Could have been worse. I have long been waiting for the appearance of a film, the setting of which would be the city of Ivanovo. I waited.
It's worth starting from afar. There is Ivanovo mythology, connected more with the place occupied by the city in the cultural space, rather than with what the city really is: a "damn swamp". It would be long to clarify and cite the names of writers, poets, literary critics and historians. Briefly: “Red Manchester”, the pipes of the factories (“Praying for the Factory Pipe” (c)), revolutionary events that almost completely erased all “spiritual/cultural” (pre-Soviet means bycha), depriving the young city of its short history. Even the town gave the world the terrorist Nechaev, about which there is a novel written very badly.
It's morose. Smoke and dark.
But that was it. It's old.
And so in the 21st century, a young (this is important) Ivanovo (Kineshemian, to be exact, but it is insignificant, in my opinion) director makes a film about his native city, and – I can’t believe it! – shows the same “damn swamp”. I don’t know for what reasons, for artistic reasons, for budget reasons, but the city is not revealed, not represented in the film visually. I'd love a banal postcard look. But there is nothing from Ivanov that could somehow mark the locus where events unfold. Well, it seems that the word “Stashka” (“Station” that is), but this is not enough to tears.
Continuing the theme of “fucking swamp”, which is extremely unpleasant to me, I must say that I would be happy and gloomy, and twilight, and swamp, but visible. For example, the Soviet Gothic CHPP-2, as long as there was a landscape and a city. If only there were His Majesty Space – recognizable, but transformed by the author’s individuality.
Unfortunately, the author is a close-up fan, in the frame mostly faces. He is also a fan of apartments, with characteristic household things (servants, carpets). A simple conclusion: it could be any Russian city of the years described. The movie is not about Ivanovo.
Next. The director is, in my opinion, under Balabanovsk influence. I watched a movie at the Tarkovsky festival, but Tarkovsky’s world is completely different, and I did not want Balabanov’s “black” that Balabanov’s fans shoot much worse than him, because he was “black”, but at the same time was talented. There are many fans, legion. In recent times – too (film “Fool”, films Snegirev, etc.). It needs to be overcome, take a step from the nineties and even from the zeros. All these faces of politicians on TV, all these girls who are subjected to camera-smelling violence – this is Balabanovsk in many ways. Balabanovsk blood and a character named Anton. Another hero, only less character than Danila. “What’s the power, brother?” – the refrain went through the films about “Brother”. A similar slogan here is “Who rules the world?” (or something like that, I didn’t remember exactly).
More (and more frankly) is quoted from Germany. This is very obvious, it is very bad, since it is certainly not to be imitated, it is not to be borrowed and learned from, since it is more bright than a high phenomenon. All these attempts to convey our ugly reality, to convey the lives of teenagers. Namely: discos with characteristic music (Germanica had “Beasts”, here – “Hands Up!”, and at the beginning, while the credits go, – sounded, neither to the village nor to the city, “King and Jester”).
Germanic gives the first "love" scene, it is the same angle, the same savoring of dirt. And quite egregiously - one of the final scenes, when the heroine named Vika, having survived her unpleasant adventures with a nesting doll, returns home, drinks vodka in a robe. “We’ll go to the market, we’ll buy you something.” The quote from “Everyone will die and I will stay” is almost direct. Up to the hanging of mirrors, because even in Germanica events took place after the funeral, and then there is a dead man in the house. What I thought was guided by this director with a pretentious pseudonym, I do not know. Did Anya Kreis admit that the viewer of the Germanic film did not immediately consider the quote, but, considering that he would not think about the functional, let us say, justification? She's gone. At best, it's just a tribute. But it's not worth it. It's not worth it at all. The film does not add, the world does not specify; Germanica nod - nothing, she is not even talented, just new (was in his time) and smart.
Embarrass and betray the age of the author (young) attempts to insert all sorts of religious things. There are a lot of them in the movie, they don’t need anything. In the apartment where part of the action takes place, I think there is a picture of Christ hanging, but I am not sure if my eyesight is bad. In any case: it looks like posturing and neophytism, as an expression of individual directorial pride and joy at the fact that “I know so much about this.” Hence (and not from artistic goal-setting) – the use of biblical images, quotes, words: “Phariseum”, “Babylon”. The author is young. He is overwhelmed by the capacity of his mind and the amazing ability to understand everything in such a classy way that no one else but himself can understand. The author is mistaken and terrible, a lot will be sent therefore. Perhaps it will pass, my claims are not a cross on the director, since there is something in her handwriting still.
But the saddest thing about the film, in its poetics, in the garages of this and eternal night, in the Caucasians and quirky women, is that it represents at best a trampling on the spot, at worst a step back. Step into the cinematic past. Step to Germanicus first. Then - to Balabanov (here is already fraught with fascination "black" for life), the next will be a step to the early nineties, to "My name is Arlequino."
The dubious charm of the backyards, the alleged appeal of “hyperrealism” – we must overcome this. The director knows how to joke, and her vision is sharp, but her eyes are unkind, humor is exaggerated, angry. Watch carefully the scene feeding uncle in a hoodie with the Rammstein logo. Grotesque; deliberately, and not without internal reasons, protracted. Prolonged - because the author of the film gets high excessively; it causes him itchy pleasure. Even the most pig-like people don’t eat like that. But it speaks about the eyes, about the world of the director, about what makes him laugh, and this is extremely important. If the scene lasts, then it gives pleasure to the shooter, otherwise it would not last. The exaggeration of this dinner is exorbitant, and speaks not about the world of this picture, she says about the eyes of Ani Krais.
Unable to leave alone the terrible vulgarity of our reality, our “Kings and Jesters”, all these hoodies, torbs, the author of vulgarity does not overcome, he will great himself, because he allowed his eyes to be fascinated with vulgarity. You could have taken them.