Times are different. . . You, Gorev, would have a cavalry brigade in the Civil Command. That would be great!
Times are always ‘different’, and the film, as best as possible, demonstrates this thesis. The film is positioned as a social drama and disaster film. I totally agree with the first and only partially with the second. The fact is that the Soviet disaster film is not at all what Western and especially American films put into this concept. There, such a genre is exceptionally large-scale, and therefore spectacular; its main purpose is to surprise and amaze the viewer with a picture of destruction. Soviet films did not focus on the external (it is simply not released money), and on the internal – the experiences of the heroes, whose peak falls at the time of this or that disaster. The title of Omelchuk’s work is seen not so much as a man-made disaster, which is present only fragmentary (and even then only according to the personnel of the chronicle), as political perturbations in the country. If the goal of the reform plans of 1983-1984 Y.V. Andropov was the comprehensive democratization of the socio-political and economic system that had developed in the USSR, then the acceleration announced in 1985 by M.S. Gorbachev concerned only the economy, and did not affect the foundations of “developed socialism”. In 1987, perestroika was already declared a new state ideology, and the cinema instantly responded to the call of the party.
It is no exaggeration to say that the film is politicized from beginning to end. If the viewer decides to watch the picture, and its timing is 130 minutes, solely focusing on the title, then he will be disappointed. The whole "natural disaster" will take no more than 10 minutes, the rest of the time is the alignment of forces in the city, from which the first secretary of the CPSU city committee leaves for a short time, leaving the "fatherland" entrusted to him to "faithful people." Everything would be fine if it were not for the hurricane, which should hit the city in the coming hours. And then comes the hour of revelation, showing who is worth what as a Camunist and as a man. The main antithesis of the picture is the first secretary Ivan Kharitonovich Turchak (Yuri Mazhuga) and the general director of the chemical plant Maxim Pavlovich Gorev (Leonid Bakshtaev). Turchak is DO perestroika thinking (barbarism, arrogance, rudeness, arrogance). Gorev - new state ideology - flexibility, participation, attentiveness, the ability to assume the entire burden of responsibility for the decision; in general, the very Gorbachev "new thinking". All this in itself is not bad, but this dish is served without a light, without a sparkle - sluggish and amorphous. It seems that most actors simply “act out” the material, without putting either soul or heart into it.
By and large, they do not need this, because the topics discussed at the plenum were at least 10-15 years late. The giant locomotive under the acronym of the USSR, which excites the West, rushed with great speed not at all into the “bright future”, but towards the end of socialism. Many replicas of the characters perfectly demonstrate his unstoppable run. "Previously there were temporary difficulties for objective reasons, but today what?...", "I found poultry meat here, several tons - people need something to feed...", "He reports: a sound cheerful voice. The bicycle will not invent, but it will not give to others!'' Our people are responsive to difficulties. The final turned out to be blurred and inexpressive even with the “slamming” of Turchak, who sank to lowness. If in the mosaic of individual elements a whole picture is formed, then in this case a single canvas is divided into separate episodes, played by the actors well, but difficult to fit into the scenario framework. The cameraman "under the curtain" shows how the words "Leninism is the banner of our era" appear from the darkness. It is a beautiful slogan, which has lost both its strength and its revolutionary content from many years of frequent use. It is a pity that history does not tolerate a subjunctive mood, because everything could have been different. . .