Translated material
Bright path
Moscow Film Festival handed out awards
It was almost certain from the very beginning of the festival that the main prize would go to a Russian film - the competition program showed a very strong bias towards domestic cinema. But to give almost all the prizes to films from the host country—for such a decision, the jury of an international festival must have very good reasons. For example, the rest of the films selected for the competition turned out to be very, very bad. To be honest, I don't think so. The overall level of the program was level, without outstanding discoveries, but also without obvious failures; the selectors managed to assemble a quite decent and even representative company in its own way. Another thing is that most films that claim to have some kind of artistic achievement turned out to be quite pessimistic and merciless to human nature.However, our Russian films, noted by the jury (where, in addition to the chairman Pavel Lungin, there were two more people brought up in the traditions of Soviet cinema - Ukrainian Sergei Trimbach and Kazakh Gulnara Dusmatova, this is not counting the Indian Shyam Benegal), were not examples of a positive view to the world. But with the evasiveness characteristic of Russian cinema since Soviet times, they did not announce this so openly mercilessly.
Today we are having an ideological battle, started by the Union of Cinematographers under the leadership of Nikita Mikhalkov. This is a battle for ideals, for bright art, calling people to an active position in life, love for the Motherland, and spiritual development. But the world around us is plunged into darkness. Ideological opponents make films that are disappointing, hopeless, filled with pain, despair and lack of faith, and they confuse our viewers. “How is the world really so scary?” - a serene viewer might think. But cinema should mobilize spiritual forces, the leader of the national cinematography, suddenly woven out of thin air, is sure, and not plunge people into the hopeless darkness of denial.
Who can argue with this? Yes, almost no one - the majority of the population thinks the same and indignantly turns away from films about the breakdown of connections, the emptiness and loneliness of modern man. They are sure (this is how teachers taught us all in literature classes) that culture is not so much a mirror as Danko’s heart, a torch behind which, as soon as the artist lights it, the people, inspired by the right slogans, will certainly fall. The experience of 60 years of socialist construction does not teach us anything - we know that the exploits of Pavka Korchagin and the Young Guard raised generations of honest and confident Soviet people in the future (but where did they all go?). And today we want, if not the same, then clear art that reconciles with life, and even better, inspiring to achieve achievements.
In essence, none of the award-winning films are suitable for this, but no one here goes into detail, they say: raise cinema, well, we’re happy to try... Therefore, a slight hint of the Kingdom of Heaven is enough, and we already seem to on the way to Heaven...
Nikolai Dostal’s film, which received the main prize of the festival, is no worse than others awarded at the Moscow International Film Festival a year or two ago. Filmed with good old-fashioned style, the film “Peter on the Road to the Kingdom of Heaven” tells about the inhabitants of a small northern town who have retained their kindness of heart and therefore, with a good-natured smile, connive with the local fool who plays at being a servant of law and order. They gave him a cap, a baton, and a wooden pistol, and the director of the mine personally orders his driver to show Petya his driver’s license and waybill. Petya is for order, although he doesn’t think well. The residents are also in favor of order, maintained by the dull but tough head of the camp, whose prisoners pass by Petya's post every day, guarded by dogs and guards. And everything would be fine, especially since Stalin has already died, and freedom will soon come, and the prisoners are smiling, and the mines are giving the country coal, but only one day, carried away by his role, Petya will take part in a real pursuit of an escaped prisoner. And this activity does not imply good nature and condescension. This is how buffoon power turns into real death. And the mother howls over her son’s body. And so, of course, it’s a good, bright movie...
The second most important prize went to Alexander Proshkin’s painting “Miracle”, again at a superficial glance, offering a way out beyond the limited earthly kingdom into the heights of the mountains. A miracle happens to a local factory worker: she was petrified and stood for several months with the icon of St. Nicholas the Pleasant in her hands, and party workers tried to hide the fact from the population, but they failed - rumors of the miracle came out. The film turned out to be complex, the meaning of its provocation - and Yuri Arabov's script is deliberately provocative - is not as clear as it might seem. Despite the doves, despite the gift of healing that the girl received, despite the innocent boy. The three stories that happened in connection with the miracle - with a spiritually enlightened journalist from the region, with an escaped priest and with the practical General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev - can, of course, be interpreted as the result of the influence of God's providence, but, it seems to me, the whole plot is in the film develops on this side of the world, where the very existence of the miraculous is immediately integrated into the technology for resolving earthly conflicts. And the artist’s view of this process does not at all imply jubilation; moreover, it is completely gloomy and devoid of illusions. However, is there a miracle? Eat. Let's put it on the positive side.
Karen Shakhnazarov’s film “Ward No. 6” (which won a prize for the role of Vladimir Ilyin) with a simple message that our whole world is a madhouse, full of such hopeless nonsense that it’s just right to take it to “Kinotavr”. But there is an indulgence: this is Chekhov, a classic. As for Kira Muratova’s terrible Christmas tale, you can even close your eyes to its utter hopelessness; with her, a marginal woman, everything is known in advance - the signature style, the author’s film, there is no chance of distribution... You can give a well-played girl for the female role, there will be no trouble. Moreover, the film is formally Ukrainian, and we are not afraid of Ukraine.
Why do I believe that the jury was guided by these considerations? Yes, because its solution cannot be explained in any other way. And if you decide to take “Petya” as an example of the best modern film, for example, then everything else needs to be chosen as simple, unpretentious, and familiar. Regardless of the real meaning, which may not be so simple, it is easy for us to accept this movie in form, with its habitually plus actors, with unfinished literary plots, with sloppy dialogues. This kind of cinema is quite harmless, the general public won’t watch it - it’s boring, other festivals of a serious level don’t take it, but we recognize it as excellent here.
The fact that the Moscow festival has never become truly international, that, despite all the spells, its status in the world is almost zero, that film critics and journalists from other countries do not come to it, that there is no international film community, is only to our advantage management, within the country you can always figure it out and order the right accents. And report: as the international jury impartially decided, our cinema is the best in the world.
But whatever the jury’s decision, both the verdict itself and its motives are quickly forgotten. But the impressions of the array of diverse cinema brought upon the Moscow public - with all its problems, trepidation, pain, the impossibility of art after Auschwitz, dialogues and searches - will remain with the most developed and thinking part of it for a long time. And they will train new filmmakers, whose films will be truly appreciated not only at home, but also in the world.
By the way, on July 3 the festival opens in Karlovy Vary, a former twin of the Moscow one, but which has developed into a fully mature phenomenon with a much more serious reputation. In the competition from Russia - "Volchok" by Vasily Sigarev. And not a single Czech film. Strange people.