Everything is like birds: bright, beautiful, sometimes stupid
Don't expect sports drama here. The storylines could develop on the background of any basis, but here chose women's volleyball. It is not enough, it is filmed badly and it does not spoil the film at all.
But beautiful girls play well characters and relationships. That's right. Those who have been in the locker rooms of sports teams will not see falsehoods and special flaws. The sport is in second place, if not third. You can accuse the film of an excess of sensuality, but the claim is removed if you remember that we are talking about young, beautiful, unmarried - and what else do they do after training and games if they do not fall in love?
Episodic roles are bright, characters are recognizable.
Very good Porechenkov. Poplar - Karpol he played so that should remain in the treasury of bright images of domestic cinema.
A couple of lines aren’t clear why they were introduced (e.g., Alia, a cleaner player, or a lieutenant governor’s adjuvant). There is a feeling that the director tried in 16 episodes to shove all his ideas, and some of them quite pull on a separate movie. Because of this, a couple of episodes came out longer than it could be. On the other hand, you don’t want to part with the characters – it’s like at the end of a good book.
In general, quite a bright life of interesting people in the framework of the production drama.
I recommend if you want not to bother, have a good time, but there is no desire to descend to the level of the sitcom.
I like sports movies. That’s why I watched the series to the end. It has not so few advantages: there is volleyball (to a much greater extent than, for example, in the second part of ' Dyld'), there is humor and funny ' chips' like ' drunken tournament'. But there are more downsides. About the script: a clear feeling that it was written by a teenage girl. Almost all the characters are unusually sexually preoccupied, change partners like gloves, they pay so much attention to their adventures that it is unclear how they still manage to pay attention to volleyball. The plot consists almost entirely of holes - for example, some scoundrel from Sochi wants to buy a club, but because he is a tyrant, he demands that the club does not become a champion and probably offers such money that even the championship in Russia does not compensate for it.
All right. But the leadership of the club immediately begins to put sticks in the wheels of the coach, although at this moment it is somehow ridiculous to think about the championship - the club has just accidentally got into the major league and is not playing very well. It’s like, for example, the owner of football & #39; Orenburg' would start at the beginning of the championship to weaken the club, so that he, God forbid, did not become a champion. Such a basic plot conflict. Current problems are also solved in the style ' so it goes ' For example, one of the leading players has dropped out, a replacement is needed, but the management is very afraid that the club will suddenly become a champion, so they do not give money at all. Well, the coach immediately takes the first cleaner she gets and she turns out to be a top-level superplayer of the CR, just having a tough time. About such ' royals in the bushes' other problems in the film are solved.
But it's about the writer. The director also acts in the style ' so it goes ' Porechenkov is a good actor, but here is a complete miscast. He, of course, skillfully yells falsetto, but it looks completely ridiculous - a funny phlegmatic boulder suddenly begins to scream wildly. I want to tell him: ' Uncle - go to the doctor'. Much more organic in this role would look, for example, Victor Sukhorukov - his screams are much better match the image. Korobko (Ponomarev from ' Youth') as a cunning major - the sports director of the club is also ridiculous - the artist is clearly not so talented to normally embody a completely alien image. Also ' so goes '.
Sports intrigue is shown quite schematically - the team wins someone, someone loses, it's all in the background, even the championship formula was not bothered to convey to the viewer, although this, like, about volleyball. But it is ' and so it goes ' - the viewer eats. But the viewer still wants something better.
I didn’t think that the Russian, and even the series, and even modern, would push me to write the first review on Kinopoisk. So it happened: the series watched, saw a couple of reviews and, making sure that they do not reflect my opinion, decided to write.
For a long time we have been subjected to obstruction of almost all modern Russian film and serial products. Most often, unfortunately, by business. Rare glimpses give hope that domestic filmmakers have a future, but... Maybe this is what it should be like now? Maybe it’s normal that amid the gloom of low-grade thrash, there should be some bright (and because of this more noticeable) spots? It's a rhetorical question. . .
'The Seagulls' not a masterpiece or a revelation, he doesn't try to ask questions or seek answers. This is a very ordinary sound-visual entertainment, of which there are a million. What did he do? And the fact that in one series you will be able to watch almost all the movie plots created on Earth to date. Yes, yes, I almost do not exaggerate! ' Ordinary' average soap operas and TV series are entirely devoted to some one theme, which here rushes like a locomotive, for a series of one and a half. The analogy with the train is very accurate: you, opening your mouth, watch as the train rushes past with screams and geeks ', the carriages of which are world literary and film stories. Here's the car 'Love and pity', behind it 'Loyalty and betrayal', followed by 'Fathers and Children' then 'True friendship', 'The Virgin in Trouble', 'The Fall and Rebirth', even a semblance of 'Detective' All that remains is how to quack periodically: 'Well, e-my!', 'How is that?' etc. Stories are told completely, begin and end logically. The plots are well sewn, the transition from one turn to another does not look alien, everything is quite harmoniously intertwined and moves in one direction. The locomotive of all this and the main core of the series is 'Sports drama'.
In 'Seagulls' four main characters, they are given maximum time. But there are branches in which it is very interesting to observe the actions of heroes from secondary roles.
The actors are well selected, there is no dissonance, as there are no those who repeatedly play ' themselves ', regardless of the role. Yes, Michael here is really a neurotic coach, who still can not understand himself and thereby tortures himself and others. Not clichéd ' national security agent'
At the end of the review, I thought, how should I evaluate the series? Well, for me. So to speak, internally. Like / dislike it is understandable, but too roughly and vague. There are a lot of TV shows I like. We needed some kind of quantitative assessment, which would allow us to find out who is the best among all the people ' like'. And I realized that there is such an assessment - this is the viewing speed! ' Seagulls' I watched it in 5 days, the benefit of the video platform it is laid out entirely (on TV it still goes). 16 episodes in 5 days is a speed close to my maximum (there is simply no time for a big one). I always wanted to know, what’s next? Therefore, each time completing the next series, the following phrase sounded: ' And let’s have a look at the next one, how is it?', as a result of which often the next series was viewed in its entirety.
Of the shortcomings, I would note the small number of shootings in Kaliningrad. Only ' postcards' shooting with drones and constantly in the frame DS ' Amber'. How so? The team is from Kaliningrad, and there is no city at all. The streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg showed, but the streets of the team’s hometown did not.
I think a very interesting character could have come from Nino (Elizavet Kafiev), but she was given a minimum of attention.
Some stories are not perfect, there are roughnesses.
However, this does not spoil the overall picture.
And it is such that after watching there is a pleasant feeling. I watched the series and enjoyed it, which was quite unexpected. Thanks to the whole team!
About season two. Honestly, I wouldn't. It is clear that the creators left themselves the opportunity to continue (there are unfinished stories). But it will be very sad if such an unusual and good series turns into a conveyor.
Those who follow volleyball immediately realized that the main character is drawn from the legendary volleyball coach Nikolai Karpol, who in his 83 years still coaches Yekaterinburg & #39; Uralochka'. Mikhail Porechenkov masterfully played his version of the coach - a neurosthenic on the court and an egoist in his personal life. Around the same time I was watching the American TV series 'City on a Hill' where Kevin Bacon played an FBI agent with a very similar character, it was very interesting to find similar acting techniques in the work of these two masters.
A worthy partner of Porechenkova in the series was Ravshana Kurkova, but she had more difficult, since her character in the script is spelled out very schematically. However, scripts are a common weakness of most Russian TV series, 'The Seagulls' - no exception, some storylines in the 16-episode series appear out of nowhere and break into nowhere, and most characters are marked by two or three strokes.
To play Lena - the team doctor and ' spare' the love of the main character did not make Yulia Melnikova any trouble - she just uttered memorized lines, without investing any spiritual strength in her character. About the same worked and Ivan Mulin, in the performance of which the military sailor looked in places just parody. His partner Alexander Bogdanova as a whole coped with the key role of Katya, although in some places she simply traveled on external data.
The luck can be attributed to the character of Ieva Andreevai, who, despite a bunch of blunders in the script, managed to reveal the character of his heroine. And, of course, the amazing grandfather of Winter performed by the wonderful Sergei Migitsko.
In general - ordinary Russian series, not a masterpiece, but to look at the dream coming is quite possible.
Following the instagram Ravshana Kurkova and Sheker Khodjaeva for their participation in the filming of this series was waiting for its release, and now the series came out, and here it is viewed, and it is ..., of course, a waste of time and just disgusting. Disappointment. Directing, scripting, sports, whatever.
After all, a person who watches modern foreign TV productions - any - on foreign streaming services, or Korean dramas, or Bollywood fun film festivals, or even original good titles produced by Russian SREDA and PREMIER, not to say that spoiled - but we can talk about a certain level - in the mass is guaranteed to get what he is looking for. Not necessarily of the highest quality - rather, it is usually a spectacle for a strong four, but it is exactly conditional ' Four' (plus or minus). Five points, I mean. Normally made product, which in some places may be ashamed, but not ashamed of the overall result. You just need to find your viewer, and different methods and approaches are used here.
What the creators of 'Seagull' used, and what audience they aimed at, is not clear at all, because no one, except grandmothers watching the channel ' Russia', comes to mind. ' Seagulls' is an assessment '2' in all respects - the work of the writers, the work of the director, the editor, the work of the actors in general to create internal chemistry between the characters, etc.
It seems that viewers of domestic television live completely, exclusively in their own world. In which there are no foreign sports series, which can (and should) be equal - series, consistently and with a narrative, building and overall dramaturgy, and motivation - both personal and sports - characters. In which there is no normally prescribed chemistry between the actors, it is only clear that the actors are working & #39; Sport is a spherical horse in a vacuum, not a story of overcoming living people, which must be understood, felt, and then correctly shown.
' Seagulls' - this is, instead of a story never shown in this format of women's volleyball - (hereinafter -! NOT spoilers!) a few cheap near-criminal plots in the spirit of NTV; + everyone sleeps with everyone; + the dream of every woman - to get married / or at least find a man; + in each series a lot of alcohol, alcohol and again alcohol; + the head coach, despite the fact that the Olympic champion, - not a drop of human dignity, an abuser and a harasser; + directly volleyball part (rose roses with everyone, even a series full of sports, as a series of real life, probably 16). In contrast to the reasoning and reflections in the spirit ' Do you love me? and I do not have you', the sweet molasses of which are poured in excessive quantities (with replicas of the most consumer quality) in every episode of God.
The work of the director-editor reaches such absurdity that the character Sheker Khodjaeva, who appears in the middle of the season for a series and a half and then in the 11th series, finally drops out of the current events due to his deportation to another country, or what, suddenly appears in the last series. Where did it come from on the floor?
And, most importantly, in the series - no motivating stories, those about overcoming, metamorphosis, about zeal, sports spirit. In the last series, they try to squeeze something similar, but this is already a frank tracing from American similar films of the near-sport genre, this tracing does not precede anything previous episodes, neither in the development of the characters themselves, nor in the general construction of the logic of events, therefore it is not perceived as a competently prescribed culmination.
Contexts of the series: about feminism? Past. About perseverance, character and universal dignity? Past. About uncompromising and inner core? Past. About the sport itself? Past. About the metamorphosis and content of the Personality? Past. .. What did you want to say about it?
Bad, friends. Poorly done work, a bunch of individual puzzles, some of which are cute, but all together don't add up to any big picture at all. The participation of Ravshana Kurkova (she - and Ilya Lyubimov - turned out to be more or less the most lively / adequate character in the ongoing show) does not justify this thoroughly clichéd and toothless spectacle.
Well, the final moral - if modern Russian sport is this, it is not surprising that modern Russian sport has such achievements. We don't need candy like that.