"Sow anger ... you will reap anger"

On Russian screens - the main favorite of Oscars "Three Billboards on the Border of Ebbing, Missouri"

When you read the annotation: “A 50-year-old woman, whose daughter was raped and killed, went to the war path with the police in her hometown,” you will think: another Hollywood movie about revenge. But Martin McDonov - the British director and playwright of Irish descent does not make traditional films. He does not compose banal stories about lonely avengers. Russian theaters willingly put his provocative plays “Man-Domeshka”, “Lieutenant from the Island of Inishmore” because of their surprise, disarming sincerity. And in his paintings “Laying on the bottom in Bruges” and “Seven Psychopaths”, the phantasmagoria is carved from sulfur life, plot paradoxes are delayed in the beads of dialogs. In Bruges they are trying to kill a person who himself decided to commit suicide. In “billboards” they are trying to make those who are not involved in the crime guilty of murder. But are there any crimes and virtues in this cycle - non -investigated ...

Mildred Hayes (Francis McDormand), desperate to achieve justice, bought huge advertising shields and wrote the “accusations” of the police and Sheriff Willowi (Woody Harrelson). In large letters. “Rapted during dying”, “And still no arrests”, “How is it, Chef Willian?”

She is sure that the police are interested in the torture of blacks more than in the assistance of justice. And the musty South American "Twin Pix", where everyone knows everything and nothing about everyone, will be stirred up.

Because the story of Mildred will affect everyone, shook and turn over the “top bottom”.

In the gloomy, balancing between the comedy, tragedy, absurdity and realism of history there are no right and guilty. McDona connects a ball of conflicts from the relationship of complex people. And this is a multiplicity of views on what is happening - more abruptly of any 3D. Willaloni Sheriff, sentenced to an incurable disease, tries not only to be a good husband and father, but also to understand the murdered woman. His assistant Dixon (Sam Rockwell) is ruthless with the “nigers” ... Infantil and Mamenkin Son (the relationship of mother and son - almost a quote from the Bates motel). The stupid hard cop ... sobs, losing his comrade and chef, and holds out his hand to the one who almost killed him (Somrookwell). Dwarf James (Peter Dinklage) covers Mildred's frantic antics, clearly and unrequitedly sympathizing with her. The characters - immigrants from the American bottom - are drawn by a sharp grifle, almost caricatured. But crushing human passions, complexes, uncertainty, vulnerability break through from under dry graphics.

It is no accident that Welby is an advertiser (Kaleb Landry Jones), to whom Milred will turn to, reads the book of Flannei O'Connor, compatriots of the director, representatives of the South Gothic genre. And McDonach’s cinema - flesh from the flesh of the southern style, with the echoes of the Falknera chaotic world with its “small pill of the earth the size of the postage brand”, on which tragedies and comedies at once. Here came to the place and the idea of ​​Connor about mercy capable of changing a person - but the price of this transformation will be the highest.

A person is always more than our ideas about him. The thought seems to be obvious, but gutted by the vanity of everyday life and social strife. McDona reminds us of her. His heroes are capable of committing irreparable in moments of rage. And for the sake of act - forget about your own mortality. To find not only in another, but also in yourself, the infinity where everything was mixed: good, evil, crime, piety.

In the center of this gloomy, but not hopeless provincial space, Mildred: a never smiling victim of circumstances, turning his grief into punitive weapons. Tormented by demons, suffering from their own stubbornness and ruthlessness. Cutting out of reality, as from an old dusty carpet - justice. Not at all hoping for the “Higher Judgment”, because “There is no God there, and the whole world is empty, and it does not matter what we do with each other.” This is the best role in McDormand since the time of Fargo. With almost frozen facial expressions, she plays the Shakespearean range of emotions. Among the unforgettable scenes is its dialogue with a deer. And with whom else can a mother -murdered mother talk to heart?

The style of McDonakh is often compared with the style of Tarantino, Richie, and the Cooen brothers. He himself does not see this similarity. Among his teachers calls Billy Wilder, Terrens Malik, Early Scorsese, Orson Wells, as well as Powell and Pressburger.

Films in his scripts. Oscar received for the first short film. In the cinema violates the rules.

His films are verbose. He is not afraid of banalities, plays with them like beads, turning in phrases like “anger gives rise to more anger” or even a good detective cannot become, because a good detective needs love. ” Behind the banalities pronounced aloud, the shadows of increditedness loom, after watching the formulated meanings.

He is inherent in a different -point, sometimes obscene "Humor of gallows." Melancholy and horror charge it gloomy with the flashes of the black humor of the movie, in which heaven and earth came together in Klinch, and do not open their hugs. And the characters, floundering in this chaos, seem to try to “not hold on to hatred”, are looking for their own way out, but they never know where to get out.

The refusal of McDonach from clear moral beliefs has already caused a negative reaction of criticism. And even Oscar is unlikely to calm the debate about the “billboards”.

By the way, the book of Flannery, which the advertiser read, who made the attention of the scarlet shields for mother Mildred was called: "It is not easy to find a good person." Exactly. And not only in McDonach's films.