Devils against astronauts

Director Daniil Zinchenko - About the film "Elixir"

Daniil Zinchenko's film "Elixir" is the most promising Russian film defective 2016. In Moscow, it was shown on March 4 at the Garage Museum, and I recorded this conversation with the director at the Berlin Film Festival, where the international premiere of Elixir was held. The film was shown on a huge screen in the IMAX cinema, and the hall was full: it is difficult to imagine this in Moscow.

The Elixir is inspired by the Union of Necrorealism with the philosophy of Nikolai Fedorov. The scientist, who lives in the cemetery, seeks to resurrect the dead with the help of an elixir, who will help the partisans, the astronauts and the Lord himself will help. Daniil Zinchenko believes that the main Russian heroes will temporarily overcome the devils, bandits, but the seed is sown, and a new Russian forest will grow in the wasteland.

Daniil Zinchenko said that he works in a movie from the age of 12 - he made his debut as an actor in the films of Necrorealists Evgeny Yufit and Vladimir Maslov "Wooden Room" (1995) and "Silver Heads" (1998).

Director Daniil Zinchenko - About the film "Elixir"

- I grew up in the Tver region, in the village of Peno. Volodya Maslov , the kingdom of heaven, opposite bought a house, we were neighbors. He came up to me: "I need a boy for the film." First "wooden room", then "silver heads", a year or two differences ...

- You were a simple village boy, and necrorealism dragged you into cinema?

- Yes, it really happened. I didn’t even affect me as much as Maslov. He was a crazy person in a good way. I looked at him: Damn, a man who says that all people are hernias! He had such a topic. Damn, it's cool!

- Your film ends with a quote from Yufit. People who enter the field. Only they have black and white .

- It was not a conscious quote. I believe that the poetic language is based on spontaneous ties with something future or past.

- Your heroes speak with poems - such a verliber of a half -black type. I caught the references to Sasha Sokolov, to the novel "Between the Dog and the Wolf." Does this come from there?

- No, this is not from there for sure. I read Sasha Sokolov after there was a script. For me, these poetic inserts are subconsciously connected with the declaration culture of the Soviet Union and with Andrei Platonov.

- Of course, Platonov is everywhere, and the "philosophy of the common cause" of Fedorov, Mamleev and very strongly Sorokin.

All characters were invented before me by Russia

- Sorokin is very. Pavel Pepperstein was also remembered at the show. The fact is that both Sorokin and Pepperstein worked with the same mythologems with which this film works, so there is a common language in the sense that there is a common material of probing this soil. Maybe this is the only way of speaking, the only way to convert these matters into language.

- Let's tell you how the world of this film works. There are astronauts, there are devils-this is something like a KGB ...

- These are officials and bandits.

- Officials, bandits and special services. There is a wolf mother ...

-Motherland .

- Dying ...

- I can tell in order. All the characters were invented before me by Russia, I simply combined them in a script in a certain timeless, extra -historical region, which cannot be found. This is a forest. Forest is a fabulous area in which anything can be. Ivanushka-Durachka went, found a woman-yaga, she gave him a golden ball, rolled, he followed him. I placed all the characters in this forest that are associated with the Soviet, with Russian mythology: bandits, officials, carpenter (it is easy to understand who it is) and so on. The characters were already invented, I just combined them in the same area.

- Scientists, the intelligentsia is cursed ...

-Yes , some intellectuals underground are digging something. One of the main points of the film that the scientist is looking for, looking for, finds nothing, but in the end everything is done by itself ...

- Water turns into oil - what the devils demanded. But this is not the finale. The final is a revolution, the birth of a new world, inseminated with Seraphim.

- The revolution of the spirit, a new optics, a change of view of another state of life. Death or overcoming death, resurrection is still another optics of life. These dudes, devils are looking for oil and find it in the end ...

- Killing God.

- Yes, killing God. It gives oil. A miracle happens in itself, it is above all. Maybe too pathetic, but it is.

- Double birth at the end. A new deity is born, new Russia.

- A new deity, but this new deity again picks up the same partisans and again start into the forest, in principle, the circle is closed.

- Who are partisans in your cosmogony?

- Partisans cannot be described simply as partisans, they must be described coupled with astronauts. There are characters that are responsible for two vectors of movement: verticality and horizontal. Two types of main characters who build the poetic structure of the film. There are astronauts, and there are partisans. Cosmonauts are responsible for the vertical vector, they look at the sky, they see the stars, wait for someone. There are partisans who walk around the swamps, stomp, they are responsible for the horizon. And at some point they connect. There is Russia at this point of connection of two vectors. For me, this is a very important point. At the point of connection of vertical and horizontal, Russia exists, at this point the scientist finishes his study. He breaks the card at the end, where the whole world is drawn by arrows, he went all the way, tore off, crossed out. This is the main point. There is still a postman ...

- Gleb Aleinikov.

- Yes, Gleb Aleinikov. Which communicates between these two vectors, and at the same time he always knows where someone is.

- Is Seraphim the Holy Spirit?

-Seraphim is the Holy Spirit, yes, but in fact he is Ivanushka-Durachka, the son of the mother’s homeland, the son of this constellation from Mamaev Kurgan. In no case is no stem. I tried to poetize this Soviet block for myself.

-Ivanushka-Durachka is not from the Soviet, from the pre-Soviet block.

- Yes, he is from the pre -Soviet. But the Motherland, the Soviet block, I wanted to imagine for myself in a close, warm poetic form that could be the mother of Seraphim.

- Such an ephemeral extinguishing constellation ...

-It seems to be a constellation, at first glance something like that - wow! But in fact, a very thin, really ephemeral, barely noticeable, really mother who is waiting, loves him, loves and cries about him. And he is so Ivanushka, who walks through the forest, and as a result, his devils are killed.

- It is interesting that your generation has Soviet experience refracted into poetry, which was not in Soviet life. Pepperstein was the first to pull out this poetry from a very, very non-eomatic Soviet life. The Soviet Union had to die so that this poetry would grow.

- Yes, I wanted to say the same.

- About practical things. Was it crowdfunding, judging by the number of thanks at the end?

- Crowdfunding is probably 1% of the budget.

- Nevertheless, it is possible to make a movie that does not have a commercial dimension. It was difficult? How many years have you worked on this project?

- Except for writing the script, two years. For a year we were looking for money from the Ministry of Culture, which, of course, refused us. Then we had a casting, we took the actors, rehearsed with everyone. We hoped for the budget. Then they met at a large table and said: guys, there is no money. No one refused, everyone agreed. It was so surprising, so far we are experiencing as a miracle.

- That is, absolutely everyone worked for free?

- Yes, absolutely everything.

-“Blue-fantom” for that exists-this is an altruistic company that has been working for 30 years. I remember how Igor Aleinikov, brother of Gleb, came up with it. It was 1984–85. The fact that this lasted so many years is a real miracle, magic.

- “Blue-fantom” was at the beginning, then we united in the league of experimental cinema, a lot of friends, a bunch of professionals, everyone can help something. Everyone understands that you need to do something, and in order to do, you need to do something, the circle is closed, so something is being done.

- You studied at the School of Rodchenko?

- Yes, with Cyril Preobrazhensky. The school gave me a lot, this is an incredible experience. In this school, I understood the possibilities of a video language. Before this movie was a kind of deity for me, somewhere behind the clouds, and at school I realized that, in principle, you can shoot a movie yourself, take the camera in your hands and shoot.

- But it does not always work out.

- It is clear that this school controls your demonic fun. Not just took it and took off. Artistic responsibility is one of the main ones. Even if we did not get to this festival, we knew the whole group, felt that we had made a good film. And this responsibility internal to himself as an artist was paid for the piggy bank of the soul. Everyone understood this. The school taught to understand this.

- Phenomenal success for the debut picture - to get on Berlinal in the IMAX hall with such an audience - fantastic luck. What do you think to do next, in addition to the rental of this picture, which in Russia, of course, will be very modest?

- Then we finish two films. "Lynchy", director Andrei Silvestrov, and I am the installation director, a film according to the script of Rodionov and Troepolskaya. Then there is the film "Russia as a dream."

- "Elixir" could also be called that.

- It is funny that the films of each other, as it were, grabbing the ass. “Russia as a dream” was shot by all participants in the Cannes Video Festival in Siberia, there are 30 directors. We have already done the rough installation. I will not say anything so as not to jinx. We are working on these two films, plus everything I add the script.

- It is interesting that, despite the fact that the clouds are thickened, incredible projects are born and are carried out contrary to everything.

- The fact is that we simply exist in parallel to all these features, all this bureaucratic garbage. As with the "elixir": we understood at one point that we either will take it or we will not remove it. Need to remove. Guys, will we shoot? We will. There is no money. Well, okay, we will remove it. And a bypass of everything, not that bypassing, but simply with your own way. It sounds pathetic, but this is the only way. There is an artistic will that moves, and people believe in this will. I do not even say to myself, will is born in a team, boom! - And it arises and moves the process. But in no case we will try to repeat the "elixir" for the second time. Such a miracle happens once in a life. At some point, of course, money, support and so on are needed.

“But not to hell with this.”

- And to whom else? Where are the angels?

- The world is great.

- No, do not take money from the devils. Cinema does not exist in order to sign pieces of paper.

- This is a separate conversation for which there is a movie. A thing of terrible power should talk about the terrible forces. And propaganda is not power at all, it is a noise. If the movie, this terrible force, serves the noise, it is clear that it generally ceased to be force.