Dissociative fugue in Chuvash Once again, looking through numerous pages and public in Vkontakte, I came across this film by chance. Since I myself am a native of Chuvashia, the gaze caught on to an intriguing description of the city of Yadrin. Moving from a hyperlink to a hyperlink, it was found out that the film was shot by the Atal film studio (which translates from Chuvash as Volga), and the director is my countryman. The inner patriot gushed inside me: in the segment of the Chuvash cinema today you can not often find something worthwhile and worthy of attention. And if modern music made in Chuvashia is already popular in our country, then nothing is heard about the Chuvash film industry.
I don’t know why, but I always wanted to see on the big screen something similar to the “Heavenly Wives of Meadow Marys” by D. Vorobyov, only in the Chuvash interpretation. With what love he relates to Mari traditions and culture, as clearly conveys the spirit of village life!
Of course, I did not expect such a performance from Marat Nikitin, but I really wanted to feel the atmosphere of the Chuvash outback, enjoy a peculiar accent and look at the landscapes native to the heart.
Moving directly to the FUGA movie, I’ll start with the pros. The spilling Surah, the magnificent view of Cheboksary from a bird's eye view, the perfectly conveyed atmosphere of Yadrin himself - are magical! I also appreciated the main idea of the film: dissociative fugue – not so relevant topic for cinema (although immediately comes to mind “Island of the Damned” with DiCaprio, but the Russian film I could not remember).
I was a bit confused by the following:
1) Acting. Anna Troyanskaya, in my opinion, did not cope with the role of a provincial girl. Her attempt to fake the Chuvash accent rattled the rumor: why was it necessary to cast in Vologda?! And the first ten minutes of the film she talks normally, and at the moment where she persuades Matvey to go to the show, begins to clown terribly. Yeah, it felt like she was clowning. But this task perfectly coped with the actress, who played the role of the mother of the main character (unfortunately, it was not possible to find her name and surname). It seemed to me that she is not a native speaker of the Chuvash language, but she managed to insert Chuvash words into her speech and imitate the accent.
2) Small script flaws. For some reason, a “regional commission” was assembled to diagnose Matvey, although Chuvashia is a republic. A couple of times Anna Troyanskaya called Yadrin a village, and this is a city.
What I didn’t like about the movie: the character. It seems like a real hero: pulled people out of a burning hut, watches the house, works in the police. From the very beginning, we were shown his masculinity. But at the same time, he so unquestioningly agrees with his civil wife, who first persuades him to go to the awards, and then participate in the show. A little she should whine: they say, this is a chance to earn / this is your reward, so he immediately gives up and gives up. His image of a “real man” does not fit at all with this trait of a hen hen.
At the same time, during the film there is no development of the personality of Matvey (Sergei). All he is capable of after learning the truth about his past is punching a TV presenter in the face and running away. No remorse, pain, suffering, personal perturbations: he just ran away from his problems and was like that.
There are also a couple of questions that I cannot answer. Why is the film genre surreal? And why is Nikolai Fedorov (former president of the Chuvash Republic, known to the general public as the “dancing president”) on the list of actors on KinoPoisk?
I put a 6 on the movie. Only because today there are really few films of the Chuvash nationality. Therefore, FUGA certainly deservedly became the winner at the Vsechuvash film festival ASAM. But the notorious Anna Troyanskaya does not deserve, in my opinion, the award “Best supporting actress”.
In any case, I wish Marat Nikitin success! I will now be happy to follow his work and hope that his further work will be more successful.
6 out of 10