Before you arrived, I started talking with glasses - such talkativeness attacked! I just forgot to ask why I'm being forced to drink tea alone. On the poster for the film, the name of Vladimir Vysotsky, specially printed in the first and especially large letters, is immediately striking, although he plays a very small role here and is present on the screen for a very short time.
Despite the fact that Vysotsky in my time was certainly a cult figure, personally I, with all my understandable love for both creativity and personality, for some reason, did not feel a very reverent fondness for him and was unrestrainedly not interested in his acting work, and this film was watched for the first time and did not know at all about Vysotsky’s participation in it, and even if I knew - this would not change anything either in my expectations or in relation to the film. And I seem to have been particularly lucky during the first screening: apparently, the mood and state of mind perfectly suited what the director conceived and tried to implement. And my impression became not just pleasant, but surprised and enthusiastic: I did not expect such a powerful stream of positive emotions from the “production” film (which, of course, from childhood, I did not like for socialist realist crude straightforwardness and primitive moralizing).
And everything began literally with the very first frames, or rather, chords: with all the unpretentious simplicity and sometimes even some monotony of Zatsepin-Derbenev’s voice-over song, this kind of unassuming song still warms and catches – I subsequently repeatedly unexpectedly caught myself on the fact that quietly under the nose or in myself, mentally humming it on the go, and not something else, much more suitable for walking (despite the fact that I am a multi-experienced meloman, and “hing me” is not so easy).
Then more. From the very first shots and lines for me, the film immediately created its own atmosphere, its own style, its own language. Something from the very beginning was in the film Poetic: every camera shot in my perception turned out to be a talented painting, every replica, even the most seemingly banal-production, was perceived as a poetic line, albeit prosaic. I felt the kaleidoscope as a series of figurative and emotional poetic verses, strung in a perfectly natural order in a tempo rhythm perfectly resonating with my own inner “rhythm,” determined by temperament and character. In a melancholy old woman at a bus stop, with pleasant surprise, as from an unexpected meeting with a good friend, I learned the legendary Mulya, who always unnerved Lyal-Ranevskaya in The Foundling. An equally unexpected surprise was the appearance at the concert for the builders of the legendary Boris Amaranthov - as I loved him in early childhood! At the end of the day, Parbie said, “That’s it!” You know, before you came here, I started talking with glasses - such talkativeness attacked! I just forgot to ask why I’m being forced to drink tea alone. And the whole film is pure, bright, filled with relationships (albeit not vital, but only cinematic), which have long been absent and which at one time created the atmosphere and mood of hopes for the future, from which it became warm and good at heart and which are also irretrievably lost. And the wedding and the rest of the final shots are so imbued with light and optimism that you will inevitably remember that life, damn it, is still beautiful and amazing - no matter what, no matter how disgusting this very "what" is!
Anyway, by the end of the film, it was so sad to part with the pleasant sensations that I just charged it again and immediately watched it again! This has never happened to me in my life, not even with the most talented and beloved films. And then I watched it many times - just to create a mood in the spirit of "quiet joy". That’s what happened to me with this movie. But some say: ordinary production theme, oak socialist realism, poster agitation and propaganda! I do not argue, in some places not without this, but even such hopelessness, a real talent is able, even with some flaws, to fill more than one breath of fresh air and a charge of soulfulness - it remains only to have the ability to notice this and catch a suitable mood for this. I was lucky to do that.