This is where money decides everything. The film tells about how difficult it is to make a feature film with a limited budget. As well, the film tells on behalf of the screenwriter, who is asked to make a historical film, about the events in Petrograd during the revolution. And yet, he talks about the difficult life of film actors, about their difficulties and hardships, and OK, if for the sake of art, so no, often they are removed only because the television channel gave the money and the task to make a film, and decide the rest yourself, but most importantly, that the management of the channel liked. So basically, I talked about the themes that the film raises. The series is not a masterpiece, and does not claim the laurels of high-fiction cinema, and it is shot in the style of an autobiographical drama. An amateur movie, so to speak.
The audience recently scolded the domestic cinema. The viewer easily finds in historical films inexcusable blunders and plot failures, inconsistencies of actors’ clothes to the era being played, insufficient charisma or poverty of special effects, indistinct dialogues, or suddenly notices ignorance of where new characters have come from, who, if not from this era, then the next, or they never existed. But did the viewer think that directors and screenwriters make these “mistakes” not out of evil, and not out of inability, but only because the customer (for example, “Red Arrow”) instead of the required interiors, provides their own, or does not provide at all? And the director has to take money from the budget to pay for the rent of the premises, or to advertise the "brand" - so it should!
So we watch, instead of quality films, the most ordinary films, which in a few years will disappear from our memory. Sometimes it's lucky that God will send talented actors, but the camera work and the disgusting production will ruin everything. It often happens that famous faces are shot in films - this is almost a guarantee that a famous actor will pull the whole picture on himself. But when it doesn’t fit into the narrative, the director has to close his eyes and the writer has to tear his hair and rewrite the script. And even the quality of the scenery depends on many factors, it is important for sponsors that the film would come out, it is important for film distributors that the film would reach the box office, the director dreams that the film would pay off. State-owned companies are allocating huge amounts of money to sell, but “with a lot of money and a fool makes a movie” is a quote from the latest series, written on a piece of paper glued to a shelf. The phrase is not in the topic, but for that I remember.
So it turns out that everyone saves on everything, and the viewer grumbles, but looks, and what is left for him? And in the West it's the same, only they're better at TV movies, not much, but better. Returning to this film, there was a desire to quit watching the second series, everything was very measured and slow. The final question asked, where did Kalistratov go? Perhaps this intrigue did not allow me to forget about the film, and write a review. In general, it turned out to be a good drama without any visible play of the actors, some played their roles “as in life”, and others, as if they read the text, which was recalled through force. In the last series, there are a couple of funny moments, but also those, as they say, for an amateur, but the characters of the characters are clearly defined in the series, and this is good. The narrative alternates with shots of our time, and the time of a hundred years ago, for himself noted that costumes and makeup did not save. If you are interested to find out how difficult it is for our filmmakers to make films, I recommend watching this series, if it is not a secret for you - it makes no sense to watch, you will not learn anything new, although how to know...