Looking at the year the film was made, first of all you think about what audience it was intended for at the time. It seems that ten years earlier, it would have been a standard television movie (to call it a truly artistic language does not turn, the budget is obviously microscopic, and the stylistics itself is more in line with what is called a performance), neither bad nor good, shot in order to be on the broadcast grid and safely go to the archives. But in the early 1990s, it seems an obvious anachronism. No, I am not saying that at this time it was necessary to shoot “black” crime films, extremely stupid comedies and the like of the aesthetic thrash that was dominant in our country. But the specificity of cinema is inevitably associated with the fact that each film should be oriented to a certain audience, the author’s film still implies it as an implicit category. In this sense, this art is the most biased of all, moreover, almost tied to the date of the premiere as a principled boundary, where it is decided what will happen to a particular work next.
"Green Room Ghosts" rather represents the very situation of the disintegrating film distribution system. It is clear that the initial impulse of the picture was available, the budget was allocated, but they did not think about further fate. The only thing that connects the film with the current situation is the emphasis on the conditionally mystical component of Priestley’s plot: the aging author of the plays sees the distant past of the theater, with real passions and tragedies flowing from stage to life and returning back. Practically sterile in terms of mysticism, Soviet cinema in the last years of its agony betrayed mysticism and horrors with an enviable regularity of the adept of the Cargo cult. It is clear that this did not stand comparison even with the most mediocre genre films of the United States or Western Europe, therefore it is now perceived as an awkward incident.
However, if you persistently look for a hidden message, it is still revealed. There is an obvious hint of changing times, breaking traditions and other catastrophes of this kind. The true art is gone, but it can still be saved – that’s what the film emphasizes. However, for all its clarity, this thesis is easily challenged. Although Soviet cinema was one of the world’s leading schools, it existed in an artificial environment of planned production and state support. The commercialization of the system has led to the fact that this whole context has rapidly plunged into the abyss. Therefore, it is somewhat inconvenient to perceive the claims of the filmmakers to a certain categorical imperative, especially if you remember how many tendentious one-day films were filmed, and how many now recognized masterpieces waited for their time in the archives or went with extremely limited display. Involuntarily, the effect of a false antithesis is obtained, which cannot hide either the participation of wonderful actors, nor the authority of the British playwright, nor the general cultural-centricity of the plot.
6 out of 10
