A movie that I didn’t expect and surprised me. You see, what an amazing thing, this film, does not fall under any template used in the family / children's segment of domestic cinema and that especially important teenagers here are not some naive characters who perform the function inherent in the script, but very voluminous, lively people with their inner world and philosophy.
The first half of an hour of the film is built on the principle of fairy tales familiar to us since childhood, for example, like Kolobka, the main character Vitya Kasatkin (Ilya Sigalov) meets with a wolf, a hare and a bear (teacher of physics, headmaster, director), but leaves everyone unharmed, then, like a bear returning to his den, expels an uninvited guest (Ignat Akrachkov), who ateat his food and climbed into his room without demand, further, the main character is not accepted by society, unites with the same ' not as all the heroine, Loba, they come to our father’s together (39). And this duet I want to highlight, the actors play very naturally, but at the same time funny, keeping the bar throughout the film, which, of course, is a director's merit, because for Ilya Sigalov this is the first role in the movie. With his task, the boy coped brilliantly, which is only Sumo fights, in which he looks convincing. You should think about making a Sumo movie. Sumo. In Russia.
The little warrior is very well made. For the director of debutant Ilya Ermolov, this is the first full-length film, before that there was only a funny short film Khudruk, in both films there is one unifying feature, it is clear that the director has a craft, profession and knows how to share emotions with the audience. In the Little Warrior everything is in place, acting, editing, dialogue, high-quality picture, music. But perhaps the most important thing is that the film is very good. Now, when the concept of “Good” and “Good” are very often covered by incompetence and incompetence, it is especially valuable to see a picture in which both form and content do not resonate with each other. There is something about Soviet cinema.
The main surprise is the emergence of a pandemic, it falls on us as suddenly as in real life. Everything starts to go wrong, which makes what happens on the screen even more interesting, lively and funny. Towards the end, there is a shift in accents in the genre of narration, if everything begins quite fun, then gradually, more dramatic basis appears.
Separately, I want to highlight how the film was shot, the authors managed to create their own visual world of this film, it is somewhat reminiscent of Hollywood cinema from the late 90s. Unexpected and fresh, it seems the decision to add animation to the film.
Of course, the film has flaws, for example, I don’t understand the decision to shoot a famous actor in each episode, and although everything is in its place, it seems that if the faces were less recognizable, the picture would only benefit from this. There are questions about the script, but this is more of a nitpicking.
8 out of 10
Because this is the debut of the director and the lead actor.