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New Russian action movie - the latest invention of local cinema
Summing up the results of the last film year, everyone, not excluding your humble servant, spoke and wrote about the beginning of the era of Russian blockbusters. The tone was cautiously optimistic. It seemed that the very fact that cinema ceases to be the realization of unhealthy ambitions, theft of budget money, shameless deception of private investors (underline as appropriate) and becomes a business could contribute to some improvement in the situation. Even if the product is not always of high quality, even if it is sold at exorbitant prices, even if the advertising is repulsively aggressive, but, whatever you say, there is something honest in ordinary fraudulent commerce. In the end, no one forces you to buy it, and if they buy it, it means someone needs it.As the year approaches its end, this model has been adjusted. To begin with, the Russian blockbuster (if we leave aside two or three successful exceptions) for the most part turned out to be, contrary to the statements of the filmmakers, not entirely genre. And if this is a genre, then it is built according to different laws than those by which world culture lived, from Greek tragedy to the golden age of Hollywood. And we need to come up with a different name for it. Well, for example, something like this, unpretentious and neutral - a new Russian action movie.
The main positive character is, of course, an intelligence officer, one might say, a renaissance personality, fluent in hand-to-hand combat techniques and quoting Confucius. He has a wise and forgiving boss and a team of impeccable professionals. The team must have a young computer scientist in an informal large-knit sweater, who vigorously taps on the keyboard and sooner or later will track the location of the terrorist by calling from a mobile phone. It is desirable to have a highly qualified psychologist who can instantly determine from the trembling voice of the same terrorist whether he is telling the truth or bluffing. A gray-haired veteran of Lubyanka is required, who readily shares his accumulated experience with the new generation. If the hero is relatively young, he will definitely have a mother to whom he will call and say “everything is okay, mom” before going on a deadly mission. If he is old, he will have a son, whom he will send on this very task with an unwavering hand. And when he meets his main enemy in a personal battle, it will definitely turn out that they served together in Afghanistan or Angola.
These are Ocean's Eleven. The wall of goodness is monolithic and strong. This, by the way, is one of the fundamental differences from Western action films, where the hero often turns out to be a hungover loner who has to fight against everyone and save the world at his own peril and risk. This is not the case in the new Russian action movie. If one not entirely positive character finds his way into the team of good, then in the spirit of the latest trends he will be an employee not of the special services, but of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - everyone has heard about “werewolves in uniform.”
Let's move on to the negative heroes. Representatives of the intelligence services of not entirely friendly powers, oddly enough, do not belong to them - after all, professional brotherhood is more important than even state interests. And the first place is occupied - correctly - by terrorists. Preferably Chechen. However, the authors of the new Russian militants treat the Chechens quite humanely - there will definitely be at least one moderate (“uh-uh, why create chaos?”) who, if he does not go over to the side of good, will at least agree to lay down his arms in exchange for large budgetary allocations. But the authors are merciless towards their accomplices and inspirers. The ex-USSR biathlon champion, shooting at our guys' painful spots, will choke on blood and fall dead, showing off her white tights. Black mercenaries will be casually called monkeys. A Latvian special forces soldier will be blown up on a mine he himself installed. The main international terrorist will be targeted in a mountain village with a Soviet-made high-precision missile. One thing is strange - the topic of Bandera’s followers has not yet been sufficiently explored.
The authors feel sorry for representatives of small and medium-sized businesses. Those with large fortunes are less fortunate. A major Western businessman who donated a couple of hundred million dollars to charity will turn out to be a heroin king. But the icon frame of the new Russian action movie is especially indicative. At one point in the middle of the film, the action is suddenly interrupted, and we find ourselves in a penthouse with transparent walls. Big Ben clearly sticks out behind the glass, and an unpleasant, hunched man watches news from Russia on satellite. The viewer’s heart sank trustingly: so this is it, it turns out that’s what’s going on...
However, all this is understandable and predictable. But even I was surprised when in one of the fresh (this word should be put in quotation marks) new Russian militants, the hireling of international terrorism who brought a super-powerful bomb to a football match was given a clear portrait resemblance to Eduard Limonov. It's somehow... embarrassing, or something.
The figures are in place, it’s time to start writing a plot (I almost wrote a “budget”, a Freudian slip). In the 90s, the first Russian textbook on screenwriting was published. The author recommended that in case of a crisis of ideas, open the first newspaper you come across, read a couple of notes and try to glue them together into a single story. And he gave what he thought was a funny example: it seemed like something about Hare Krishna strikebreakers who were contracted to drive public transport during the drivers’ strike. If only this dear man knew what a violent nightmare his harmless advice would blossom into. There is no such news, there is no such story from the Vremya program, there is no such obscenity from the pages of the yellow press that the scriptwriter of the new Russian action movie would not insert into his story. Political assassinations, falling oil prices, earthquakes, plane crashes, accidents involving celebrities, divorces of movie stars, the landing of a flying saucer on Poklonnaya Hill - everything goes into the furnace, everything fits into the pattern of confrontation between who knows who and who. In Hollywood, in this case, it is customary to buy the rights to the story that happened to them from real people, and then, after interviewing thousands of eyewitnesses, carefully reconstruct the events and invite real characters to the premiere. Well, that's how it is in Hollywood...
Do you think I want to accuse the new Russian cinema of “carrying out the ideological order of the Kremlin”? Nothing happened. That is, ideology is, of course, death for art, etc., but this is a different case. If there was one thing that excused the great ideological directors, it was that they filmed not out of fear, but out of conscience. If there is one thing that excuses the current galaxy of political TV journalists-terminators, it is that they earn their money to the fullest, “feeding their family.” Nothing will ever excuse the creators of the Russian action movie. They don’t recoup the budget, and they don’t fulfill the ideological order. Yes, and there is no order. And there is no ideology. No one, I think, stands over their souls and demands: “Make a movie about a positive FSB officer, otherwise we’ll be sent to Solovki.”
And there is only a gang of teenagers who, of their own free will, decided to graduate from the school of a young intelligence officer without C grades in order to extort money from their daddy for a new mobile phone. “Well, now we’ll put Limonych in - it’ll be fun, we’ll have a laugh with our friends at the premiere.”
The disease of new Russian cinema can be defined as a hybrid of schizophrenia and cancer. Schizophrenia - because it just doesn’t fit in my head. After all, an actor who starred in a film by a great director cannot agree to play a role in a shameful screw-up. A director, who is considered the standard of European style in our country, cannot act as a producer of outrageous hack work. A person who directed one of the best Russian films of the outgoing year cannot be listed in the credits as a co-author of a script for outright garbage. A journalist with a reputation cannot write a positive review or film a well-meaning story about a film that revives the golden days of cooperative cinema. It turns out it can.
And cancer - because metastases appear in the most unexpected places. God be with them, with “Personal Numbers”, “Male Seasons”, “Mirror Wars” and “Countdowns”. The same lack of commitment, lack of will, desire to curry favor (no matter who) spoils many films of quite good, and sometimes even talented, people. A serious author's project turns into emptiness in the festival wrapper. A forgivable fascination with Wong Kar-wai leads to unforgivable idiocy on screen. The long-awaited picture “from the life of ordinary people” suspiciously looks like a collection of unfunny gags for the same “friends at the premiere.”
And this, probably, is the main sad result of the outgoing film year.