| Taboo breakers at the Moscow Film Festival It’s somehow unusual to realize that the most significant and anticipated screenings at the festival concern films that are immediately released. This was the case with the opening, the premiere of “Kill Bill” shown at it was connected with the festival only by the arrival of Tarantino - the film itself can already be seen in all cinemas (but thanks to the MIFF, our eminent filmmakers, who had apparently not considered it for themselves before, saw the film for the first time important). Pedro Almodóvar’s “Bad Education” will not be shown so widely, and the director did not come to the premiere in Moscow, but the Cannes aura was enough for it to attract increased attention among other festival events. The accredited press crowded into the FAKK hall in advance, at the same time watching the previous film from the “Perspectives” program - “My Mother” by the young French director, writer and critic Christophe Honore. Although the competition in this program is devoid of even any semblance of intrigue, this was the picture that was expected: Isabelle Huppert starred in it, after “The Pianist” she acquired a reputation as an actress who is no longer afraid of anything and violates any limits of what is permitted. MIFF program director Kirill Razlogov added fuel to the fire by announcing at a press conference that “My Mother” frankly leaves “The Pianist” far behind. However, it is difficult to imagine a more boring film - the audience would probably have left without waiting for the end, if not for the fear of losing the place occupied for the next screening. Watching the director painstakingly construct a scheme to break the latest social taboos, wrapping these exercises in a poorly thought out plot, is surprisingly uninteresting. Although, it would seem, the film should outrage and shock, because it tells the story of how a dissolute mother, after the death of her father, begins the initiation of her sixteen-year-old son, plunging him into debauchery worthy of the memory of the Marquis de Sade. She introduces the young man to her mistresses and provokes him into sexual experiences of all possible kinds. The only thing that distinguishes these scenes from pornographic filming is the lack of an erection on the part of the actors. The entire film suffers from the same lack of tension and vitality, filled with dubious philosophical discussions about life and death, desire, guilt, which the beautiful, but completely destroyed by the director, actress Isabelle Huppert shares with her partner, actor Louis Garrel, who looks like Vrubel’s demon. Nevertheless, it is useful for our filmmakers to look at this example of modern French cinema as an example of the fact that in cinema, intention, even the most radical, is worthless.
The Russian film “Ours,” shown in competition on the same day by Dmitry Meskhiev, is to some extent also based on the desire to overcome cultural taboos. This time the matter is a little more serious - the myth about the Patriotic War is one of the most stable and sanctified by tradition. This is not close-up incest. However, Meskhiev goes more on a tangent; he, like the scriptwriter Valentin Chernykh, is more interested in the spring of action than historical details. In the first scenes, the director tries to show the war very harshly - there is a German attack on a small town, it is 1941, the Germans are literally sweeping away everything in their path. Meskhiev does not spare shells, bodies explode, the camera shows how a tank crushes a person - but everything is very unnatural, although there is death, and mud in which your feet get stuck, and - unexpectedly touching and memorable - a wide, simple smile on the face of Sergei Garmash, playing a security officer who surrenders. The plot itself begins after a spontaneously formed group of three people - the mentioned NKVD member, political instructor Lifshits (played by Konstantin Khabensky, painted red) and the peasant son Mitka - escape from captivity and hide in Mitka’s native village of Bliny, with his father . Father (Bogdan Stupka) is very difficult - he became the headman of the Germans, but not out of conviction, but at the request of his fellow villagers, who relied on his intelligence. His past is dark - he is clearly more developed and educated than befits a peasant, albeit a former “kulak”, but we will never know the vicissitudes of his fate. The most interesting thing in this film, despite its shortcomings, in my opinion, Meskhiev’s best, is how the forces are distributed within the conflict. The Germans have been withdrawn from it altogether - their presence is only a given, a natural threat. It’s all about “their own” - it is they who fight for personal interests, and among the endless forests of the Russian off-road, where no one else can go, these “their own” establish their own order, the driving force of which is the thirst for power, and lust, and self-interest, and love. And only these deeply personal motives of each character have real meaning. The film is spoiled only by Meskhiev’s passion for taking everything to the limit, pressing where a hint would suffice, and falling short in details. But there is a real discovery in it - actress Natalya Surkova, who did not play the main role, but did it unusually naturally and subtly.
And yet, the general background of the films shown in the competition reveals that class “B” teams are participating in our “A” class festival, and no matter how successfully they play, the level of their achievements is not commensurate with real players. Bad Education didn't strike me as Almodóvar's great achievement, but it has a masterful direction that makes the story surprisingly human and relatable. Despite transsexuals, pedophilia and other relationships that are not entirely acceptable in society. But it does not occur to Almodóvar that by showing the closeness of two men or the mutual coquetry of transvestite girlfriends, he is committing an artistic act of overcoming the boundaries of what is permitted. He is interested in something completely different - weaving a web of semi-detective plot about the complexes and passions inherent in the heroes’ deep childhood. It is almost impossible to retell this plot, since each scene brings an unexpected twist of action that breaks stable stereotypes. The story of childhood love gives way to a story of repressed passion, the theme of the film begins with young erotic dreams of actresses and moves into an exploration of the very nature of reincarnation. Almodóvar is not interested in teasing the average person or destroying established authorities; he wants to find the almost elusive line separating the real from the imaginary, creation from destruction, to get to the very essence of human nature, and this seriousness of intentions allows him to make a very subtle, lyrical and sad picture, in which there is no places for wanting to please the public or to shock them. Gleb MYSHKIN |
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