This film asks the viewer so many questions, so many themes that there is not enough time to look for answers. On the one hand, it's a pretty easy TV drama. On the other hand, it is a multifaceted, complex film that current viewers would not be able to digest. Let's try to dissect the key vectors of the picture.
Late love. This is what lies on the surface. Love is late for Kozhemyakin (he is well over sixty, although he is invigorated and still staid, but aerobics is already given with difficulty. Clearly, he timidly and before “close communication”), and for Irina (the arrogant son-in-law generally asks: “Why does she pull out?” Life has passed and she still hopes for a miracle. And this is despite the fact that Irina is only slightly over forty. Therefore, the tied romantic knot is both unusual and quite complex. It is not easy to understand what drives Kozhemyakin – clearly not only carnal feeling. In general, Vyacheslav Tikhonov himself looks noble and solid, and the characters he plays seem almost righteous. So as for Konstantin Gavrilych – it seems that he for the first time after the death of his wife decided on some affair, and to frame the ladies for him again, because so many inept, rude and clumsy of his courtship. Strange motivation and Irina. I can hardly believe that she liked this power-hungry nobleman at first sight. She's talking to her friend about some longing, waiting for a telegram. On the other hand, probably attracted her Kozhemyakin with his higher break, because in the company of her usual friends-drinkers (ordinary hardworking people), he looks wild and foreign. She herself tells this to the surprised household when the cherished telegram finally arrives. But love fades quickly, so obvious is this mesalliance.
"Power and the common people". The film was shot at the end of the Soviet Union, in the rampage of perestroika, the heyday of glasnost. Former heroes are thrown to the sidelines, old ideals are debunked, and new ones do not have time to grow up on this not the best soil. Therefore, the sphinxes, which once sat at the top of the bureaucratic pyramid and did not move a claw without the petitioner, swallowing poods of dust, will not collect on paper all kinds, shapes and colors of seals or will not “grease” the unperturbed and immovable ruler, are now not so bold. They are also getting old, they are escorted to an honorable pension, in fact - expelling from the ranks of the elite, since the main sweetness is not in the remaining material goods, but in the position, in the opportunity to really influence fate, to have favors. And it certainly does not remain, here the memory of former colleagues is always short.
Of course, the simple working proletarian does not like the whole nomenklatura clique. And she does not climb into her arms, preferring to sit in the back seats of her comfortable (albeit Soviet) cars and not to delve into the needs of the population, whose queue for the phone is measured in five-year terms. Do people want to become such an elite? Oh, of course! As soon as that door opens, the old hatred goes away. So the son-in-law, who yesterday almost spit at Kozhemyakin, who personified all the authorities for him, who sent his friend to Afghanistan (and now a friend in a black, marker painted, frame in the photo), now servilely calls him with the intention of asking for something else.
But the gulf is still wide. And a random passerby who stumbled upon Irina’s new Renault and exclaimed in his heart: “Your time will pass soon” was wrong. Not soon, oh, not soon. . .
Responsibility for the past Life whimsically shuffles the deck, pitting people whose fates either once crossed or were extremely close to it. Kozhemyakin, as an official who held one of the highest posts in the country, has many skeletons in the closet, many dark spots, a lot of cargo, which, however, he does not perceive as a burden. His career began in the harsh, difficult post-war period. Indeed, the questions were more acute then. Consent-disagreement depended not a career, but a lifetime. Talking about responsibility here is not easy. This is what Irina Kozhemyakin is trying to convey, pointing out that her view is from today.
But how many such ruined lives were in our country in those terrible years, how many silent consent gave rise to a bloody wave? We have not recovered from the consequences until now. Irina's emotions are understandable. They are not from that time, they are not from today, they are not from any time, they are all over her life. The choice before her is not easy. In any case, it borders on a moral compromise. Or trying to grow out of your own relationship to the past. You can't judge her. But sympathizing with Kozhemyakin, too. He certainly does not need sympathy.
The great advantage of the film is that it does not give unambiguous answers to all these questions. And if the viewer brought unambiguous answers, then he watched the movie inattentively. There are many nuances that change the shades. For example, why did the KGB general do this after a conversation with Kozhemyakin? Did Kozhemyakin really believe that love can be bought?
These are also questions that are not answered immediately. . .
The first episode is an intriguing story about an unusual affair of a provincial woman with a former party boss of a state scale. It is interesting to watch, the heroes are alive, the battle of characters, water and flame: people are not young and experienced, so frankness is the best weapon. In this series, the character of Tikhonov is revealed as much as possible, here he is “on the field” of the host side, often feels out of place, but acts habitually bearish, like a gentleman, whom everyone owes. A very vivid image.
The disclosure of Polishchuk takes place in the second series, when she is already visiting “on a foreign field”, in a foreign habitat, where she is uncomfortable: she buys her “happy lottery ticket” and for some time the audience can only follow the disclosure of the topic “from dirt to princes”. But little by little, the direction of the narrative changes and suddenly the shadows of a deep past arise in the way of unexpected family happiness, the “love boat” falls into the whirlpool of political passions. . .
Characteristically, the heroine of Polishchuk personifies a simple people who are only looking with great envy into the window of brilliant foreign windows, and are still morally not spoiled as much as the authorities and members of their families are already spoiled. But you also want a rich life, so the choice of the heroine here is obvious, you can not miss such a chance, although it looks almost unnatural. . .
From the point of view of humanity, the relationship of the main characters looks strange, because adults did not even try to discuss a conflict situation among themselves, and each in their own way immediately went into their shell.
The funny part of the plot is based on the law conventions such as “residence” or the order of distribution of housing. From the everyday point of view, it is clear that these are inevitable barriers to movement on the social ladder, but if the upward movement can be “smeared” with an appeal to authority, then the downward movement can rest on the legal “not supposed.” This is shown as a paradox, before which the hero Tikhonov, accustomed to the ease of being, is lost.
"Poo at the seam." To the undisturbed viewer of that time, it was absolutely obvious that it was about the innocent victim, since the fashionable political trend of perestroika time was “the bloody tyrant Stalin and millions of people shot for nothing.” The whole space was saturated with this topic: the press, television, cinema, conversations in smoking rooms. No one then doubted the truthfulness of the creative sloping of Solzhenitsyn, Rezun and the like. Only with time did the heavy darkness of systematic deception begin to dissipate and there appeared gaps in the clouded public consciousness. But then - there was no doubt: they called the innocent victim - then the innocent victim.
In the plot of this film, the main character is the daughter of such a victim, the girl suffered along with the whole family, and after many years she wants to find any traces. By luck (and contrary to the common sense of the actors, CSH!), she succeeds in this, she gets acquainted with the criminal case of her father, who was first executed, and later rehabilitated. A characteristic detail: the execution of his father in 1952, i.e. a year before Stalin's death, when he was already very ill - and this is far from the 37th, which really had many excesses. We are talking about the far post-war time, when the country destroyed by the war was already rebuilt, and a happy life was established. In such conditions, “political” criminal cases were not started from scratch.
From a psychological point of view, the emphasis in the film is only on the fact that one of the signatories of the case “did not see” the accused, and therefore his signature was allegedly put illegally. But, setting aside emotions, it should be admitted that to determine the guilt of a person in a crime it is not necessary to meet with him in person, you need to study the materials of the criminal case and the available evidence. The hero of the film definitely had such an opportunity, and therefore he was not at all obliged to meet with the suspect to make his own judgment about his guilt. Another thing is that the context of the narrative makes it clear that he especially did not delve into the case, but signed the “sentence” without looking, “because it was necessary.” Let’s leave it to this character. But this fact does not confirm the innocence of the accused (or guilt). But thanks to such a psychological trick, the viewer forms an unshakable confidence that the accusation is unfounded, and the victim is innocent.
This criminal case in general looks rather murky, due to the combination of many factors, if you look closely at them: the case of counter-revolutionary activities in the Ministry of Ferrous Metallurgy, the year of the execution of 1952. At this time it was possible to act functionaries of various levels to the detriment of state interests, and it is possible that one of these figures was the father of the main character. It is now possible to pause the movie and read the texts on the screen (of which, however, it is understood only that the person was convicted, and then rehabilitated). And at the time of showing the film on TV, this was impossible, the viewer quickly saw some documents and “voted with his heart.” Therefore, doubts about the innocence of the viewer did not arise, plus, the film additionally emphasized the cruelty and arrogance of the authorities on the example of attitude to people from such as the character Tikhonov.
A little more detail about the criminal case (here did not fit; where to read, known).
A strange role in history was played by the KGB general, the character of Tabakov. He seemed to be aloof from all excesses and repressions (and did not even sing a table song along with the generals personifying the old regime). They indirectly tried to suggest to the viewer that a rank of such a high rank in the KGB could be impeccably clean in front of the people, and even with surprise looking at the excesses of past years. It's kind of naive.
Special. The two-part television version is called “Urban Details”, this name is displayed in the credits.
Conclusion. The picture was made by masters of the Soviet film school and with the participation of our best actors, so it bribes the consistently high quality of the “product”. However, due to the obvious political order, the shown story stinks of perestroika-anti-Soviet shit, and the whole drama is reduced to crying over innocent victims of political repression and to a mental abyss between the people and the government. The film is interesting, but causes contradictory and nasty feelings.
The film was remembered from adolescence, it was interesting, decided to revise.
The film ("Urban Details" in the two-part version) satisfied the accumulated burning curiosity of the population not only about the legendary opulence and privileges of the late Soviet celestials, covered with mystery - pathetic by today's concepts, but also about how they have there in general and in this sense, too. The plot looks fantastic - where it is seen that such a Twice Hero with a monument, as it should, to himself in his homeland, and with such a simple people, and immediately get married - but there was no other way to reveal the topic to the writers. A sign of time - justifying the expectations of the audience a large number of scenes with a variety of ways to nail the highest Soviet authorities, who were within reach, the young wife remained unforgiven for principle reasons, to the wall of popular contempt. The film is decorated with a Galich song (a laconic masterpiece about the specifics of the optimal life strategy in the domestic socio-cultural space) about the silent bosses under the scorching stare of her young guitar performer. In such a film, the signature acting talent of People's Artist Vyacheslav Tikhonov for a long time meaningfully silent in the frame, perfected still in the image of Stirlitz.
In the title ' Love with privilege' laid sarcasm and mockery of the main characters, and probably the audience. A double bottom movie. Who loves whom? No one. Can there be happiness in life with a corrupt woman, can love be bought? That's the question. The main character is disgusted, the dirt and abomination of an old woman who is getting used to the role of an allegedly young prostitute is repulsed. Her finest hour fell - to sell her miserable remains of beauty to the Minister of the USSR, who is fit for her father. She thinks she is more moral and honest than him. The rich protagonist marries a poor woman in his forties. He likes to sleep with her, tries to be honest, arranges her a holiday in life, gives all the nomenclature benefits - a car, a dacha, rags, delicious food, servants. She does not like him, uses him, calls him by name, he is a papus for her. The essence of the main character is to grab someone else’s and more, taking advantage of the moment. She wants to drive a Mercedes in Soviet times, live in a luxurious apartment in the center of Moscow. Using the connections of the main character requires a separate apartment in Moscow, not embarrassed to meet in the house of the main character with a former lover. A drunken scene with a former lover, vulgar dances / dances - this is the characteristic given by the director of the essence of the main character (Polishchuk).
Perhaps the essence of the film boils down to one thing - Freud's observation of the contradiction of the inflated self-esteem of a corrupt woman living by calculation, at someone else's expense and her real petty (bl...) essence. Plus, the black image of the main character. Quite similar to the heroine of the film ' Elena' Zvyagintseva, where views on life clash 'byla' and a successful elderly man. The main character (Tikhonov) at some point is pathetic, he is deceived, to build a fairy tale with ' a woman for money' it does not work, because she does not and cannot have feelings, no human relationships. The film is a Soviet prototype of modern soap operas, where the oil king suddenly begins to care for the gray mouse from Tmutarakani.
The film plunges us into the Soviet past, the perestroika years, which echoes of Stalin’s times, the responses of Stalin’s repressions and expulsions. The meeting of the two main characters - the former party figure Kozhemyakin (Tikhonov) and the taxi-forwarder Irina (Polishchuk) at first gives hope that they both found what they were looking for: Irina - a solid husband, wealth, confidence in the future, and Kozhemyakin - the warmth of a woman, her respect, responsiveness. Kozhemyakin is wise, smart, confident. Once in the sanatorium in the off-season, where Irina is the maintenance staff, he is lost, falling out of the usual environment, meeting the loud-mouthed advanced production. He is used to comfort, used not to be distracted by household trifles. He is outraged that a woman was sent to meet him at the station (but he does not make an attempt to help Irina), that the sanatorium doctor crosses the boundaries of subordination, and shows him his place, rebuffs the noisy and brazen worker who annoyed him with molestation. His time has passed, but he is still strong and requires attention and respect. By the way, these episodes, if they were conceived by the director as discrediting Kozhemyakin, now look quite different. Many current vacationers also appreciate the comfort and good performance of duties by service personnel.
Irina by her years (already an elderly, but charming woman with an adult married daughter) somehow achieved nothing in life. And below-average work - carrying crates, carrying groceries. And the room is small, where they huddle with their daughter and her non-working Afghan husband. My husband is divorced. And, as she admits to her daughter, in the life of a man, she has to drink and tear, including her husband. Kozhemyakin attracts her with the opportunity to escape from her circle, move to Moscow, find stability in life. In a provincial town, as the main character is sincerely convinced, nothing is waiting for her, but Moscow is the only one. The image of Moscow as the crown of all achievements looms before Irina and her daughter with a bad son-in-law. Is it El Dorado or the Promised Land? Looks like you move in there and all the problems are solved. So I want to ask the question: what has not happened in life? Why didn't you just create everything here? Maybe it is not in Moscow, but in the heroes themselves (Irina, her daughter and her husband).
And everything would be fine, everyone would be satisfied if the events of the distant past, in which Kozhemyakin was involved, did not surface.
With all the seemingly positivity of the main character Irina (played by L. Poleshchuk), there is a slight aftertaste of annoyance: why all this, who needs it, why stir it up with manic persistence? The current resident of the apartment, from which little Irina and her mother were evicted, does not want to think that her housing is in a dark halo of repression. She rebukes Irina: There is nothing to walk, everything is gone.
But Irina is a demon. Unable to stop, she destroys everything in her path. The film ends with Irina and her misfit daughter and her husband clinging to an apartment, however, in Moscow. Kozhemyakin is left alone. Two celestial bodies collided and separated into their orbits.
Both heroes - and Kozhemyakin, and Irina - are not lopsided, not black and white. It is impossible to call Irina a positive heroine, and Kozhemyakin a monster. Both are different: good, bad, and therefore alive and real. The image of Kozhemyakin, of course, turned out to be quite attractive because of the personal charm and professionalism of the actor V. Tikhonov. And if the goal of the director was ' to brand ' then somehow it did not work out.
Irina is cheerful, charming, and very trying to join the circle of her husband's acquaintances, although measuring pictures on Zhiguli and Muscovites with Zaporozhye residents, which causes Kozhemyakin to be shocked.
I don't think they could have been together. Very different.
And about the past... Indeed, what has happened, has passed, has grown old.'Do not wake a sleeping dog'
Soviet cinema for all the time of its existence gave us more than one wonderful film, about which we can say that it still warms us with its warmth. "Mimino", "Irony of Fate", "17 Moments of Spring" - these and many other films have long become an unfading classic, which can not be said without admiration. But in my opinion, there are such tapes that were undeservedly forgotten, lost against the background of other well-known paintings. Among them is the unforgettable film “Love with Privileges”. Why was such an interesting, high-quality and deep tape on the outskirts of the Russian film empire?
The answer to this question is stupid to look for on the surface: inept acting, weak directing or something like that. This movie, thank God, can not boast. All favorite actors, such as Lyubov Polishchuk, Vyacheslav Tikhonov and Oleg Tabakov, with incredible skill of real masters, revealed the images of their characters, which, in principle, is not surprising, because each of them was ideal for his role and his image. Then what is it? Why did the audience’s favorites fail to provide the tape with stunning success? It seems to me that people met the film with restraint because of the themes and problems that were raised by the authors. “Love vertically — is it possible? Is love so omnipotent and can it erase the clearly defined boundaries between social strata in the Soviet state? the creators of the picture ask us and, to our greatest regret, they themselves negatively answer both these questions. It is rare to find a work of art in which the social takes precedence over the spiritual and the sublime. The party apparatus has always been, is and will remain a cold and terrible soulless machine, crushing everything alive and beautiful. The enormous abyss between the Party elite and the people, the double morality, the eternal injustice - all this appears before us in all its unsightlyness, and it looks especially blasphemous that in this quagmire of Soviet reality the last thing that our man of that period could believe - love - was sucked in. “You all and always will depend on us!” – these words sound like a terrible sentence that no one was ready to hear from the screens of cinemas, which always served as an outlet for Soviet people.
But, probably, the authors of the film would be quite sadistic if they did not leave their heroine, and with her and the viewer hope for justice. “You don’t have much time left,” a passer-by drops inadvertently, and indeed, the huge queues at the shops and talk of Perestroika tell us exactly that. The creators of the picture tell us that there is justice. After all, Irina was able to return to her native Moscow after so many years. Yes, she may have had to go a long and difficult way before, faced with incredible injustice and humiliation, but still she has regained a lost home, her wound will no longer be remembered every minute. Thus, each of us can count on justice to prevail and life to give him all that was once taken away from him by fate.
When I saw this movie, and God forbid, in '93, it was called City Details. It’s a social drama with a lot of everything from love to politics. And politicians are not modern, but a kind of excursion into the history of our country. But under what sauce it is served, another question. And the seasoning must be said very excellent: human relations between just citizens and those in power. It so happens that for a moment a person is blinded by lightning, called by people a flash of passion or desire, as you may call it. Some citizens take this outburst for love. Yeah, that happens. But the concept of social status has not yet been abolished, as well as where and how a person was brought up.
A former politician, now a pensioner, comes to the resort, but the man is still wow, as it turns out. Party officials did not bother about good service, even if they were no longer working. The pension earned, the connections remained and you can safely enjoy the days released, and if you are also near the garna, the division is 20 years younger quite well. We can say that life was not lived in vain. Only this garna is a devil, too, a person turns out to be with a soul, with his problems, smoking, well, who does not smoke now. The fact that the heroine Lyubov Polishchuk without memory will fall in love with a sixty-year-old man is hardly possible, at least with great stretch. Here, however regrettable it may sound, there is a calculation and self-interest. In fact, secretly between two people, a deal is concluded: commodity-money-goods. She is not yet his old body, and he is her financially secure life, so much so that her children have something. It's simple and logical. Only one thing: our heroes are serious and I think that this formula is much more working. But as practice and experience of people in the formula clearly a mistake. No matter what you say, a mutually beneficial exchange doesn't work, even if you don't. That’s how quarrels, scandals and other things turn into outright hatred.
A wonderful duet of two Russian artists Vyacheslav Tikhonov and Lyubov Polishchuk. It is as if not cinema at all, but real life as it is, as it exists, without propaganda and decorum. For which we must thank Vladimir Kuchinsky, the director of this wonderful film.
10 out of 10
For ardent connoisseurs of domestic productions "Love with Privileges" - a good film, quality shot, etc., but not every person will be able to recognize the main clearly marked semantic core. One may think that the filmmakers who worked on this picture, wanted just to make an interesting film without much semantic load, others may see in this film some deep philosophical ideas, and still others do not understand what this tape says.
So, at first, three directions are very separately intertwined in the film: amorous adventures, longing for his native city and the fatal dependence of ordinary Russian people on their greedy and vain rulers.
The strange love for the elderly official Kozhemyakin melted after the main character learned that he once took a mediocre part in the unjust punishment of her father.
Irina’s nostalgia is a bit satisfied when she finally finds her native courtyard amid Moscow’s architectural dominance. And after receiving the coveted and deserved apartment, the soul is completely calmed down.
And at the very end of the film, the viewer and Irina are once again convinced of the truism: people are just pawns in the hands of powerful power structures. . .
In general, as can be seen from this scanty analysis, all the negative and positive experiences that befell the main character - it turns out that this is nothing more than a kind of payment for an apartment in her hometown, which she apparently dreamed of all her life. All plot twists and turns lead to this happy material ending, which is fixed (or supplemented) with a label and for some extremely unpleasant phrase by Vyacheslav Tikhonov, addressed primarily to innocent viewers. In the end, the main ideas of this film can be expressed in two common phrases – “where you were born, there you came in handy” and “you have to pay for everything”.