Tusenbach is very similar to the mole. I confess right away, I turned on the film as soon as I finished reading the book and the first two actions I was constantly hearing a direct reading of the original, and some lines were pulled out very unsuccessfully. For example, having just met the sisters, Vershinin immediately, without any amusement, begins to philosophize. And in general, the name day scene, in my opinion, should have, at least, begun with some jolly, full of hope. The sisters spoke, dreamed of Moscow as their lifeline from the malice of the backwaters, and the sense of hopelessness of the “unfortunate life” had to grow gradually, from the beginning to the very end of the film, reaching its climax, which, in principle, happened. Instead, the first shots are full of that very sadness.
Separately, I want to highlight the operator’s work. The impression was that the crew had only one camera (although maybe one camera, 64 years of the USSR after all). Despite this, very successful, “picture” angles are always chosen, so that there are as many characters as possible in the frame. Although, sometimes, it played with a cruel joke. The moment of Kulygin’s farewell at the end of the second act looks very ridiculous, when he kisses the ladies’ hands off, and Vershinin stands in the foreground like a dug-in-the-box for a minute and waits for his words. Often, the viewer is thrown from one scene to another, which also does not go to the movie in a plus, although it is already small faults.
I did not like the “woodiness” of the actors, in those moments when they do not talk, but wait their turn to say.
Unable to endure any longer, full of indignation, I interrupted the viewing of this picture and returned to it after a while. For my patience, I was rewarded. I stopped predicting the lines of the characters and immersed myself in this “Chekhov splint”, especially well shown in the fourth act, when, one might say, everyone “tore through”. Here the director “hit” more than Chekhov, revealing the personal tragedies of almost all the main characters, much more clearly than the author himself.
For this, I was ready to forgive the painting a lot of what I had written about earlier, partly because those minor shortcomings had already disappeared in my memory, and only a strong impression remained. More than a book in the end.
P.S. Still, in the film you can more clearly show what is difficult to imagine reading the text. Feelings of awkwardness arising after the jokes of Soleniy and much more.
7 out of 10