Trophim. 1904. We see on the floor of the Russian hut a dying man writhing with pain. A woman screams, little kids on the stove. Above the dying man is another man with an axe, this is the main character of the film – Trophim, he returned home earlier than agreed and found his own younger brother in bed with his wife. Now he does not know what to do, went out in the senki, in one hand brought to the children of the hotel – knitting sheep, in the other bloody axe. Terrible murder, fratricide. Taking the rope, Trophim goes to the barn to hang himself. The rope breaks, the hero decides to flee to St. Petersburg.
On the train, in a friendly conversation with the controller, Trofim casually drops the phrase - "I killed my brother." Upon the arrival of the train on the platform of the station, some eccentric man with a movie camera, clearly a Frenchman, “looks into the box and twists the handle”, removes Lumière’s “arrival of the train”, which was profitable at that time for a thousand repetitions. Such a dark man as Trofim, who did not know, for example, that for six months now the war with Japan has been going on, even had no idea what a cinematographer and especially a movie camera was. Despite the scolding of the Frenchman, Trophim, disrupts the shooting - blocks the entire "arrival of the train" with disbelief looking into the camera lens.
I won't tell you the whole movie, but later, Trofim will be caught, the controller said "where to go" and the killer was being followed from the station. Of course, he is hanged, as was done with murderers in those days, at least on this the story of Trophim seems to end for us.
Our time. Modern Russia. 1995. St. Petersburg. Directors Alexei German and Alexei Balabanov are working on a film dedicated to the centenary of cinema. Balabanov runs into the studio, “found, found something,” he says, and puts the film on the table at which Herman sits “let’s charge – let’s see what is there,” something like he says. It was just the same film a hundred years ago, 1904 with Trophim at the station of St. Petersburg. But most of it turned out to be unsuitable, there was some man barred all kinds by himself. It was decided to cut the whole scene with the man. The carved went to the garbage can. The story of Trophim is over.
The first work of actor Sergey Makovetsky with director Alexei Balabanov, later many other joint films will be released and Makovetsky will be called a typical Balabanovsk actor.
Starring before that in the film Khotinenko “Makarov”, Sergei Makovetsky received “Nika” for best male role. A landmark work in “The Arrival of the Train”, and perhaps more significant than in “Makarov”, and determining the further creative life of Makovetsky, with kind words and thanks to fate, the actor recalls his acquaintance with the director Balabanov.
After the first iconic full-length films “Happy Days” and “Castle”, so similar in content, but completely different in embodiment, Alexei Balabanov chooses a way of narration, similar to in “S.D.”, he will also remain in most of his future films, determining the style of the director’s handwriting, which will be recognizable from the first minutes of the film. Truly Balabanovskaya narration is the gloomy streets of St. Petersburg, saturation with unnecessary details, a person in the human environment and answers, but only in the form of questions, who will find, understand. The film, it seems to me, shows the evolution of the Russian man, the way out of some darkness - unskilled, unscrupulous, (and later there will be a revolution and Khrushchev's Renaissance) to some disdain for man in modern times. A hundred years ago, how did we change or did we change? And in fact, after watching the film, the director puts on the shelves the priorities of “insignificant man” and “great cinema” relative to each other. But someday, in the future, our time will fall into the hands of a director who will not hesitate to cut a random you out of the frame.
10 out of 10