Legend No. 1943

Recently, our films about the Great Patriotic War have been made less historical and more symbolic: “Present”, “Citadel”, “White Tiger” - and now “Stalingrad” by Fedor Bondarchuk.

And the second in a row of them is put forward to Oscars. This means that the most bloody page of our history is still the most prestigious part.

*** In the film, the narrative begins today: in Japan, where an earthquake has happened and where our Emchessovets raises the spirit of German tourists who were told by the stories about what the mother who survived Stalingrad told him. At the end of the epic story, the rescued German citizens could have the impression that the Russian rescuer was conceived there, in Stalingrad, with an immaculate way. Therefore, he is already 70 years old - however, he is still in the public service.

By virtue of my damage, I dare to assume that questions about the immaculate conception of the narrator and his age will also arise among members of the American film academy. They may have other questions in terms of both historical and worldly absurdities.

I would recommend them to read our reviewers who intelligibly explained that this film is more than the film. That this is a fairy tale, a legend, a parable, an opera, a comic book (in a good way), a bike (also in a good way), finally, a myth whose characters are akin to the inhabitants of the ancient Greek Olympus, and to judge the picture itself, therefore, it is necessary by completely different laws than those by which it is customary to measure realistic films shot on the material of the war - for example, the paintings of Alexei German. And then everything will immediately become in place.

In myths, immortal gods and mortal heroes have no age and, as a rule, do not bother with the ways of continuing the genus. The most impossible miracles are possible there. There are no processes. There are continuous excesses. There is no evolution. There is a permanent revolution there. There, the world is ruled by rock and a case - for a couple.

In Mikhalkov, in his last two films, both of these supernatural characters are only engaged in what they reduce and bred earthly heroes. By the will of the rock, the nadia’s orderly does not undermine a mine, having faded on it all night. The case helped fines armed with arrangements from agricultural tools, to storm an impregnable fortress.

In Bondarchuk, soldiers, embraced by fire, flaming torches rush to the attack. In life, all this looks, although impressive, but implausible. And from the height of the myth - quite acceptable and, most importantly, reasonably.

The authors themselves do not substantiate anything. But the reviewers do not climb into the pocket for arguments. They say that "Stalingrad" is not an essay about the Patriotic War of 1941-1945, but in general about the war. Not about fierce enemies, but about worthy rivals. About hectors and Achilles, about Elena Beautiful, because of which the Trojan War began. In the film, by the way, two of them.

• Yes, but here is the name of the picture: it seems to specify what is happening on the screen, and tightly binds a movie action to the real city on the Volga and to the historical event connected with it?

• No, critics object, “the word“ Stalingrad ”has long been separated from its original meaning. It is all over the world, for all people has become a convincing metaphor for a monstrous human meat grinder and prohibitive human stoicism. So, in this hellish hell, there was a place for humanity, tenderness, love and ... immaculate.

• Well, they will say simple -minded film academics - and war, if it is not quite Trojan, and not for the homeland, and not for Stalin, then in the name of what?

A reasonable question. But he has a noble, humanistic answer of the same critics: in the name of love. And to this, as it were, there is confirmation in the plot of the picture. Both sides, before a decisive deadly fight, hide their beloved women - the most precious thing they have - in the only safe place. The women who came out for a moment from the shelter died. The one who has served, survived and was able to tell her son a story, which came to us, spectators, in his presentation.

There is a more pathetic answer, which seems to adhere to the authors of the film: it is about the war with the war in the name of the peaceful world.

Here, however, there is one serious objection that buried inside the film: the war on the screen itself is painful, thanks to computer tricks, spectacular, dynamic and picturesque. Not a couple of the war that we saw in German films. Rather, a couple to those shooters that the computer games industry demonstrate to us.

*** The director’s plan - to rise to the mythological height, from which it would be possible to observe old disasters and suffering - it seems appropriate and even fascinating. In general, I must say that all good films about the war are actually not about the war, but about something else. The war is necessary for the artist as a kind of optical device, through which you can see the soul of man to the bottom and the world actually with all his secrets, crises and dead ends.

Apparently, the director seriously intended to look beyond the horizon of a historical event. Apparently, he was attracted by the cosmic distance. Yes, only this height is not easy. In any case, not a single audiovide technology. The metaphor cannot be brought to artistic reality from the outside. It should germinate from maximum condensed everyday reality.

Bondarchuk was, one might say, before his eyes, an example of her cultivation - these are Stalingrad episodes in the novel of Grossman "Life and Fate".

... a communist with pre -revolutionary experience of the Krymov - a convict in the Lubyansk basement. A scientist -physicist Strum - at home, in warmth, in the family, among friends and colleagues. But both break and humiliate. One is physically. The other is morally. Both are forced to sign false papers, sign in betrayal in relation to themselves. Each of them had his own lost battle for Stalingrad behind them. In general, the people won her and gave the victory to Stalin and his regime.

Bondarchuk interprets differently. His heroes gave victory to the world around the world. The metaphor itself is meaningful, but in the film it is thin. The faces acting on the screen are inexpressive, barely distinguishable from each other.

... By the way, if anything was charming in Soviet military films, this is the picturesque character of the heroes. The characteristics of the characters were held by the plots of those films: “Stars”, and “Two fighters”, and “living and dead” ... and on the organic characteristic characteristic of characteristic actors: Nikolai Kryuchkov, Boris Andreev, Anatoly Papanov.

Our cinema has gone from this earthly specificity, but does not pull for space generalizations, no matter how he tries.

Now Fedor Bondarchuk, perhaps, accidentally mentioned in an interview with Ksenia Sobchak about his beautiful creative form, about the desire to become the first number in world cinematography.

*** It is clear that the assessment of the picture in the advertising campaign is unprecedentedly overstated, that everything is done to give it the meaning of the next “spiritual scrap” in the status of the flagship of domestic cinema.

Yesterday, the mythological "Legend No. 17" was considered the flagship. Yesterday she was moved to Oscars. Today, in a hurry, they nominated the Great Film of the Great War in the hope of victory in the World Cinema Championship.