"Dostoevsky" on the channel "Russia"

The Rossiya channel yesterday finished showing the biographical series Dostoevsky with Yevgeny Mironov in the title role. The film was directed by Vladimir Khotinenko from a script by Eduard Volodarsky. ANNA NARINSKAYA rejoices at how nicely everything turned out for them.

Dostoevsky was an enthusiastic woman lover, a manic gambler, a notorious anti-liberal, and also wrote novels. In the series by Khotinenko and Volodarsky, everything fits exactly in this order - and, in general, merci, as the writer Karmazinov said in “Demons”. Because they could have tortured you with solemnity, difficulty and the fact that if there is no God, then everything is allowed. They could, for example, devote an entire series to hard labor - especially since the main character in his “Notes from a Dead House” collected enough material for this. And then look at the dirt and suffering for a whole hour, in the complete absence of women. And here the torment of the prison is given mainly in pretty flashbacks, plus the few minutes necessary to maintain chronology after the expressive scene of the failed execution, and then - bam, and now there is love, trepidation, jealousy and other interesting things.

In general, the script for the series was obviously written based on the book by Russian émigré writer and Tsvetaeva’s friend Mark Slonim “The Three Loves of Dostoevsky” (first published in the USA in 1953). This work is not mentioned in the credits, but this simply cannot be a coincidence: the plot, right up to the last, “non-love” episode, unfolds exactly according to Slonim’s patterns. Even quotes from letters, memoirs and diaries, sounding like the speech of the characters or spoken off-screen, coincide with those given by Slonim. But with the book, the situation is still more boring: it is called “Three Loves”, so the reader is prepared - it will be about love, about family and personal relationships. And here it’s a pleasant surprise.

Some interpretations of Dostoevsky, however, differ from Slonimov’s, and even generally familiar ones. For example, the writer’s first wife, Marya Dmitrievna (Dostoevsky met her at a settlement in Semipalatinsk and brought her to St. Petersburg, where she died of consumption in 1864), is usually described as an unhappy, but incredibly difficult woman, hysterical, suspicious, jealous, and also which has never outlived its provincialism. But the male tandem of Khotinenko and Volodarsky takes a truly feminist approach to the history of the writer’s first marriage. In them, Marya Dmitrievna appears, albeit as a slightly nervous person, but still an unconditional victim of a self-centered husband, who is still trying to leave the patient in order to drag himself after someone on the side. Perhaps the reason is that Chulpan Khamatova, who plays the role of Marya Dmitrievna, no longer plays unpleasant and annoying people, but perhaps only difficult ones. And we must give her credit: Khamatova plays a sad, beautiful lady, guilty only of the fact that she got married more out of despair than out of love (that’s what Marya Dmitrievna is turned into here), non-irritatingly, and even subtly. The same cannot be said about Olga Smirnova, who portrays Apollinaria Suslova, who broke the writer’s heart, with the dull diligence of a schoolgirl. But it is her wooden presence on the screen that turns out to be the last necessary straw: with the appearance of this femme fatale, the series about Dostoevsky collapses into delightful trash.

It turns out to be some kind of mixture of Ken Russell's film "Gothika", which was once popular in perestroika video stores, telling about the love exercises of Byron and Shelley, and Woody Allen's early film "Love and Death" - an incredibly funny parody of Russian classical literature in general. Apollinaria’s explanation with Dostoevsky, who came to see her in Paris (she admits that she fell in love and gave herself to another) intonationally exactly corresponds to the famous monologue from Allen’s film: “I love Alexei, he loves Tatyana, Tatyana loves Simkin, Simkin loves me, I love Simkin, but not the love that Alexei..."

And Vladimir Khotinenko surpassed the British master of kitsch. A parallel montage subtly linking Dostoevsky's fetishistic passion for women's legs with his memories of the process of removing underwear from under the stocks (swings of round naked calves alternate with shots of dirty heels in the glands) - Ken Russell would never have thought of this.

In general, in terms of eroticism, the filmmakers did not spare their hero. Almost everything that is known about him in this sense is presented in the film. Yevgeny Mironov expressively shakes with lust and even more expressively reads aloud the words of Prince Valkovsky from “The Humiliated and Insulted”: “I even love secret, dark debauchery, stranger and more original, even a little dirty for a change.” So the generally accepted idea that all the “voluptuaries” of this author, from this prince to the old man Karamazov, are himself, becomes obscenely obvious.

Except that the slippery “children's theme” was mentioned only in a hint: the pouting Turgenev, performed by Vladimir Simonov, just opens his mouth to angrily remind about “that girl,” but Dostoevsky grabs him by the throat. (In general, it was probably in vain that Vladimir Khotinenko showed the author of “Fathers and Sons” as such a pompous, empty idiot - now, if he is offered to film the series “Turgenev”, he, as an honest person, will have to refuse).

But, even refusing the opportunity to play out the “real” roles in the chapter “At Tikhon’s” that was not included in “Demons,” Vladimir Khotinenko created a completely entertaining spectacle. True, in the last episode everything somehow fades: questions appear about the existence of God, Optina Pustyn, prophecies about the revolution, and the Jew Solomon, who is clearly intended to shake the prevailing opinion about Dostoevsky’s anti-Semitism, reading “The Diary of a Writer.” But this is only one episode. But the rest is lively and juicy. Prince Valkovsky would have liked it.

A classic with a human face