| The NTV channel has completed the screening of the 12-episode film “The Kukotsky Case” The series based on the novel by Lyudmila Ulitskaya “The Case of Kukotsky” was shown on NTV on weekends at a not very rated time - from two to four in the afternoon. His channel postponed the premiere for several months; there was almost no advertising. Apparently, the project on NTV was considered not promising. It’s strange that they didn’t think about this when they started filming, since all the components could have initially raised doubts. Grymov himself, with his early film experiences like “Mumu” and “The Collector,” did not promise box office success and easy entertaining presentation.
And Lyudmila Ulitskaya, although she has her own circle of readers, cannot be called a writer for a mass audience. In addition, this particular plot about the strange family of Doctor Kukotsky, where no one is related to each other by blood, but everyone is connected by complex, irrational relationships, is poorly suited for a series where, first of all, strong intrigue is required.
Yuri Kukotsky is a supporter of the legalization of abortion, which has been prohibited in the USSR since 1936. He understands the harm that this prohibition causes to the health of the nation - women, by clandestinely terminating an unwanted pregnancy, endanger their lives. Despite the mystical gift of a diagnostician who can see with his inner eye all the patient’s illnesses, Kukotsky is a rationalist. He is a kind, good man, he loves his wife, her daughter Tanya, he warmed up the orphan Tom, but, apparently, the main thing in life is beyond his understanding. And for his spiritual blindness he is punished by the madness of his wife, the death of his beloved Tanya and other adversities. Actually, these twists and turns would be quite enough to make the story told of one family against the backdrop of Soviet life from the 40s to the 80s look convincing and not flat. But the director stated from the very beginning that he was not filming a series, but a film novel, and that he was interested in the philosophy of Ulitskaya’s novel. True, he promised to try, while maintaining the complexity of the author’s plot, to make it entertaining for a mass audience.
However, oddly enough, everything turned out quite interesting. It turns out that Yuri Grymov really feels the nature of cinema - after his previous films it would be difficult to say this. In the television version of the novel, he managed to make the frame rich, multifaceted and deep, not like a serial. The space in which his characters live seems for the most part real and alive. Chulpan Khamatova, who played Tanya and her daughter Zhenya, an actress from whom, after her participation in almost all series, the public began to get tired, in the film Grymova does not even look very much like herself, however, retaining her signature liveliness and nervous organicity.
The relationships between the characters turned out to be fascinating, interesting to watch and you can empathize with them. Elena Drobysheva, Maria Kuznetsova, Yuri Tsurilo, Karen Badalov carried through all twelve episodes the unity of characters, human warmth and naturalness rare for television production.
The story of the Kukotsky family and the Goldbergs who joined them turned out to be lively, recognizable and attractive. But not all TV viewers had a chance to find out about this. The first episode of the film, which actually needed to attract the audience, is perhaps the most inarticulate and boring (except for the last). It is almost impossible to endure this strained metaphysics without knowing the content of the novel. The red sands, which we went straight to the Sahara to film, turned out to be a very flat metaphor for the subtle worlds where the characters find themselves when they leave this rough and material world. In general, all the mysticism, which, in my opinion, is in vain, but many people like, is filled with Ulitskaya’s novel, did not work out in the series. Long pauses, meaningful freezes, which from time to time give way to bright and completely human, interestingly constructed dramatic relationships between characters, completely unnecessary for such a simple and clear genre as television serial cinema. These kinds of films are well made in Britain - they have a culture of storytelling in which it doesn't have to be vulgar and cheap to be entertaining. But it is not at all necessary to be meaningful, vague and symbolist. Actually, Ulitskaya is loved not for her thoughtful digressions, but for her gift as a storyteller, who thoroughly and tastefully sets out the circumstances of variously constructed destinies.
Alas. Grymov could not limit himself to the laws of the genre. As a result, a film that could have been very good ended up falling short of its potential. However, part of the audience still appreciated it - despite the unfortunate timing, the share of the series was still slightly higher than the average for the NTV channel, and what is important is that it grew from episode to episode. So it was in vain that the channel refused to spend effort on promoting it.
Now an advertising campaign has begun for a series about another doctor - Yuri Zhivago, based on the novel by Boris Pasternak and directed by Alexander Proshkin. This project has a good reputation, but for some reason the management of NTV kept its premiere in its bins until the spring, and now promises to show it during the May holidays, when most of the public leaves for vacation. The only explanation is that agreements on these films arose even before NTV, in the struggle for ratings, turned into the main crime channel. And now, in order not to spoil the image, all “intelligentsia” is simply removed out of sight. Alena Solntseva |
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