Translated material
Hybrid cinema for Russia
Daniil Dondury - about "Kinotavra" and stripping, about Govorukhin and Melikyan, about lovely directors and brilliant manipulators
On Sunday, the film festival "Kinotavr" ended on Sunday.
The winner was Anna Melikyan's film "About Love." The prize for the best directing was awarded to Alexei Fedorchenko for the painting "Angels of Revolution".
About the real life of Russia from the films shown at the festival, not to find out, ”says Daniil Dondura , the editor -in -chief of the magazine“ The Art of Cinema ”, who watched all competitive tapes in Sochi.
- When the Kinotavr opened, attention was drawn to the film by Stanislav Govorukhin according to Sergey Dovlatov “The end of the beautiful era”. There was a kind of polemic on social networks that, they say, Govorukhin - authority for those who at one time poisoned Dovlatov - now puts Dovlatov.
Daniil Dondury
- It seems to me that we have moved in Russia to the sphere of all hybrid, that is, these are hybrid wars, hybrid dialogs, these are hybrid people, hybrid values, views and so on. That is, you cannot distinguish, for example, of the closest many years of Vysotsky from a person who is the chairman of the Popular Front and the chairman of the Association of Presidential proxies. How does this get along in the same person calmly? He even has no gaps here, internal tragic interpretations, there is nothing. He mocks at the beginning of the film over Khrushchev, nevertheless, the Secretary General, takes pieces of Khrushchev’s famous parish to the 30th anniversary of Mosha, when he shouted, this is exactly this wonderful quote is Velorukhin: “Do you think we still have a thaw? We also have no frosts, we have real frosts.” It puts such a powerful ironic phrase one of the trusted most important persons of the system. How does it all get along? Where is Dovlatov, where is Govorukhin? There is no film, there is nothing serious in it - this is one of the achievements of Soviet and recent times, it is no movie, without smell, without a genre, without everything. There are no more reasons for discussion.
For those who know what a transplant is in Frankfurt-on-Main
- Which movie did you like the most, your personal choice?
-There were three talented films, truly talented. This is primarily for me Vasily Sigarev with the film "Country Oz", this is Alexei Fedorchenko with the film "Angels of Revolution" and it is just an immense in talent, he is so simple, even glamorous, even a cute, even a light, film of total success, when you can plant all those who are not greeted or rushing to each other with the stones of political life in Russia, homeless people, rich, rich. Residents of the suburbs in one hall, and they will be very happy - the film "About Love" by Anna Melikyan. Only due to the fact that she is a very talented person, the laughter in the hall was 45 minutes. There is another such guy, he can compete with Anya Melikyan by gift and comedic power, a man under the pseudonym Zhora Kryzhnikov, who showed not his best short film, but he now shoots some kind of revolutionary film about Karaoke when for the first time in the history of cinemas people should sing during the session along with the screen. This is the author of the film "Bitter!", Remember, such was the champion of the year before last, also such an ethnic group. But "bitterly!" -Almighty , but Anya is still more likely for the middle class, that is, for those who know what a transplant is in Frankfurt. For everyone who has foreign passports and personal cars.
With rare exceptions there is not a single film about real life in Russia
- "Kinotavr" supports the state. Compared to the previous years, do the latest events somehow affect films?
- I am very glad that I was here from the very beginning, all this week. Because for me it was, it may rather not a discovery, but such a proof that Volodin and Gromov ( Vyacheslav Volodin and Alexei Gromov, the first deputy heads of the presidential administration. - RS ) not only very successfully worked in 2014 with the mass audience of the Russian Federation, immensely successfully, brilliantly, I would say, but they were able to very accurately, indirectly, indirectly, through dozens of institutions, dozens of institutions, dozens of institutions technologies, invisible ways to distribute money, friendship of some producers with others, some directors with others - to clean up the author’s space. I watched 17 full -length films, that is, absolutely everything that was shown as part of the official festival, a short meter is 22 films. And it was important for me that, in addition to, maybe Sigarev’s film (and then quite invented and special) and with some rare exception there is not a single film about real life in the Russian Federation. Great! That is, jokes, jokes, genres, ironic jokes, different old Soviet schemes associated with the fact that you need to be a good person, if a girl threw a child, you need to find her and find out why she abandoned, the style of humanism of the 1970s and so on. About the real current 2015 of the life of the Russian Federation - except for all kinds of euphemisms of the style, you see these cars, these streets, Moscow City Skyscrapers, you see all this, you see all the details - and there are no pains, tragedies, and the nature of what is happening in Russia in any film. That is, it is generally asocial cinema. Когда это не два-три фильма, а 40 и притом эти конкурсные ленты выбраны из 80 картин, и еще три я посмотрел вне конкурса, фильм Бекмамбетова, фильм знаменитого Буслова "Родина", все это разные формы компенсаторных мест, куда режиссеры уходят, объясняя, что они пытаются разобраться в себе и в человеке или найти универсальные ценности смысловые и психологические для зрителей всех возрастов, поколений и так Next. Maybe there was one film that was invited to Berlin, “Hero Pioneers”, and then through euphemisms, that you want to have some inviolable ideals, but when you have them, you get into the monastery or you are exploding the terrorists, or something else, it does not end with good either. That is, when you have ideals, it does not end with good either.
Cultural reboot in 2014 occurred
- Last year, everyone discussed the film "Leviathan" , that is, Russian cinema does not produce anything like this anymore?
- No, it does not produce, it does not produce anything like it, neither the "fool" nor "Leviathan". These two films, it seems to me, is a very serious statement about the principles, life buildings, models of the future, behaviors, about the choice facing each person, imitations that are filled with life in the country. Nothing of the kind [now no]. These are some specific things connected either with personal life, or with the desire to resell something like American cinema or restore Soviet ideals at VGIK ... I feel the ability to feel it so much pathetically, there are no time challenges, and time pain. In this sense, this, I think, from the late 1950s, the first stage, that is, a real cultural reboot in 2014 occurred - both with the help of a TV for the people, and with the help of cinema, investment and state as the main player in this market - in the author’s art.
Economically determined control over content
- Does it work for AK? After all, the directors are the directors, they are concerned about some topics, it is unlikely that you can come to them and say: shoot on that topic or on another. How can you manipulate it? It is clear that the state allocates money, but then what?
- This thing is made up of many circumstances. Cinema is an expensive thing. Although Bekmambetov teaches you to make a movie over a hundred thousand through a computer, here Leo Gabriadze showed such a film "Remove from friends", of course, outside the competition. They tried to show that a horror could make from this. The horror is a chic commercial genre on the computer, great, cheap, but it is still not a movie, or this is a special movie. Everything else is a lot of money. Big money is economic mechanisms, the state and managers, seven companies, together almost control 80 percent of the Russian film market. If Sigarev is lucky, he will find something, or may not be lucky. Or a person can be so talented that to hide some kind of vision in the permitted topic. Or wander, not find money, and so on. This is not a “soft force”, this is such an economically determined control over content, manipulating through people, through content mechanisms.
Ends with such a modern economic, professional, psychological cleansing
- That is, the directors and what they do, either in tune with the state, and the state gives money and believes that it is profitable, or they themselves adapt, understanding what money can be obtained for.
- They are, as it were, so soft and loyal, they are so soft and cute. And all the emphasis is transferred to two points, which are also directly related to the content. That is, you are either very gifted and you show your aesthetic skill, or you must create a product that must be sold, that is, to be understandable to the audience, convenient, do not violate anything, have access to the cinema halls and so on. Here are two priorities. As they say: "I shoot for the audience." And others: “And I take off for myself,” that is, for myself - an artist, philosopher, and so on. Both that and another ends with such a modern economic, professional, psychological cleansing, it turns into a certain loyalty.
They have such a choice today
- How do you see the future in such a situation? A generation of angry, not cute directors who will be on the knee will come to digital cameras to shoot a new hard movie that reflects reality?
- It is not yet visible. That is, of course, the exits will be some radical, there will be some communities to watch a movie on the Internet. Because do not forget that cinemas also understand which films to take, which films do not take. In addition, all professionals are well aware that we are the only country in Europe where Russian author's cinema for cinemas is prohibited. Can you imagine that in South Korea or in some Hungary, Finland, Iceland did not show Icelandic cinema, Finnish cinema in Finland, Korean in Korea? They do not show in Russia. The cinema that falls on the Kinotavr has not been shown on television for the last two years, maybe on some special cable channels. There are festivals, which means that you need to make festival cinema. Ani Melikyan, the Cannes festival, did not take the lovely film, because it is too commercial, it is not in the structure of festival poetics. It is made for the middle class, although everyone understands that it is done perfectly. Just as the Zhora of Kryzhnikov can never get to any festival, they don’t take such a movie festivals. I talked a lot with young filmmakers, went to discussion, they are incredibly closed people, these 20-year-old directors who have just graduated from VGIK, higher courses and other educational institutions. They all say: "Yes, I understand everything, but I try to close, because I do not want to emigrate anywhere, but I want to work." "I'm closing, I try not to think about it." I talked with two girls, 27, 25 years old, authors of a short meter, smart, good, I liked it by profession, all over. Here they have a choice today.