it. Batal scenes are good - with a large extras, with exciting saber strokes (however, a lack of pyrotechnics is felt, because of which artillery is almost not visible in the battles). The game of the main roles, primarily Bogdan Stupka, is also impressive. The film, diligently advertised on RTR, beats the box office records. But here is a political trend ...

It was natural to expect that the film "Taras Bulba" would turn out to be anti -Polish. Well, more, maybe anti -Semitic. But my Ukrainian friends considered him anti -Ukrainian. And in such an assessment there is a reason. Ukrainians-seekers look extremely unpresentable in the picture. They are all dirty, ragged, always drunk and stupid, incapable of any meaningful actions. And it cannot be said that this is not included in the directorial plan. Apparently, Bortko wants to show us that Ukrainians are natural anarchists, capable of something good only under the rule of a strong man - Colonel Bulba or, better, an Orthodox king who "rises from the Russian land ... And there will be no force that would not submit to him." So proclaims in the final Bulba, fried at the stake with cursed thighs.

Another thesis of the film: democracy and law are Western affairs, to us, Orthodox, deeply alien. "But what about the law, Roman law?" - The future traitor Andriy asks, shocked by how the Cossacks have buried the killer in the ground alive. To this, the Martyr Hero Ostap replies: we say, his own land, his own customs, and I still disliked all these Latin things in the seminary.

Recall that Bortko’s film was conceived as our answer to the “orange infection”. It is no coincidence that the Poles in the film wear transparent surnames. The Dubnensky governor is the name of Mazovetsky, as well as the prime minister of the first government of "solidarity". And the Polish coronet is Kasnevsky, which recalls the former Polish President Kvasnevsky, who played a significant role in resolving the Ukrainian political crisis of 2004.

In general, the Poles in the film are shown as a force, deeply hostile to the Cossacks-Ukrainians. For Poles, Cossacks are not people. And the Poles are represented in the film with some dull mass in gray zhupans, something slurred in an incomprehensible language and automatically performing military teams. In fact, the Polish infantry and cavalry of the XVI-XVII centuries did not wear gray Zhupanov and in general there was no unified form. Different shelves and banners wore different colors of Zhupana, but always bright to make their own to distinguish their own. And the gray -haired Polish infantry in the film makes us recall the mouse uniforms of the Wehrmacht infantrymen.

The fact that the Poles are uniforms are confirmed in the film with a simple cinematic technique. It is shown in detail how the Poles are tortured and executed by the Cossacks, how they look at this with genuine interest and emotion with their beautiful panes. The governor Mazovetsky so generally a pregnant daughter drives out to watch how the brother of her lover is tormented. The murders of the Cossacks of Polish women and children are mentioned in the film, but these atrocities themselves are not shown on the screen, so there is no unfavorable impression of the Cossacks.

Bortko, of course, made his additions to the script compared to the text of Gogol, but this made the actions of the Cossacks even more illogical than in the original source. So, the director forced the Poles to kill the Bulba’s wife and at the same time destroy his regiment and burn the farm. This event just provokes the campaign of the Cossacks on the Dubno - so that the cause of the attack is more serious than the simple desire to rush the Jews of the Aranters and the Lyakhs patronizing them. But the regiment is a thousand and even more Cossacks. This means that a fairly large Polish army attacked people of Bulba. Here he is, the enemy, at the side, in just three days of the journey! So why go to Dubno, exposing those who stayed in Sich? And the Poles really burn Sich, but only six months later, while the Cossacks besiege Dubno. Having learned about the Polish attack on Sich, the Cossacks return half of the army there (although they certainly do not catch up with those Poles), but half are left under the Dubno, all the more correctly dooming it to defeat and death (however, Bortko follows Gogol).

The director also came up with the scene when the governor Mazovetsky expel Ostap and Andria from the Catholic Church and the guards throw them into the mud. Does Bortko think that Catholics do not let the Orthodox into the churches? And why, then, does the Russian Orthodox Church constantly accuse the Vatican of drinking?

Scenario inserts into a literary source are easily recognized by language. For example, Andriy is talking about the "Poles". Meanwhile, in the story of Gogol, the words "Pole" and Poles "are not found once. Several times the word" Pole "is used, but only in the author’s speech. The Cossacks call the Poles exclusively" paws ".

But perhaps the most meaningful directorial fantasy is that the grandson remains after Bulba. The daughter of the governor becomes pregnant from Andria and just before the death of Bulba gives birth to a son, but during childbirth dies. For some reason, the governor first wants to cut the baby, but then he still shows him unusual mercy. Probably, according to the director, from the traitor Andriy and the seducer-lady and then all sorts of yushchens and Timoshenki went.