The highly controversial conclusion of the director’s “perestroika trilogy”, in which the measure of entropy in a synchronized work of the world is too large for the picture to assemble into something whole. At the end of Assa, we were prepared for the great leap forward, we are waiting for a change. In The Black Rose we see that instead came a complete loss of meaning, a life of suras. There's no jump, just a plane there. The God from whom the light emanates now lives in the closet. But in "House under the starry sky" everything finally collapsed. Sentence.
It seems that the central theme of the film is the weakness of the intelligentsia, which on the one hand creates perestroika. On the other hand, it is deeply rooted within the decaying system of power, enjoys all the benefits. It is opposed by another arm of the same power. The real danger is the mystical, incomprehensible people-villains, the people-anti-Semites, the demonic people, which is not really subject to any sleeve and cannot be destroyed. And all you can do is burn all ties to him. Fly away in a balloon. Or the United States. But there is no real happiness in the states.
Probably, if all the director performed at a good level of craft, the ratings of the film would be higher. But the second part completely falls into separate cabbages, which does not fit with the attempts of the actors to play well. All of a sudden, the installation becomes completely unconvincing. And to watch all this is painfully difficult.
In general, maybe all that happened in all three paintings is a posthumous journey of Tolik from the Black Rose through the nooks of elusive Soviet life. But it doesn't make it any easier. It's a shame that the ending turned out like this. Not only pictures, but also countries.
And finally, Assa. Uan dollar is good money. Surrealism in the Soviet era. Visual fictions and devils
Incombank logo. Take the American subway.
What time is it? ' USSR' filming in North America.
Okay. I can't help it. Yandex and KP also need to shoot this way: in terms of TV series and films abroad.
Imagine, in this film, even the towers of the WTC 10 years before the terrorist attacks are captured. Not for nothing in the last part (in the last film of the trilogy) hung a huge sign of the Moscow-New York airline with the indication of two great airlines of the USSR and the USA.
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' Continuation ' sura. It is very difficult to assess the background of the film - it does not exist. The stories of the past parts do not say anything to the viewer. Rather, the viewer says to the films: 'What for?'
The only thing that somehow landed, separated by realism in the past parts - it's the endings of the projects. They really were with a touch of adequacy, were not partially devoid of logic.
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The beginning of this picture can be called a tribute to capitalism and everything associated with it. Before us ' beautiful' reinforced concrete world glass. Lots of skyscrapers. They're good. But many modern Russians are tired of them. Yes and ' one-story ' America looks much better on its own. And only the capitalists ' of today' and ' of yesterday' of the day continue to build and admire their lifeless hromadas: corn, swords, cylinders, rectangles of various forms, cubes built on top of each other in different wrong positions - when you look at it and think only: ' Why so much? Why close the sun and the sky? '
Capitalism. Capital show of the field of miracles
Interesting. Many of them have already moved to the west. We couldn’t do more, we didn’t even think about leaving even more... and then we regretted it... and then we regretted it. And now they regret their regrets.
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Strangely successful movie of its time. Even the story with the bank-sponsor of the project successfully developed in terms of homage 90th. What movies were they making then? About bandits, about businessmen, about businessmen ... about bandits, taking away from businessmen and shuttles the acquired wealth. The bandits of that time did not even consider themselves to be such. In their perverted mind, they saw in ' speculators' black aphids that must be given out, even to the point of blood.
In fact, everyone in the '90s became speculators in one sense or another, entrepreneurs, because everyone took certain steps toward survival. Even ' Yandex owes its existence to the first pioneer speculators. In this sense, the word is not shameful in principle, given that the vector from the search engine today the company has shifted to the sphere of sales and even partial production from foreign components. They even sell movies and TV series, including.
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In my family, at different times, everyone traded something, especially in the '90s. Successful or not, much or little, it doesn’t matter. Then, and now, a lot of people are trading. I remember collecting dill, parsley (this means production, billet), carried (logistics, we still need everything fresh so that it was... it is better not to collect... condition should be fresh)... Grandma was sitting, selling at a local, so to speak, bazaar (mini-market). And I kind of went there. These ' local & #39; today still have the subway, although they are driven intensively. Speculators still don't like law enforcement. It's something that's left in them.
Entrepreneurs have become absolutely everything. Even 'academic mathematicians', programmers, and everyone else eventually became hucksters: they help sell and promote someone's product. Everything in this world has come down to this, or rather it has been before. And the Soviet Union in all its epochs continued to trade with the West, like modern Russia, even in the most protracted cold-hot times of economic or even physical confrontation.
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As in the previous parts of the surs, it complements the urgent agenda, and no one refuses the leaders. In one scene, the last and first president of the USSR appears (perhaps the presidency was the final nail in the coffin of the Soviets), painted on a naked human body, seemingly dead. You can think of allegories here. The leaders here are shown in the film retrospective.
Even the biblical references that flicker through all three films are a kind of sura that seems to have been taken and stuck to give some form of divinity to the narrative. There is no need to look for a reason here.
If we take realism, then the film is about bandits and about those who for various reasons took something from life (honestly, not very honestly and completely dishonest)... and about how the first want to take something from the second, and the second - to protect themselves from the first. There is nothing new here at all.
Finally ended ... such nonsense ... but in the early 90s, that's how it was ... crazy, in one word
Perestroika/post-perestroika Soviet/Russian cinema is a very special genre. While it is known (rather, memorably) only to the inhabitants of the former USSR, and it is customary to treat, at best, condescendingly. But one day it will take its place in the library of aesthetes next to other sections such as noir, art house and others: it will be carefully analyzed, disassembled into components, highlighted in what it differs from others. One of the few authors who can already appreciate it, without aberration, belonging to either side is Raymond Krumgold, writing on katab.asia.
After all, these are the chronicles of the Great Dying: not a fictional movie, but a real apocalypse, besides, completely different from the well-known archetype of War. In the case of death, the enemy did not come from outside. With an enemy that has arisen from outside, it is easier: at least he is visible and known, you can fight him and at least die with dignity. In the same case, the enemy escaped from the inside, like an alien larva. As the hero M. Ulyanov died in 'Voroshilov arrow': 'Now every day they shoot, blow up... War... I just don't know who's fighting whom.39
Of course, not all films from this category are not that talented, but even watchable. Most of them are terrible thrash with the indispensable names of studios in English - not because such films were made for export, but because it's cooler. Meet among this muddy rampart, however, and truly talented, and 'House under the starry sky' Director Solovyov - from this list.
This film was the final in a trilogy, the first two of which I didn’t watch because I don’t like real-life fiction at all. ' Home' has a very indirect relation to real life - this is a symbolic film. I will not describe here what it is about and what its meaning is - everyone can see for himself, and he is worth it. Interestingly, people perceive its symbolism in different ways, which can be seen from reviews. At one time, he probably looked with one meaning - ' from timid doubts about the validity of totalitarianism to its complete and comprehensive rejection', ' Too great was the specific weight of the evil done not only by its leaders, but also by the people themselves', ' a terrible metaphor of communist lawlessness in Russia' and other nauseating official nonsense, from which a normal person is now sick as in his time from the insincere officialdom of the Soviet Union. Now, with the weight of post-knowledge, it looks very different. The young, arrogant Composter trickster and his accomplices (who do not look like agents of the sinister KJB) are, of course, no Soviet power. These are the monsters, ghouls and demons who are ready to escape from hell. Soviet power is, of course, academician Bashkirtsev. He has done great things, is aging, but still powerful, enjoying all the benefits (deservedly, I must say), but surrounded by degraded children and relatives, all whose desires are to pray to the Imaginary West. And finishing his life, being tortured by ghouls, who in reality also tortured industry, science and everything they could reach. Symptomatic and disgusting scene with a dwarf grovelling in front of the Imaginary West - is it not because he is depicted as a dwarf that a self-respecting person will not grovel at anything? The film ends just as it did in reality. Academician died the worst death. The dream of the relatives of the academician came true - they are in the Imaginary West (and will, of course, sell nuts on the street, as in the song of Willy Tokarev, because they are used to an undeservedly good life - unlike the academician, absolutely nothing of themselves). And the young people, who, against all odds, stayed in Russia, fly in a balloon ... where? Why? How long can they fly without thinking about anything?
It is difficult to say what the director meant when he made the film. But I have a rule that if a film is perceived by different people in radically different ways, it is at least worth watching. In the same case, the film remembered me from my youth with its unique atmosphere and ambiguity.
Lessons from Freedom: Dreams and Hopes of Perestroika Cinema (Part 1)
I love “perestroika”, although I was born in those years and, of course, in early childhood could not understand the processes that took place in the country, how much they promised, and how its ideals were trampled by the subsequent development of Russia. As I immersed myself in "perestroika" art, which now seems strange, even kitschy, but unlike anything else, I fell more and more in love at the time. I think that today it is worth taking a retrospective look at the most significant films of those years (except, of course, Asthenic Syndrome and Days of Eclipse, which I have already written about in articles devoted to the works of Muratova and Sokurov, so I will not repeat) to understand what they gave the Soviet audience, as they taught him to hate slavery and tyranny. Even if this noble hatred was short-lived.
In this series of reviews, I want to unchronologically and intuitively trace the path of “perestroika” cinema from timid doubts about the validity of totalitarianism to its complete and comprehensive rejection. The following paintings are analyzed here: the trilogy of Sergey Solovyov ("Assa", "Black Rose - the emblem of sorrow, red rose - the emblem of love", "House under the starry sky"), "Repentance" by Tengiz Abuladze, "My friend Ivan Lapshin" by Alexei German, "Little Faith" by Vasily Pichul, "Intergirl" by Peter Todorovsky, "Chernov" by Sergei Yursky, "Forgotten Melody for Flute" and "Nebesti" by Alexei Rogorodov, "Karova" by "Karova" by "Karova, "Karova" by "Karova" by "Karova" by "Karova" by "Karogogogogogorodov, "Karova" by "Karova"
However, as with any retrospection, I want to start from the end, when a lot became clear to both artists and viewers in those years about the Soviet government, because in the best films of those years through a complex, multi-stage symbolism (not in order to circumvent censorship, which then did not exist, but for the widest possible generalization) its infernal nature was emphasized in every possible way, I will begin with the film by Sergei Solovyov “House under a Starry Sky”. This tape sums up the original trilogy of this director, created during the years of “perestroika”, at the same time its pronounced apocalypticism and mysticism evokes in the memory of the viewer primarily “The Master and Margarita”, a book in which the demonism of the Soviet power is still carefully coded, in Solovyov it is revealed openly, in all its unbridledness and lawlessness.
Filming “House under the Starry Sky” in 1991, the director already understood, like most of his fellow citizens, that the days of the USSR were numbered – too great was the specific weight of the evil done not only by its leaders, but also by the people themselves, who turned out to be capable of betraying their millennial cultural roots and therefore easily went on everyday snitching and agreeing to participate in the long-term atrocities of the party nomenklatura and special services. Undoubtedly, “House Under the Starry Sky” is a postmodern text that mixes grotesque and satire, horror and laughter, fantastic and real, in an explosive cocktail for the dominant ideology.
This outstanding film inherits many of Godard's film lessons, most notably the "unbridled hallucinatory nature" of his work, as Deleuze put it, which is particularly palpable in the final open quote of "The Weekend" with gunfights, guerrillas in the woods more often. However, Solovyov removes left-wing radicalism from Yearr’s aesthetics and begins it with anti-Bolshevikism, which makes numerous massacres of Komposterov, who still cannot be destroyed, acquire the character of hyperbolic exaggeration almost in the spirit of Yearr. It is this frankly infernal image, brilliantly created by Bashirov, with all his reincarnations, disguises and resurrections - the main success of the film.
When a beautifully singing woman saws Komposterov in a red shirt, this is an incredibly beautiful and at the same time terrible metaphor of communist lawlessness in Russia, and the fact that the whole film the heroes (first of all – young, which is also symbolic) are trying to get even with him unsuccessfully – in fact, the programmatic idea for Solovyov and the whole “perestroika” of cleansing from totalitarian dirt. Of course, the conscious attitude of the director on the mixing of genres and postmodern vinaigrette give “House under the starry sky” a certain persistent aura of kitsch, on the other hand – and how else could it be deconstructed reinforced concrete hierarchies that dominated not only in art, but also in the very consciousness of Soviet people?
Having made an installation on the unrestrainedness and uncompromising nature of his aesthetic work on the devaluation of Soviet values in this film (as well as in Black Rose..). In this sense, this, of course, is not crystal clear in his message “Repentance” Abuladze, however, the accents here are also very clearly placed. After all, it is not by chance that one of the main characters of “House under the Starry Sky” the director made a Soviet scientist-nomenklatura, together with the country, reassessing his values. However, for the forces that keep the country in the dark and prevent it from leaving communism forever, the Chekists and Party Conservatives, he is only a convenient sacrifice, so he is not destined to break with the past in which he participated and with which he is connected dead.
“House Under the Starry Sky” concludes with an almost apocalyptic shootout, in which Solovyov, like Shevchuk in his famous song, expressed his premonition of a civil war that broke out locally in 1993, but powerfully, when the demons of communism (paradoxically, but symbolically united with the demons of Nazism and anti-Semitism) once again seized part of the population of Russia and its ruling circles. In this sense, Solovyov also shot a prophetic picture in which there are scenes of kissing the New York land unbearable for leavened patriots, and the initial credits go against the background of a sunny trip-walk around the United States. For the art of “perestroika” in general, dreams about the West and especially about the United States are characteristic, and even if they were only dreams that did not justify themselves and are not connected with reality, they are so beautiful in their desire to finally break out of the prison dungeon that your country has become for decades and breathe true freedom.
“House under a starry sky” is not without flaws, but it is very conceptually worked out, the director’s message is liberal in the best sense of the word, and a purely “perestroika” call to get even with the bloody past of the country, which for many years built its present and future on human skeletons, is presented in this tape Solovyov in a condensed, concentrated form. The complete and final cleansing of Russia and its citizens from the stench of totalitarian madness never happened, moreover, it did not even begin, but is it the fault of this conscientious dream of “perestroika” art?
Deputy-academician Andrei Bashkirtsev on the background of food shortage in the country with fanfare celebrates the anniversary at the country. Sturgeon smoked, beluga side, beef cutting, cake, champagne. At the same time, one of the sons invited a familiar magician to the feast. But the magician turned out to be a demonic inadequacy, an anti-Semite and generally a bad type. First, the daughter saws in half and disappears, and then continues in every way intricately to dirty Bashkirtseva. Meanwhile, the initiatives of the academician in the State Duma do not find understanding in the special services and they are also trying to remove Andrei.
How everything enthusiastically began with Sergei Solovyov in his “ASSA” (freedom, carelessness, publicity, communication tube), and what, as usual, ended his “marasmatic trilogy” “House under the starry sky”, flew off the brakes surreal thrash with a ornate plot, blood, dismemberment and peeled muzzles (I did not understand what there A. Abdulov forgot, unless it is the evolution of his past hero from “Rose”).
The thickening clouds around the dacha of the academician seem to hint at the continuation of the author’s struggle with the suffocation of the regime. On the one hand, the beacon of science Bashkirtsev, who drove west to the conference and received an enemy computer there, begin to shepherd the KGB-shniks (although the methods of work are typical of the mafiosi), on the other, handles either a secret hire, or some mystical demon like Bulgakov’s Behemoth Cat named Valentin Komposterov (awesome devil Alexander Bashirov!). Both sides make Andrew very peculiar hints to shut up, and then mend terror. And only brave teenagers (although purely careless idiots in their faces, and badly played for other things) are able to defeat parasites.
But at the same time, there is a feeling that the director began to suspect something and thus reflects. The “Bloody Ghouls” were almost thrown out, but at the same time there was a bad feeling that the future was not so bright at all, but terrible, insidious and grotesque, like the main antagonist of the Composters, a mocking breeze of change. Disunity and confusion, new masters of life, total rudeness and theft (“I am a watchman here – I steal materials.”) Here everything is stolen, everything."), a nauseous kiss of the saving New York asphalt promised. Darkness of mind, it's insidious. Updates to the picture waited. It remains, throwing everything on its own and dropping slippers, in confusion and achtung to leave for the United States, throwing odes from Vermont to California. In any case, a clear picture of the film does not line up and closer to the final “House” becomes upside down, overgrown with gangster star wars of the kind of mess.
4 out of 10
Something in between "Reach out to Heaven" and "Green Elephant"
The wonders of post-Soviet art-building differ in their extreme heterogeneity from stage to stage. One moment of the film is worth a hundred, at another moment – I want to break the screen with something weighty.
The film is literally permeated with a certain symbolism, the symbols of which were almost lost due to irrelevance. The viewer has to either take care of his perestroika past and experience all these cataclysms anew, or think up a new subtext in a modern way, or completely let everything take its course and enjoy the delirium of a madman. Combining these 3 components in different proportions, you can get a completely random estimate, which I did. Maybe that's what he's doing.
For all their fits of alternation of adequacy and dementia, the same scenes with toast and doctor are disassembled into winged words, because the actors and the atmosphere are brilliant.
Fans of domestic art house are required to view.
A disgusting lookout, which can only please aesthetes in love with Solovyov and themselves. No plot, no meaning, no style, no normal camera, no one (except Ulyanov) full-fledged acting. This monster for some reason is attributed to the finely stylistically sustained “Asse” and “Emblem” as part of a trilogy.
If the director wanted to show the state of confusion from the collapse of the country that gave birth to it, he at least tried to respect the aesthetic perception of his viewer. After all, a normal person cannot switch after twenty minutes of a clear narrative to a completely tasteless orgy. This is the only movie for adults.
And then there's all this perversion on the verge of grindhouse. But only falls on the unprepared viewer and literally defiles his thoughts. Unlike the Grindhouse, which is consciously watched by categorical freaks.
1 out of 10