Russia, which Mikhalkov lost: simplicity is worse than theft The story of the “sunstroke”, which struck the sentimental lieutenant with a sudden fall in love, is bizarrely intertwined in Mikhalkov with the chastity of the days of the civil war, which violated the way of life of the whole country. The motives of Bunin’s prose, guessed in the script of the picture, are generously diluted with strange humorous episodes, completely inconsistent with the spirit of Russian classics.
Moreover, the director considers himself entitled to rewrite the classics, changing the key events for understanding the author’s plan. So, in the story of the same name, the lieutenant independently escorts the lady to the pier, doing it “in an easy and happy spirit”, after which the burden of passion already comes to him. In the film, the passionate throwing of a man with epaulettes is associated with the fact that he was not going to let go of a beautiful companion. This is the exact opposite of what the writer says. Such a rewriting extremely detracts from the dramatic value of the picture, turning the main character into a one-dimensional being driven by a single, moreover, shameful desire.
In the parallel film story unfolding in 1920, there is practically no hatred of the revolution that fills every line of Bunin’s “Cursed Days”. Negative attitude towards the Bolsheviks is conveyed in the form of grotesque irony, ridiculing the quality of the new government. Mikhalkov’s approach is antihistoric – the director is afraid of the true story, with its contradictions and complexities. The same captive officer who dreams of going “to his aunt, to the wilderness, to Saratov” in the film would be quite surprised to learn of the massive electrification of the country that began while he was at war. And what about the tsarist officers who defected to the side of the young Soviet Republic? For example, with Major General Pavel Lebedev, an Orthodox man who was never a Marxist? Instead of this complexity, Mikhalkov offers irony, the lubrication of tsarist Russia and the myth of the barge, which can only be supported by emigrant scripture.
I know exactly what the director wanted to say. The inattention of the ruling elite to Marx and Darwin, which turned into a disaster. The metaphysical fall of the elite, shown through mortal sin, and even in the spirit of Freudianism. But the binoculars, through which the filmmaker peers into the past, in the hope of seeing the image of “the one”. Russia, directed towards myths. From them rise cute and sentimental youngsters, Potemkin village (more precisely the town) on the banks of the Volga, happy passengers of the ship, obsessed with class struggle.
And this dream of reason gives birth to monsters. The final mention of 8 million lost citizens, “in the south of the country alone,” is accompanied by a photo of white officers. Are all the dead whiteguards, and the workers, peasants, ministers of the Church and the intelligentsia not at all affected, including by white terror? Or if the White Guards are the elite of the country, then even after the fall shown in the same film, is it still an elite? Then it is already a betrayed elite, by definition not deserving of the reverence that is demonstrated in the film.
I don’t want to see myths in movies. Aren’t “patriotic” directors able to show a person who is creating, thinking, making history? Why do they have myths that humiliate the great history of a great country?
3 out of 10
Original