Chechen claustrophobia

Some time ago, President Putin noted that he sees nothing bad in the revival of the so -called cultural state order. And especially said about "the revival of the so -called state order to create works that have an unconditional social value." These words fit into the general state idea of ​​educating patriotism among citizens of the Russian Federation. And since the country is in the permanent state of war, the best topic for state orders cannot be invented.

It is worth talking about this on the eve of the Defender of the Fatherland Day. Moreover, long before the presidential words, Russian filmmakers began to turn to the contradictory theme of the Chechen war.

The first steps

Back in 1996, Sergey Bodrov Senior shot the film " Caucasian captive " - ​​a modern interpretation of the novel by Leo Tolstoy, written a hundred years ago. “When we thought of this film, there was no war in Chechnya,” the director said, “and when we started shooting, we hoped that it would end soon ...” The war did not end, rather - on the contrary. And the "Caucasian captive" involuntarily gave this war the artistic status. In that film, there was no enemy’s image - the “Caucasian captive” was known as an intelligent attempt to understand the strange, unusual interethnic conflict. “What to do when a crazy life catches up with the plan?” Verdrov asked a rhetorical question. “Who will believe that you wanted to tell the story of a hundred years ago?”

Then there was a forgotten and underestimated "purgatory" - the directorial debut of the famous television journalist Alexander Nevzorov and, it seems, the first film production experience of Boris Berezovsky. “Cleaning” - a realistic and bloody, almost documentary reconstruction of battles for the building of the Grozny Hospital in January 1995 - turned out to be the first film on the Chechen topic to be more or less objective. The main mistake of Nevzorov, oddly enough, was that he put his name into the credits. The presence among the authors of the film of the odious journalist with a too pronounced political orientation in space made his own - they did not talk about the film as an independent artistic act, but as a political statement. And they recalled the accusations that rained down on Nevzorov after his “Vilnius” reports - I recall, Nevzorov was accused of issuing staged personnel for the chronicle. Meanwhile, the "purgatory" should be evaluated exclusively as an act of artistic creation - by the way, more than worthy. But the importance of “purgatory” is not this, but in the fact that it turned out to be the first film to provoke a discussion in society, and not only about the legitimacy of showing violence on the screen, but also about the Chechen war as an object for that very artistic creativity.

Alexander Rogozhkin’s “ checkpoint ”, a brilliant chamber military drama, which somehow imperceptibly appeared and disappeared, without a wide rental, became the first peacekeeping act and, undoubtedly, an important milestone in the short story of the “Chechen” Russian cinema. To understand it, I think, it is worthwhile to distract a little from the topic and trace how Rogozhkin went to this film.

The necessary retreat

Rogozhkin put a debut full -length film about front -line correspondents for several lines in 1985. And after four years, he took off the “guard”, which made the director talk about an independent filmmaker. In this uncompromising black and white drama, Rogozhkin outlined that it can now be considered his directorial style. Namely, he built a closed space on the screen, where he locked the heroes suffering from claustrophobia. Voluntarily or involuntarily, it is a closed space that does not produce outward and has become a branded stylistic technique of Rogozhkin. And the thirst for violence, devouring a person from the inside, became the subject of research for the director, including in the next significant film - "Chekist". Filted in 1991, he seemed to predict the future great blood, the concentration of cruelty in it was extreme. And Rogozhkin again locked the heroes in four walls and impassively watched what was happening.

Two years later, in the film adaptation of the Erofeev’s story “Life with an idiot” Rogozhkin brought human ugliness to the point of absurdity, caricature. At the same time, the atmosphere of his film, already not having an excess of oxygen, turned out to be completely discharged. The heroes of Rogozhkin became difficult to breathe, there was a need to break out of the notorious four walls. And two years later, the "Features of the National Hunt" - the first from the time of Gaida truly folk comedy. But in this film, and in subsequent continuations, the heroes of Rogozhkin did not receive real freedom to freedom. Instead of tangible stone walls, their worlds were surrounded by intangible walls - those very red flags from the old political joke, as if encircling the country -zone and determining human behavior.

In order for the next "serious" project to appear, it took three years. "Checkpoint" is the first appeal of the Russian director to the topic of "hot spots", at that time only those who were still not around the perimeter of Soviet Russia. And again - violence devouring from the inside, again - the executioner and the victim, changing roles, again - claustrophobia, fear of closed space and an unsuccessful attempt to break out of the artificially defined framework. In a chamber atmosphere, the director clearly manipulates human characters and fate, clearly understands the psychology of the heroes. He seems to be experiencing what is happening with them. And professionally circumvents dangerous accusations of the conjunction of the topic - the "hot" point and young guys thrown into the massacre with dirty politicians. Even the ubiquitous Buldakov, which appears for a short while in the usual role of the general, does not annoy, but looks like a natural continuation of the absurdity of what is happening ...

Do you want peace - get ready for the "war"

In his "checkpoint", it so happened, Rogozhkin voluntarily or involuntarily put all the points over I, determining the Chechen theme as a claustrophobia that infected Russian directors. Those who in subsequent years will attract and, at the same time, fear.

Further, two directors proposed their artistic statements to the audience at once - Andrei Konchalovsky and Alexei Balabanov. It so happened that their films, released one by one, involuntarily entered the dispute with each other.

The " House of Fools " Konchalovsky is a film in connection with which they began to talk about the revival of interest in Russian cinema in the West: Venetian prizes simply do not give. But it is worth noting that Konchalovsky seemed to make a film with an eye on the Western audience, collecting on the screen all the myths of the new history of the Russian state ... At the very beginning, a titer appears on the screen that the picture is based on real events - this is how the audience confidence in what is happening on the screen is earned. And let the inhabitants of the prosperous West repeat that they are aware of the events that are happening in Russia - the right -wing, justifying the counter -terrorist operation in Chechnya, nor the “left” opposing the Chechen war, nor human rights activists who saw the Potemkin villages specially built in the North Caucasus, do not know anything. Therefore, they perceive Konchalovsky’s picture for a clean coin. Although the division into "good" and "bad", as you know, exists only in fairy tales for family viewing. In the real story on which the film is based, as in real life, everything that is called is tougher.

Balabanov’s film “ War ” just turned out “tougher”. The St. Petersburg director, the author of the Brothers, repeatedly accused of inciting interethnic razor, the person with glasses with glasses and with long hair, unexpectedly shot a film-whale. Everyone who wanted to see in this picture of bad Chechens and a good Russian guy fighting bandits saw this. And Balabanov did not protest (he rarely protests, but in almost all interviews insists that there is no ideology in his paintings). But only a few saw in the “war” an accurate indication of a real enemy - a state -owned car, pressing himself and Chechen separatists and heroic Russian troops. The portrait hanging over the table of one of the official officials indicates the orientation of the film more clearly and frankly than a hundred bad Chechens, dying under the bullets of a brave Russian soldier. However, Balabanov, who in all his films (with the exception of, perhaps only the early aesthetic “happy days” and “castle”) plays not with ideology, but with human ideas about it, so veiled its statement that it, unfortunately, did not reach many. Or it was perverted. As a result, the "war", perhaps, became one of the most underestimated Russian films of its time. But in the discussed Chechen topics, she undoubtedly left her bloody mark.

Briefly...

There are three more films directly related to the Chechen war. But they do not have to discuss them seriously, albeit for various reasons. The "march" Nikolai Istanbula is an attempt to make a simple and understandable, correctly ideologically designed genre film, action movie, on painful material. The attempt, rather, fail, if only because to create a hurricth-patriotic films, you must first wash off the blood and comprehend the problem itself. Next - the "Caucasian roulette", set by the director -deputy Fedor Popov based on the play by Viktor Merezhko. There is another problem. Without deciding on their own opinion, in an attempt to please everyone, and thereby imagine the so-called “objective” picture, Popov simply confused in the general material drama in the general material about the confrontation of the two mothers, whose sons the war selected. However, the "Caucasian roulette" fulfilled its mission. The director brought the Chechen themes to the cinema to another level. I asked questions that there are no unequivocal answers. I tried not to agitate, but to comprehend the tragedy. For the attempt - thanks. Finally, the "march of the Slavs" by Natalia Pyankova is not discussed simply because the picture did not reach (and apparently - it will not reach) to the viewer. In any case, in the near future.

Well, I do not want to pronounce a lot of words about the series that somehow affect the Chechen problems. In addition to the notorious state order (and most likely without it), these very multi -part films, unevenly shot and played, try, turning the weapons, to educate patriotism. And there is nothing wrong with that. Just the time for patriotism, it seems, has not yet come. The Chechen claustrophobia seems to be incurable.

As an actual announcement: at the very end of February, the premiere of the film “Honor has”, based on Andrei Konstantinov’s book “Rota” and telling about the Russian military in Chechnya, should take place on the Rossiya TV channel. The topic remains open.