Ian Shenkman: one of the kindest directors made a very unkind cartoon

The cartoon "Ku! Kin-dza-dza" by Georgy Danelia and Tatyana Ilyina is released - a remake of the famous film from the times of perestroika

Cellist Chizhov and DJ Tolik Tsarapkin find themselves on planet Plyuk (still from the film)

Ian Shenkman

By filming an animated version of his 1986 hit, Danelia himself provoked the viewer into comparison. Better or worse? Of course it's worse. Everything was better before and the trees were big. Why did you “spoil the legend”? And in general: a cartoon is not serious. Before there were masterpieces, but now there is entertainment and show business. Now they can't do that. And so on.

The 82-year-old director, who has not released new films since 2000, no longer needs to prove anything to anyone. The quality of any of his work, including this one, is extreme. Organism in every frame, in every sound, in every drawing. Not a single random remark, everything works. It’s just different, not the way it worked 27 years ago. But the point here is not Danelia, he is physically unable to remove the lie. It's about the material, what he's filming about. The Kin-dza-dza galaxy has become completely different over the years. In 1986, it looked like a very realistic fantasy, dystopian film. It amazed, made me laugh, and caused anxiety. By 2013, science fiction had finally entered our lives and no longer evoked strong emotions. Hence the animation, other characters, and all the other changes. A new, completely unreal reality requires new means.

The first thing that catches your eye is that instead of the usual foreman Uncle Vova and half-educated student Gedevan Aleksandrovich, the world-famous cellist Chizhov and the aspiring DJ Tolik Tsarapkin from Nizhnye Yamoki find themselves on planet Plyuk. This is a significant change; now the entire line of conflict is being built differently. In 1986, two absolutely normal people found themselves on a planet where everyone cheats everyone, no one says what they think, everyone tries to humiliate the other. Racism, bribery, ruthless exploitation. Absurdity upon absurdity, ugliness upon ugliness. Just some kind of America through the eyes of the program “The Camera Looks into the World.” If you look around, it’s all “not our people.”

In 2013, there is only one “not our man”. A man in a tailcoat, with intelligent speech. All he can do is play classical music on the cello, which makes the locals simply sick: “Don’t play like that, it’ll make us sick.” A cellist performing Handel would evoke a similar reaction in any restaurant near Moscow; it was not worth traveling the galaxy for this. Of course, they prefer the pitiful yard hit "Mom, Mom, what are we going to do?" in DJ processing, with cheap special effects.

He is an alien, and everyone else is just normal. Tolik with his questions like “Is it difficult to get into show business?” and a manic desire to photograph everything, is more normal than him. And what holy horror Chizhov evokes when he recites “Petrel” by heart! It's so out of place, so incongruous with everything else, that it's mesmerizing. This is where the main rift lies: between a person who knows Gorky (at least) and those who measure everything by the local currency, by chatli.

Such a person must be humiliated, brought to his knees, locked in a cage, forced to play some kind of “Chizhik-fawn” for the amusement of the freaks. Which is exactly what happens. The normal order of things has been restored.

One more important detail. Chizhov from Plyuk, in fact, has nowhere to run, nowhere to return. On Earth, his wife left him, unfinished, in the concert hall, instead of classics, they now play the notorious “Mama” and so on. On Earth, a person with a cello who knows poetry by heart is the same outcast as on Plyuk, the difference has practically disappeared. Dreams of the old life are now similar to the dreams of old emigrants to return to Russia in 1913 - the year, say, 1950. That Russia no longer exists, and that world no longer exists. And was he?..

Over the past 30 years, the surroundings have changed; they could not help but change. Mobile phones, migrant workers, “pirate” mirages, and “real Vietnamese shampoo” appeared. But the main thing remains. As before, everyone is cheating on everyone, humiliating themselves in front of the crimson pants, praising the great PJ, and the police officer still resembles the habits of a well-fed traffic cop. People still don’t say what they think and don’t think what they say. And the moral is the same: “They will crawl on all fours, and we don’t care about them. Pleasure!”

But there is a fundamental difference that cannot be ignored. In 1986, I felt sorry for everyone: Yakovlev with his unique eyes, in which suffering froze, the naive fool Gedevan, the cunning peasant Leonov, the boys, the chatlans, the people, even the ridiculous, pompous and lethargic then PZh - even that was a pity. Even the meanness of that time evoked some kind of tenderness. And now I don’t feel sorry for anyone at all. Steel appeared in the eyes. This was well formulated by the PR people who came up with the slogan “Ku! Kin-dza-dza: the tears have dried up.” Yes, they are dry. And now, as the Leningrad group sings: “I don’t feel sorry for anyone, no one, not you, not me, not him.” Cartoon toy passions, plastic suffering. What looked monstrous 30 years ago no longer evokes either sympathy or special concern. This has become the norm - so why worry?

And it is no coincidence that Danelia replaced the key line of the film, which in 1986 was read unmistakably. Finding himself on a planet where there is nothing to breathe, Uncle Vova says to his partner: “You are still young. Maybe something will change.” They say there is hope, maybe you will live to see better times, to freedom. In 2013, the line goes like this: “You’re still young, you’ll adapt.” There is no hope anymore. The only option is to adapt. So we adapted...

One of our kindest directors made a very unkind cartoon. No pity, no glimmer of hope, no tears. But this is not his fault. I filmed it the way we live. Mom, mom, what are we going to do...

Don't worry, don't be sorry