Oh, no! Don't wake Mukhin! Filmmaker Yakov Segel in 1957 became famous for the black-and-white drama The House I Live in, a film drama about the pre-war and post-war time through the prism of the fates of residents of a Moscow house. The film was in the top ten leaders in 1957, received a number of prestigious film awards.
After a full 10 years, film director and screenwriter, Yakov Segel returns with two original satirical comedies: Gray Disease (1966) and Wake Mukhin! (1967).
These films appeared at an interesting and "warm" time for the whole Union. On April 12, 1961, the first space flight of Yuri Gagarin took place. Research in genetics and genetic engineering has resumed. Hopes for just socialism were restored and the desire for creative freedom was revived. Creative people in the 60s sought to go beyond the usual circle of ideas and stereotypes.
In 1967, a number of fantastic and mystical films were released on the screens of a large union country, which are still known and loved by the spectator: "His name was Robert" (fiction, comedy) - directed by Ilya Olshvanger; "Mysterious Wall" (science fiction, mysticism) - Irina Povolotskaya and Mikhail Sadkovich; "The Andromeda Nebula" (science fiction, drama) - directed by Yevgeny Sherstobitov. And of course, the cult "Viy" (mysticism, drama) - staged by Konstantin Ershov and Georgy Kropachev.
The film "Wake Mukhin!" - works in the style of postmodernism. Segel, as a postmodernist author, questions the existence of boundaries between high and mass art, as well as blurs, by pastiche method, and combines themes and genres in an easy comedy format for his contemporary. The film is filled with notes of science fiction, hoax and fantasy. And all this through the prism of fine satire and good good humor.
Student Alexander Alexandrovich Mukhin, the central character of the film is a harmless, kind young man who sleeps innocently and quietly during lectures. Other students sympathize with him and even try to understand professors, since Mukhin comes to study after working shifts in the Moscow metro, and he also recently married!
Mukhin’s dreams at lectures are pure fiction and phantasmagoria, based on the themes and motives of the lectures he listens to.
But if you want to be outraged by this situation and think of mentally condemning Sasha, immediately stop your righteous anger and change it to mercy! Alexander Alexandrovich does not just sleep in pairs, he - firstly: fervently absorbs knowledge at the level of the subconscious - a scientific fact that almost cannot be disputed by the scientific community!
And secondly: trying to change dramatic and eerie moments in the history of all mankind!
In the first dream - student Mukhin appears before Pushkin A.S. - as a strange vision of the tired poet, but strongly convinces him that everything is fine, and Pushkin simply does not know the theory of relativity, which has already been discovered in the 20th century.
Mukhin immediately with joy and excitement helps to compose and write down Pushkin A.S. lines from “I erected a monument to myself not made by hand...”
And reports to Pita where and how his monument was erected in Moscow. But the main desire and spiritual impulse of Mukhin is to protect the writer from a vile duel with Dantes.
But the honor of Pushkin and his wife Natalia is more important to the poet for life and future glory, and he with a good-natured smile asks Alexander’s mother-in-law not to interfere with him in his personal matter of principle.
There is a funny dialogue about duels and honor when Mukhin says there are no duels in the 20th century. Then Alexander Pushkin, surprised, asks Sasha:
- How do you defend your honor?
- It's moral. Hard of course. But it still helps! – says Mukhin.
Sasha Mukhin tries to agree at the secular Pieterburgh ball about the cancellation of the duel personally with Dantes, and also accidentally dances a core mixture of mazurka, twist and sports rock and roll with one charming Mademoiselle.
But the fate of fate is inevitable, and soon in the documents of Mukhin, the soldiers of the tsar will see the word "Metropolitan" - take it for a French surname and throw Sasha in prison.
In prison, Alexander Alexandrovich will already meet the famous and great Spartacus! And the reason for this will be a change of lecture at Sasha University. The time has come for lectures on ancient Rome.
Mukhin again wants to save an important historical figure, to help Spartacus break the shackles of slavery. For this, Sasha boldly enters a gladiatorial match, which turns into a sports Olympic competition in the stadium: with running through obstacles, throwing a disc and a hammer, and sambo struggle. Spectators of the stadium-colosseum fall in love with the clever and cheerful “gladiator” Alexander, who, driven by the ideas of humanism, tries with all his might not to harm the huge gladiators.
A chic and wonderful moment in this fight in the center of the conditional stadium-colosseum is an allusion to the ballet Spartak, choreographer Leonid Yakobson to the music of Aram Khachaturyan, staged for the first time on the stage of the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theater, in 1956.
In Mukhin’s dreams, Alexander’s lover and wife Lily often appears, in the film she is played by a charming actress – Lilia Aleshnikova. Once Sasha, having lost Lily on the shore of the sea, rushes to search for her beloved, and in an incredible way - meets the great creators, orators and philosophers of antiquity from Greece, with friendliness informing them that they will all become famous and become known to the whole world. This is marvelous and difficult to understand the novice orator with a stoned mouth - Demosthenes, and the sage living in a barrel - Diogenes.
Another change of lecture, and Mukhin already communicates in the Middle Ages with the physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei. In this story, Sasha himself adds courage to the scientist and makes him more decisive, and supports the Inquisition during the trial, shouting first that: after all, the Earth turns!
Pushkin and Spartak taught Sasha Mukhin that all their actions and dramatic endings in fate are a very important part of the future history of all mankind! That you have to be brave in standing up for progress and science. And without great bold ideas and people of the past, there is no future. There is no victory for goodness and humanity. There is no truth or science!
Mukhina A.A. - in the film plays a young, but talented and charismatic - Sergey Shakurov, a popular actor of cinema and drama theaters in Moscow. Honored and People's Artist of the RSFSR since 1991
In the role of contemporaries of Sasha and various great historical personalities - the legend of Soviet cinema: Nikolai Rybnikov; Ivan Ryzhov; Nikolai Sergeev; Alexander Pales - as Alexander Pushkin, in the image of his actor was known to theater and cinema audiences since the early 60s, playing Pushkin in many plays and films.
The whole film is accompanied by the beautiful and talented music of the great and beloved by many composer - Mikael Tariverdiev, his musical genius has been working on films since 1958, and in cooperation with cinema - Tariverdiev has designed 134 feature, animated and documentaries!
'Wake up Mukhin!' is a timeless film, and contains more than just a slice of the era and the atmosphere of the 60s.
This is a cult dramatic satire on the history of mankind and our society.
9 out of 10