Wild, wild East In 2010 saw the light of the novel by Sergey Zhadan “Voroshilovgrad”, which in the same year won the competition “BBC Book of the Year”. And already in 2014, the same BBC Ukraine called the work “Book of the Decade”.
“Voroshilovgrad” was designed to impress the progressive Ukrainian (read “from outside the Donbass”) audience, which the same Donbass saw only on TV in the rubric “Their Mores”. Look at the wildness of the Aborigines. They're still doing business there, and they're wiping themselves out. Sergey Zhadan knows the syllable skillfully, so the novel about the dismantling of several gangs of drunken bosota for a pile of scrap metal reached its reader and received a number of Ukrainian and international awards, and was also translated into a dozen European languages.
For the first time, the attempt on the film adaptation was announced in serene 2013, and in the conditions of the fourth year of the war because of the very Donbass not to catch hype on the topic would be inexcusable.
Transfer the plot twists and turns from white paper to white screen took a young Ukrainian director Yaroslav Lodygin, who managed to mark only two short films. The adaptation of the script was made by Natalia Vorozhbit, who wrote Cyborgs. For the quality of the picture in response to Sergey Mikhalchuk, who shot “Guide” and “Parajanov”.
The main role was approved by Oleg Moskalenko, for whom the reporting film was the first “full meter”. Prior to this, the actor’s experience was limited exclusively to TV series. Company he was Vladimir Yamnenko ("Peace to your home"), Ruslana Khazipova (particularly not noted anywhere), Georgy Povolotsky ("Infoholic", "Major"). And of course Alexei Gorbunov. The face on the poster, without the secondary character of which the film would lose more than half of its charisma.
The release of the film was preceded by an attempt to bring it to the people through quotes, when the characters' replicas were printed on the box office receipts of a large supermarket chain.
In addition to excluding a few minor lines, the plot of “Wild Field” completely repeats the content of the literary source. The main character, Hera, a few years ago left his small homeland, moved to Kharkiv, becoming an “independent expert”, in fact, a character without a certain type of occupation that dangles from one random earnings to another. There was his brother on the farm, who managed the gas station, decorated for Hera himself. One day his brother disappears and Hera is forced to return home. Already somewhat weaned from the realities of his native land, he faces the arbitrariness of the authorities and the need to defend his business, his house and his land.
The idea of the tape “fight for your own” fits into our difficult reality. It would be possible to draw clear parallels between the initially insecure Hero, who is forced by circumstances to become a man, and Ukraine, which is also forced to mature. But here it is worth noting that the book came out in 2010, when war was not yet on the horizon, and this makes the message of “Wild Field” more mundane.
In all the semantic baggage of the film there is no clutch that I would like to carry with me, carefully checking its contents. An attempt to riddle the viewer with “wise” quotes like “Who lost, then the tax will come” gives mothballs, where more than ten years ago the Brigade and Boomer found their peace.
To maintain the reputation of Donbass, all aboriginal businessmen are a set of clichéd types - bald, round, with thick chains on bull necks, wear bags and sandals on socks. They don’t swear because they talk.
It seems that while that side is shaking with fear of the mythical “Benderovets”, the residents of the rest of Ukraine are completely frightened by the collective image of “Donbasyan”.
It is worth noting that despite the youngness of the director, he and the team he recruited, adjusted for the original source, technically coped. “Wild Field” looks respectable, the soundtrack falls into the rhythm of the production, and the selected actors fit into the types.
You can make a small “ata-ta!” finger to Oleg Moskalenko for his apparent insecurity in front of the big screen. But given the circumstances in which his hero found himself, even this “shameful illness” is defined as a glorious feat.
"Wild Field" is a weak story with a dubious message, wrapped in a high-quality cover. The film is not ashamed to show abroad, they say, look how we already know how. But a detailed analysis of the meaning of the tape exactly will not stand.
6 out of 10
