I did not catch the terrible event that happened at the end of the 80s of the 20th century. I wasn't there yet. But there was my father who went to Spitak to help the victims. He almost never talks about it. But when I saw his eyes at the slightest external mention of the tragedy, I found so much pain and compassion in them that it was more than enough to realize how terrible everything that happened there was. . .
And of course, I felt obliged to see a film dedicated to this tragedy.
I did that today. I will try to share my opinion.
As it seemed to me, ' Spitak' is an attempt by the creators of the picture to build the following parallel: a father and a husband who abandoned his family - the leadership of the country and the republic, who let go of the situation with the risky position of Spitak. He had a loving and caring wife, a beautiful daughter, but he did not appreciate it, did not keep them, looked in the wrong place. A leadership that knows about the city’s problem, but has decided to focus on other areas.
One click... Everything turned upside down.
As for the film itself as a product of the work of a large collective. I can’t say that this is something extraordinary. The main character's game was upset. In this film, he is one of the few actors that his actions betrayed that it is just a film, that it is not real. Operator’s work is also not exciting. A dangling camera can cause nothing but irritation (except when it is conceived specifically, which is unlikely for this picture). The writers, as I understand it, did not try hard either. Some dialogues are so absurd that it can sometimes feel like watching a series of bizarre sketches. Well, the main mistake is the work of the director. She reminded me of some of my writings on the great works that were in the school curriculum; those writings that completed the teacher’s words written in red pen: ' The topic is not disclosed' and the assessment, something close to three.
I give the film a rating of 6 because it covered a terrible tragedy. Such events should be known and remembered at least in order to prevent anything like this in the future.
P.S.
If you knew my father, you would see much more in his eyes than in this picture.
Goar and Anush are the present and the future of Armenia, who suddenly found themselves instead of a serene festive photo shoot under monstrous rubble. The present has almost no chance to get out of the rubble, the future has moved into the crazy world of childhood fantasies.
Gore, who lives in Moscow with an anecdotally stupid blonde, is a prodigal son who exchanged ancient values for the shine of gold and the sweetness of contact pleasures.
Russian Sergey is the Big Brother, who has mastered the language and local manners, but is of little use and, in some places, inappropriate in his high rhetoric.
The French. A lovable photographer is a free press, the Iron Curtain has fallen, the world will know the truth. Rescuer in a uniform bright jumpsuit – “the West will help us”, a superhero, absent in the Soviet coordinate system.
A phantasmagoric platoon of criminals, suddenly sprouting their honest word leaving for the destroyed city and returning to term in full strength, including the seriously injured, in the last seconds escaped disciplinary punishment with the participation of a pretty French photographer (see above).
Desperate half-prayer, half-sacrificial rite: a reconquest of religious superstitions in the struggle against the ideals of man’s reliance on his own strength, his courage. The system that broke the back of the greatest evil in the history of mankind in the 45th is powerless against the fishing of higher forces.
Cardboard box of modest size "LOMO". Leningrad – the help of compatriots of a large country, as it was seen from the inside.
Those born in the late 70s grew up very quickly. Endless funerals of the leaders of the country, Chernobyl, interethnic bloody conflicts. Spitak stood alone. A great tragedy united the people. Not the one Catholicos Wazgen proclaims on TV, but the entire 250 million. The one who saved the world two years earlier by coping with a mad peaceful atom. A great tragedy has given us great hope. Far from the concrete ruins of Moscow in '88, it seemed that we could do it as before. We will overcome, win, pay for the dead and build again. Like Tashkent, like Minsk, like many other things. Because it's us.
But alas, we were taken to the wrong place then and, judging by the presented film, do not know how to clearly direct anywhere now.
1 out of 10
After learning about the earthquake that destroyed the Armenian city of Spitak, a man named Horus throws his mistress and rushes there, as the wife and daughter he once abandoned live in this place. During the cataclysm, a woman and a girl were in a photo studio, from which they did not have time to get out. And, while Gore is trying to find relatives in every possible way, raking up piles of stones on which the annoying French photojournalist crawls, his wife quietly waits for help under the rubble, while her daughter has an attack of escapism in the spirit of “Tideland” and “Monster Voices” due to stress.
When watching a lot of modern dramas of domestic production, the same question stably arises: how does it happen that the creators of many foreign films, just showing two people who met, talked and looked into each other’s eyes at goodbye, manage to leave the viewer with a lump in the throat and tearful eyes, and our stories based on large-scale tragedies do not cause anything in the soul at all – the recent “Sobibor” and “Unforgiven” are a vivid example. Alexander Kott’s new film, awarded “St. George” for directing at the Moscow Film Festival, also passed by. It is curious that the attempt to tell the world about the terrible earthquake that occurred on December 7, 1988 and claimed the lives of thousands of people has already been made by one of the most odious modern directors Sarik Andreasyan, but not for nothing, but also with an eye on the Oscars, which the film boldly tried to claim from Armenia. Since the topic for Sarik was very personal, and in general to analyze this problem somehow did not dare, the film was taken relatively calmly, although the director simply drowned him in snotty melodramatic clichés. Cott clearly decided to refute the saying that it is impossible to enter the same river twice and made another film about the Spitak earthquake, again nominated by Armenia for the Oscars.
Despite the fact that Cott, unlike Andreasyan, still does not want to go on a primitive squeeze of tears, filling the film with annoying cliches, and prefers excessive emotionality dramatic-detached tone with the rejection of cheap special effects, his “Spitak” was not much better. The biggest mistake is that with the abundance of characters and their lines, people in him do not represent living, bright personalities, together embodying the common experience of the horror that occurred, while remaining terribly one-dimensional. Numerous heroes of Spitak, even Gore himself, are just part of the setting, walking scenery, engaged only in working out the functionality, forming a detailed recreated, large-scale, but only a picture, cold in its posterity, and acting out a patchwork story about the integrity of the plot. Of the actions of some, theatricality, playfulness, public work and frank posing are in full swing - this is the pathosy manner of speech of the main character, reminiscent of the stage, and deliberately demonstrative scenes with squeezing the lenses out of glasses and throwing himself under the wheels, and the afterlife conference of the female Voysover, which would be more appropriate to replace with credits. It is clear that the story about the terrible consequences of the disaster should be conducted very delicately, without excesses and savoring, but it is also impossible to completely leave the horror behind the scenes in a film about such events. Wanting to spare the feelings of living witnesses of the earthquake, Cott seems to turn Spitak into just a diorama, against the background of which the viewer must watch the incoherent and inconclusive drama of one character who, judging by the script, came here to suffer, and then only after a cataclysm - apparently, in peacetime, the fate of his wife and child did not care very much. As a result, the story of Horus is not able to catch, because in his face it was not possible to recreate the pain of loss felt not just by an individual or a city, but by an entire people. And the only touching component of Spitak predictably become some neatly built mise-en-scene, the most terrible of which is a class buried under the rubble, full of children.
6 out of 10
On December 7, 1988, an earthquake struck Armenia, which shook the entire USSR, and aid came from where Soviet people did not wait (from abroad). It seems to me that the film is not about tragedy, but about children in difficult life situations. Children are the main characters of this picture. The main character Gore (played by Lernik Harutyunyan) leaves Moscow and goes to Spitak to save his wife and daughter Anush. The girl is going through this tragedy very hard. She perceives everything around her as a game of rabbit (psychologists say: “Children, to protect their psyche, invent an imaginary world for themselves”. Children’s psyche and tragedy of the Union scale – all this is presented on the scales. No wonder there is a memory of sweet jam. Jam and rabbit protect the psyche from self-destruction.
Children are our lives. This phrase is well understood by parents in the Caucasus. The child's psyche is a very fragile substance. And in time of trouble, the child shouts, "Mom or Dad!" Yes, this film is about young children who lost relatives in this tragedy. Director Alexander Cott made the film in the form of a European art house. The director probably made this film for European film festivals. This film is not a commercial movie for the modern multiplex. This is a European film about children on a difficult day for the whole USSR. I liked that director's idea. Everything in the picture shows how the child psyche invents barriers from self-destruction due to this catastrophe.
I didn’t like the music in the movie; it was too boring. The music track is designed for the European audience. And it is good that the film does not have a national instrument duduk (psychologists will understand me).
This tragedy is not Armenia, but the USSR: in 1988 the USSR was alive. And all the Soviet people understood: "We must go and help."
5 out of 10
Spitak is another disaster film about the devastating earthquake that occurred in Armenia on December 7, 1988. Of course, we all remember the not-so-distant premiere of another film “Earthquake” by Sarik Andreasyan, so there will be something to compare with, although after watching many realize that there is actually nothing to compare.
Oddly enough, but even the plot of the two paintings is quite similar. During the earthquake, the wife and daughter are under the rubble. The husband comes to the city of Spitak and is trying to find his family. On the one hand, the plot is quite simple, but do not forget that in the two paintings, the lines of other characters unfolded in parallel with the main actions. In my opinion, it is in this film that the secondary lines are more dramatic than in the previous one, but in terms of implementation, Sarik made a more expressive, sensual and lively film work.
The director of the film “Spitak” was Alexander Kott, known to many for the films “Brest Fortress”, the Christmas tree franchise, the series “The Far Side of the Moon” and “Trotsky”. Knowing the work of this director, I personally expected to see a large, spectacular and high-quality film product, but what I saw in the film Spitak, I, unfortunately, cannot turn my tongue to say that it turned out good.
The authors almost from the first minutes immerse the viewer in the thick of events, not taking time for the introductory part. Immediately I want to note that in the film you will not see the action, as scenes with the destruction of the city were left behind, so fans of disaster films will be disappointed. Throughout the film, the protagonist is either on the road or sorting through the rubble, but from time to time he is visited by various memories from the past. Of course, this does not interfere with the story, and to some extent even helps to learn more and understand the hero, but excessive self-digging, alas, only lull the audience’s interest. I don’t know why, but that’s what the director is focusing on. The hero is constantly in thinking, he suffers, tortures himself, engages in self-flagellation and so on. For me, in such films, the audience wants to see the scale, action and vivid emotions, but not only the emotional suffering of one person who blames himself for what happened. But in addition, the film draws serious flaws on other issues.
The script of the picture on the one hand looks meaningful, but at the same time cut, shortened and concise. I wouldn’t be surprised if the script was more informative and even the film itself may have been shot with all the details, but, apparently, a lot of things had to be removed, cut and cut in post-production. As a result, we get some stumps, which are especially noticeable in secondary characters. In addition to the story of the protagonist and his family, the film shows the storylines of a French journalist and a prisoner who was released for a while. But in neither case did a complete and meaningful story turn out. Their motives, goals, and even the heroes themselves are completely incomprehensible, about whom we know nothing but their names. The story with the convict could turn out to be generally overly emotional, but in the end they all crumpled up and did not understand what. With the journalist, the same trouble turned out, so it remains only to spread hands and be puzzled by such a failure. By the way, in the film there was a mini story about a boy who was looking for his mother and eventually found her in the square among dozens of dead bodies. I am sure that from this scene it was possible to squeeze whole wagons of tears from the viewer, since everything contributed to this, the more the young actor could pull it out dramatically and show a real tragedy, but at the most crucial moment the scene is cut off in anticipation of an emotional explosion. And there were a lot of such moments in the picture. There was a feeling that during the editing, someone specially cut the scenes, not bringing them to the end, so that the viewer could not enjoy the full story of the most severe tragedy. To this we can add a few words about the most terrible scene in the film, when people cleaned up the rubble of the city school and, lifting a large stove, they came across a whole dead class of children who died right behind their school desks. To me, these scenes could be the most vivid and at the same time the most difficult episodes of the whole story, but in the end, nothing happens here. A completely empty and emotionless scene that causes nothing but disappointment.
Many remember how during the viewing of the film “Earthquake” the audience left the hall with teary faces from an abundance of emotions, but after watching “Spitak” the audience left with outrage about the time spent, because for the whole film there was not a single emotion and there was no elementary empathy for the heroes. Absolutely cold and empty story, which is more sleepy than the desire to look to the end.
Personally, I am sure that even with such material (the script) it was possible to make a very strong emotional film. But for reasons unknown to me, the creators decided to just ruin their picture with a disgusting post-daxhen.
It is worth noting that there is almost no music in the film. Most of the scenes are without musical accompaniment. For me personally, as a music lover, it's like a sickle in one place. If anyone did not know, the music for the film was written by Serzh Tankyan (vocalist of the group System of a Down), who has repeatedly been involved in working on domestic films: “The Legend of Kolovrat”, “The Last Resident”, “1915” and so on. There is very little music in Spitak, although Serge wrote a little more than twenty very tragic tracks for this film.
In general, for me personally, the film is a big disappointment, but at the same time I want to thank the entire cast who did everything possible to ensure that the picture did not fall in the eyes of the audience. Each of the characters in the frame looked very lifelike and realistic. They wanted to really empathize, but the structure of the production did not allow this.
So I’m not going to recommend it personally, but the film still deserves attention because of the talented actors, and the creators only want to say one word: “Shame!” Watch a good movie.
For all the scale of the tragedy, the film aroused no feelings but anger, especially at the cameraman. It's just disgusting camera work. It feels like you were filming a trembling hand on a phone with a very bad camera. Why do you keep taking close-ups of your head? The plot is fragmentary. The scene of the meeting of the main character with his daughter is absurd. You have a family under the rubble and you went to the mountains? Why? Lots of blunders and meaningless scenes. The French rescuers (or volunteers?) were woven together, who themselves had to be rescued, if they wanted to show that the disaster hit everyone, then the filmmakers did not succeed. The film is boring and boring, failed to experience excitement, sympathy, regret, sadness, absolutely nothing. . You could at least put dramatic music, so that somehow the picture was remembered. The film has been nominated for several awards and even an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. For what? for the support of the ministries of Russia and Armenia? Film ' Spitak' - a pathetic remake of the film 'Earthquake'2016.
The only thing you can notice is a good cast and their performance.
3 out of 10
History in stories. One story spanning the whole of Armenia, the entire Soviet Union and the whole world, told through chains of stories made up of individual stories that were. Each hero of the film, as the creators of the picture at the premiere in St. Petersburg, have their own prototype in real life, which makes the picture of Alexander Kott, known for the Brest Fortress, the Back Side of the Moon and the Hero of Our Time, a semi-documentary art canvas about the event that occurred on December 7, 1988 in the city of Spitak of the Armenian SSR.
It is no secret that not only the whole USSR, but the whole world came to the aid of the affected city in those days. And Spitak’s film is primarily dedicated not to the earthquake itself, which claimed more than 20,000 people, but to mutual assistance, which was shown in absolutely everything, from the ordinary residents of Spitak, who survived and helped to excavate and ending with the French rescue group, which was more savvy to this, since in the USSR before the events in Spitak there was really no Emergencies Ministry.
Some of the most interesting moments in the film are those involving young children. They are to some extent the most interesting, because the full range of their emotions and experiences is very voluminously shown, but at the same time they once again show the “strange” children. They're old enough. Most of them study in the first grade, but it feels like they are 4-5 years old. For them, the whole disaster that happened in the city is a game. Yes, for those still in kindergarten age, perhaps, but for those in first grade and older, it all seems strange and unnatural. Every child contributes to the story, but little Anush is a special character. If we abstract from preferences, then Alexandra Politico played the most interesting heroine of the picture, both from the point of view of the play of the young actress, and from the side of the heroine, who was registered and shown on the screen. Yes, for her, everything that happened is a game, but it is all embodied on the screen through a fairy tale, where there is an owl, Malvin, mirrors and a little rabbit that looks great, especially to the music of Serge Tankian.
The structure of the film, as you understand, is very reminiscent of documentary shooting: long shots without gluing, which flow from one character to another - live shooting from hands. The film itself, at least at the beginning, has a disparate structure when you need to tell and show all the characters, so a lot of jumps from place to place. The work of Alexander Kott is interesting because he, together with Marina Sochiskaya (screenwriter), created quite integral characters. Most have a goal, character growth, character arc and ending. The main drawback in the characters is their small picture, especially minor characters. The main characters have everything to call them the heroes of the feature film. There are two such: Anush (Alexandra Politician) and Gore (Lernik Harutyunyan). The latter, in turn, is the central character, but, to some extent, it can be characterized as a negative character. And, if you compare him with the hero of Konstantin Lavronenko from the x/f Earthquake, then he loses, at least, in the history of the character, but if you consider from the point of view of this film, then Gore is quite a holistic and well-written hero.
Alexander Cott decided not to solve the backstory, and began the film immediately with an earthquake, so the whole picture takes place in the already destroyed Spitak except for memories. Of course, you had to show it. And with this Cott and Peter Dukhovsky (operator) coped at the highest level. The atmosphere of the film, which is not just created due to color filters, but due to the shooting itself: snow, devastation, unwashed people, turned out to be exciting, oppressive and exciting. And all this visual component is reinforced by the music of Serzh Tankian, especially the part that accompanies the story arc of the heroine Anush.
Overall, if you look at a single movie, it was successful. But a couple of years ago, a film was made that was dedicated to the same event, and throughout the new film there was a feeling that the creators were not trying to create something of their own, and they were starting from the x/f earthquake of Sarik Andreasyan. And this is due primarily to the images of heroes who are very similar to each other. Their structure is simply wrapped in another package. At some point, I remembered the latest feature films about Steve Jobs, which have their pros and cons, but if they were combined, it would be a masterpiece. So here it is.
The film Spitak can be called a remake of the Earthquake, which is justified by the desire to be nominated for an Oscar, but not the best work of Alexander Cott. The film is not without flaws, but the interesting play of the actors, both foreground and background, and the ambient atmosphere suitable for the disaster film, showing all the shades of tragedy and supported by the atmospheric music of Serge Tankian, try to close the eyes to these flaws, which are visible to the naked eye.