Cranberry with a trend

The NTV channel pleased us with the premiere – the first episode of the historical detective series “His Majesty’s Secret Service”. For those who haven’t seen it: the action takes place in 1903 in Moscow. The main character is student Sergei Izvekov, almost an aircraft designer (note: the Wright brothers’ flight is still almost a year away, but Zhukovsky already has a whole course of aircraft designers in Moscow!) and, in everyone’s opinion, an aeronautics star. But the head of the Secret Service, Admiral Saburov (two main signs: kind, tired eyes and the fact that even a private bailiff trembles when meeting him - do you recognize it?) invites him to choose a different path. Izvekov refuses, but then terrorists throw a bomb at the Governor-General leaving a concert at the conservatory. The dignitary was not injured, but many people around him were beaten, and Izvekov’s fiancée Liza (of course, an unusually talented pianist) had both wrists broken, thereby ruining her barely begun career. Izvekov, of course, immediately changes his decision, enlists in the service and in the time remaining until the end of the series, he identifies terrorists (which is not difficult: one of them is his acquaintance and friend Liza, and with the other he accidentally ended up in the same cell in the Tver unit - in total for several hours, but during this time I learned his name and occupation, and then by chance I saw him at the scene of the explosion). After which it turns out that he liked catching bombers, and he intends to continue.

At first glance, it looks like an ordinary leaf cranberry. Domes-bells-Rus-Russia-blah-blah-blah. Here the main character kisses his bride on the street in front of everyone - by the way, the daughter of a priest - and no one sees anything special in this. Here is the best agent of the secret service, Mr. Kulebyako, having met a cab driver who had just been robbed of “three sheets” (then equivalent of scams and thimbles), he immediately goes to restore justice - and the godfather of the scammers respectfully apologizes to him (it’s interesting how such a popular personality manages to track someone?). Here Saburov compares the revolution with a mutiny on a ship, which certainly means universal destruction - apparently, the brave admiral (and the screenwriter along with him) have never heard the word “Bounty”. I have already said about the “aircraft design course”, which was recruited, you need to understand, back in the 19th century.

In fact, it's even worse. Because it's not just any cranberry, it's a cranberry with a trend.

First of all, revolutionaries. People from nowhere. What led them to the revolution - who knows, they don’t talk about it. They do not have ordinary human feelings at all - which is emphasized repeatedly and exaggeratedly. Let's say two people are walking, one is carrying a bomb and stumbles. "Careful!" - “For some reason, I haven’t noticed such sentimentality before, Andrey...” - “I don’t care about you, Shtokman, but this is our last explosive!” (This is an echo version of the joke about the Chukchi and the hydrogen bomb - the interlocutors are separated by one step, and their burden, as we soon learn, can carry half a block!) They spy on each other with all their might, intimidate each other: “You yourself understand what awaits you if and this attempt will be unsuccessful! (said, by the way, not by an abstract demonic villain, but by Grigory Gershuni - a real historical figure, the creator and head of the famous Combat Organization of the Socialist Revolutionaries, a man who until the last refused to believe in Azef’s betrayal). In general, typical villains from a typical Soviet film of the 50s are a collection of all human vices. True, Stalin’s screenwriters at least took the trouble to show what the guys were trying for: they were hungry for power or they were working off Entente money. Here, nasty terrorists produce evil like green plants produce oxygen: not for any purpose, but because this is their physiology. This is confirmed by the most authoritative expert Mr. Kulebyako, who predicts that even if they build their own earthly paradise, they will still throw bombs in it - they’re used to it, sir!

And in fact, if they were normal people, why would they raise their hand to such splendor? Clean, picturesque streets, candy-lambs, the aroma of pies, general benevolence (even the formidable mustachioed bailiff, although he yells “Ma-hungry!”, but his heart aches for each of his prisoners!), strict adherence to the law (if anyone hasn’t noticed this themselves , so they will say about it on camera, and it will be the revolutionaries, so that it is more reliable). In beautiful halls and living rooms, beautiful people drink champagne and eat sturgeon among beautiful things, play the piano, gracefully fence...

No, of course, in Russia at that time there lived not only professors and admirals, but also some cab drivers and flower girls... we don’t see exactly how they lived, but probably no worse. And all sorts of freedoms and rights - who needs them, to be honest? So they asked the character (the main character’s friend, a progressive student and the terrorist’s boyfriend) a direct question: why, Sashka, do you need university autonomy - but he has nothing to answer! It’s all a whim, they’ve read a lot of books and they want to remake Great Rus' using these books! So Mr. head waiter confirms: if they talk about the constitution, they will certainly start breaking mirrors; last year they hit as much as a hundred rubles! (For reference: the prices are also cranberry, about the same as ONE large restaurant mirror cost in those years.)

But, of course, we cannot let down our guard. If the fearless knights from the Secret Service give even a little slack, the brilliant empire will immediately plunge into the abyss of chaos. And then the pure intellectuals will have to learn to shoot at people in order to protect their loved ones from murderers and rapists - but it will be too late... Where these murderers and rapists will come from in such numbers in this kingdom of universal love and prosperity - this is unknown to mortals, all we know is that they, like those taxi drivers from the joke, always come from somewhere...

I’m writing all this and thinking: I wonder if this understanding of our recent history was brought down from above? Eldar Ryazanov drew attention to the professional solidarity of Soviet security officers with the tsarist gendarmes during the filming of “The Poor Hussar.” And then the well-known deputy Semago (Communist Party of the Russian Federation - “Russian Regions” - “United Russia”) introduced another bill on introducing unanimity in Russia: only one view of its history should be taught in the country, and whoever needs another, let him follow it in Cambridge is not coming back. Maybe this is it, that one look? In February last year, on Channel One, I already saw a similar “documentary” film about the Russian revolution: the German General Staff, Parvus, a sealed carriage, the Bolsheviks drink beer with German money and hire leaflet posters - and there are no other reasons for revolution in the country... In in general, the usual FSB leak, but not about Sutyagin or Danilov, but about Lenin.

Or is it precisely this kind of product that the broad masses of television viewers crave - at least in the minds of the managers of Domfilm and NTV? However, these hypotheses are not mutually exclusive.

A separate conversation is about acting. Everything is simple here: whichever of the actors is over 40 (that is, they managed to act back in Soviet times) – they play. Some are better, some are worse, some are more likely to push, but at least they understand what the word “play” means. And all the young characters, as soon as they open their mouths, the young lady of the early 20th century immediately turns into a party girl of the early 21st. You can't cover it with any muff-veil. For now they are silent - no matter what. At one point I even wanted to applaud - when Lisa, struck by a villainous bomb, falls face down on the snow-covered pavement. I have probably never seen such a convincing fall of an insensitive, uncontrollable body in a movie.

Maybe the doll was thrown?