"I swear I hate cowards and licks." "My Friend, Kolka", 1961
USSR
A film from the school film series. Personally, I do not remember such a school, but according to the stories of my parents, everything looks quite plausible. Secret societies with their own secret language and plans to become pirates or wave to the North Pole; boyish joy of the post-war years - dovecotes; stilags and hooligans; city courtyards, roofs and attics; the key to an apartment on a rope around the neck.
The film is a children's film and therefore, on the one hand, it seems to convey the post-war yard atmosphere well, and, on the other hand, it is still focused on the positive (especially this is seen in the end) and does not fully expose all the "charms" of post-war life.
The film is about self-affirmation of a teenager and misunderstanding on the part of adults (there is a conflict of generations), but not yet raising existential issues. Kolka’s type is presented exactly, only not yet disclosed. Kolka doesn't have a voice in the film, he's not allowed to speak yet. Characters like Kolka will speak only in the late 60s (for example, in the films “Key without transfer” or “Live until Monday”).
The film presents a special phenomenon of the “Soviet teacher” – pioneer leader performed by Antonina Dmitrieva. The role was brilliant. Such teachers we will later meet in “And if it’s love?” (the film was also shot in 1961), “Live until Monday” (1967), “Key without the right of transfer” (1976), “School waltz” (1978) and many others. I think in the life of each of us there were such callous prudish characters who all the forces (but not out of evil) for some reason wanted to spoil our lives. Kolka was lucky - both friends and the hero of Anatoly Kuznetsov believed in him. Unlucky heroes of the film “And if it’s love?”: malice, bigotry, envy and indifference, most likely, forever left a mark in their hearts.
I don’t know if the film “My Friend, Kolka” caused ideological discussions on the sidelines of power, but anti-Soviet criticism is present in it. Although “put on the shelf” the film was not for these reasons, and after leaving abroad Savely Kramarov, who played an episodic, but rather vivid role.
The film has an atmosphere of irony and satire. So what do we see and who do we see?
Chairman of the Board of squad Valery Novikov, excellent student and upstart, clearly a potential careerist. Surprisingly, his mother, the head of the school’s parental committee, is a smug, vain and tactless prude. Actress Lyudmila Chernysheva perfectly played the cold, vengeful and selfish mother of Valerik.
In the school itself, there is an atmosphere of adaptation and imposition of women's behavior strategies. All school events are held in a voluntary, coercive format, the initiative from below is blocked and even punished. Gray and boring school life, which within the framework of the disciplinary format is not allowed to refresh and color in principle.
The film’s authors openly mock post-war Soviet (Stalinist) spymania. The school created a secret society TOTR ("Secret society of the three students"), which causes the pioneer (responsible for ideological and educational work) simply inhuman horror.
The atmosphere of total distrust is well shown, on the one hand (when Lidia Mikhailovna closes the door to seven locks after Valerik leaves) and the destruction of this atmosphere (in the figure of the new pioneer leader performed by Anatoly Kuznetsov), on the other. In the young pioneer rector Sergei Rudenko very much felt “thaw”: directness, openness, interest, respect for themselves and others, the desire in the last hooligan to see a person. It was thanks to Rudenko that Kolk was not absorbed by these post-war city courtyards. By the way, how many children of the military and post-war generation, who survived inhuman military conditions as children, killed Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kharkiv ... yards.
Filmed well and well, although in some places stretched and even boring. The first directorial work of Alexander Mitta as a co-director.
Phil is valuable, in my opinion, precisely this is not quite the Soviet angle of understanding.
I advise all fans of films about the school (classic genre).
7.8 out of 10