I will break the review into three parts: audiovisual, story-narrative, spiritual-content.
1. Audiovisual. I watched this movie in 2022. Even adjusted for the year of creation, this is a stunningly shot movie with great style, soundtrack and casting. The gloomy city, the appearance and outfits of the spittlefish, their pupils are set up for a frivolous “horrible” manner. But all together it works in an amazing way.
2. The composition of the narrative is filigree. The full picture is formed throughout the film, overgrown with details and unusual for cinema literary depth. The plot keeps in suspense, the personal and global narrative lines are neatly intertwined, live touches like meeting at the airport or a restaurant knee-deep in the water relieve tension and cause a smile. Very touching and tenderly conveyed this atmosphere of camaraderie inherent in a bygone era. Now the word "comrade" is simply archaism, which is a verbal marker of the era. Our parents had a different meaning in that word. It is difficult for us in the post-Christian world to understand this spirit. It was most pleasant for me to plunge into this atmosphere of a kind Soviet and intelligent scoop, and smile with sadness at what our grandfathers and grandmothers were so longing for.
3. And most importantly. What's the point, brother? The author deconstructs humanism. True, undiluted humanism, not modern Western caricature degenerated into a tool of struggle for the rights of lovers of deviation. He draws two lines of this humanism - a simple human, which is personified by the protagonist and his ascetics. And the second - without flaws, the real, which the author only describes in the form of a silhouette, without giving it an exact definition or face. It is only through children that we are hinted at its universal grandeur and significance. In the end, the author rejects it. Dooming the idea and the authors of this maxim to death. Possible followers of non-viability in our world. Essentially condemning rational humanism, even in the form of a maxim attained, to inevitable disintegration like any other fruit of this world. The author argues that the modern world without external intervention is not capable of radical changes for the better. The catalyst for such a change is a natural cataclysm, which grants divine enlightenment to the dark apostles of humanism. In place and the opportunity to work miracles. The mission of preaching has not gone anywhere – the apostles teach, transmit knowledge and concept. It is also clear from one dialogue that a person can turn and become one of them. The main character is a kind of Judas in reverse. He does not want to accept the teachings of the Great Humanism fully, yet sympathizes with it, considering “his” wrong. The result: the triumph of fear of otherness and destruction. The victory of the militarist Pharisees over the apostles of pure reason. But reasonable humanism does not abandon its church, and the leader who promises to be always there until the end of the century simply does not exist.
After watching, I will naturally read the book. The film caused a storm of emotions and a desire to write a review, and this happens to me once in a couple of years. I recommend to view: fans of Strugatsky and other Soviet fiction. Maybe art house lovers, but they might not come in. I don't recommend the others. It's a niche movie.
For a long time, I have been looking at the films of the main post-Soviet art house director Konstantin Lopushansky - but I still did not dare to take up: then I could not choose a specific one, then the mood is not that.
And so, on the train Bryansk-Moscow, touching the ferret breaking out of tattooed hands - the ferret, by the way, rode without a special receipt, on the rights of hand luggage - took over. And I watched "Despicable Swans" on the story of the Struatskys.
Well, first of all, the art house (at least in this case) was not quite grinding - and in principle, to an unprepared viewer, unless he is tired of long plans, Swans can be seen boldly. Secondly... I don’t know what the second thing is.
First of all, the film impresses with the atmosphere (and by the way, the atmosphere is close to stalker), which is achieved by the manner of shooting, playing with color and sound. Next comes an authentic setting: closed to an anomaly city, mysterious and creepy-looking lice, acting as a guru for human children. Well, everything in the end - and the atmosphere, and the set, and the pressure - comes down to a climax, like a catharsis, designed to open the viewer's eyes to what is happening (not only on the screen, by the way). But catharsis doesn't happen. Personally, I, in any case, to the denouement and semantic core of history remained almost indifferent - and now I will try to explain why.
The ideological content of the film, it seems to me, was invariably exported from the segment of late Soviet "humanistic" fiction, the motto of which can be stretched to the phrase "man - it sounds proud." I did not read the original source (because, in principle, as a child somehow could not "make friends" with the Strugatskys - finding shelter in the "Bulychev camp"), but the film at the last depth is filled with a specific pathos characteristic of this fiction, and this pathos is very straightforward. But... The time of _that_fiction - for good or bad - in that form (I make an important reservation - because the tradition is alive) is gone, gone, perhaps irrevocably. And today, a work that speaks a literary language that has fallen out of use is perceived... well, somewhat naively (although you should make a discount for the year of release - 2006). In any case, the final throw of the Swans seemed to me disproportionate to the swing - and at the bottom of the anomalous funnel something more transcendental was expected than an understandable, correct, but well-known slogan. Therefore, in the end, I perceive the film primarily as an adaptation of a specific text - but connoisseurs of the original, by the way, say that there is very little left of the original.
But the experience is interesting, and I will continue to watch the films of K. Lopushansky.
After the atmospheric and authentic "Watch" at the beginning of zero, the situation with fiction in Russian cinema became frankly deplorable. Even the film adaptations of the best science fiction writers were not saved by the frankly weak directorial incarnations of the best books, such as, for example, The Inhabited Island. Therefore, Lopushansky should be thanked at least for the fact that the characters from the pages of the book seemed to come straight to the screen.
Gloomy and depressing with its atmosphere, the film from the first frames immerses in the hopelessness and hopelessness of the situation of the city in which the leprosy is located. As a fan of the book, I am quite biased towards any film adaptation of the work, but this film deserves to stand on the same shelf with Tarkovsky’s Stalker.
“Despicable swans” are amazing in that, with a minimum number of special effects, it looks like real high-budget fiction thanks to a philosophical parable wrapped in the entourage of red light and Banev’s throws.
This is not a movie that you want to watch often, but if you want to, you will need to tune in. But it's definitely worth the attention on a rainy autumn evening.
Strugatsky than good: in most of their works there is no unequivocal answer. There are no good or bad characters. Well, except maybe Vyggallo as a prime example of idiocy. Strugatsky, as authors, always think themselves and most importantly - give the reader the opportunity to think.
The book ' Despicable Swans' is no exception. Read and reread and each time a new meaning. Almost Dostoevsky. You read in your youth - Banev is an old and lazy soul, but a kind uncle. In maturity, he is a really good person. Not to mention weeds and children. And so on.
There's none of that in the movie. The film is one-sided in its interpretation. That’s what makes it not so good, in my opinion. And not that it is filmed on motives and cut individual, very atmospheric and semantic dialogues. If you were to strain a little more in search of the author’s view, then it would even turn out a great movie. Because it's not boring, despite the rain.
There is no clear answer: good movies or bad movies. At least in this agreed the authors of the film with Strugatsky.
This film is more likely to be attributed to the genre of author's film, so It turned out peculiar and gloomy. By virtue of the above, I will not evaluate, but fans of fiction based on Strugatsky novels may like it.
Having read the reviews of the film and upset probably by the next ' author' distortion of the whole atmosphere of the literary work going beyond the relevance of the moment and becoming timeless, randomly viewed five moments from the film, and yes the atmosphere is completely destroyed, and his own too, too small momentary, and secondary to other films.
So, what I saw - Banev - a flimsy intellectual, not a native of the people, hardened by war and resting on his laurels writer, here it was necessary to remove Zakhar Prilepin - from an exact hit in the image, with his biography and reflections. Children are knocked out of a lot of horror movies about stuffed schools. Lice are agents of influence like aliens. Kourtnev is also an actor, linear and bored. And the hotel restaurant flood! And parallels with modernity also do not add atmosphericity to the film - well, where they are, Your children ' Indigo' - I do not see their manifestations, and just they are not in the generation, of course, my children - gopniks, crazies, fans, etc., well, as in every generation, there is, a ' Indigo' turned out to be another ' divorce' at the level of Chumak with Kashpirovsky.
4 out of 10
Solo on saxophone, or welcome to Tashlinsk, Mr. viewer
It’s one of the movies I’ve watched 15 times and I’ll probably watch 10 more.
Just because I wanted to be in that atmosphere again and again. I wanted to live like Banev, I would like to be Banev. I would like to be a famous writer, so much so that one can safely enter the UN commission. I would love to live in the archives, cooking a simple meal on a mini stove and warming my hands over a teapot with hot water. I would like to walk around Tashlinsk and see this red glow. And the main thing is to feel that there are other living beings in the world who draw inspiration not in the endless pursuit of some nonsense (career-machine-mortgage-you need a new phone, etc.), but in the development and training of others.
The film is excellent: atmospheric, infrared. Not perfect: there are no circles on the water from the rain, I did not like the shot with flying children - it smells like Harry Potter. Otherwise, I feel so good. I would like even more atmosphere, which draws from the first frames - the fire, past which the train rides the main character.
About the story, which I read 3 times, and now read the fourth in the composition ' Lame fate' (who does not understand what I mean, google), you can talk for a long time, but not only the idea is subtracted from it ' oh, bad cattle on good loins comes' There is quite an idea that a person does not have the right to raise his own children, he should give them to people who love to read & #39; and they will make of them those who will simply waste their ancestors, because the unworthy, undeveloped, do not read.
What did Lopushansky do with the writers? In my opinion, he deprived the novel of its destructive and questionable message. This is not seen at point-blank range, because Strugatsky for certain reasons are perceived as people who wrote about 'good' and 'dark'. But these authors are not so simple.
What's the result? Ira is again with us, unfortunately, the return to reality occurs through torture, but listening to the mesmerizing and final solo on the saxophone at the end (one of the best film compositions in the history of cinema), we read in her look at the stars that until the end in her desire for another life did not kill.
The main thing is that this does not happen to us.
“Despicable Swans” is the most spectator picture of Lopushansky, made moreover almost according to the canons of the thriller, but this does not become weaker than his other works. For the first time, taking up the adaptation of a literary work, the director only won in the clarity and clarity of his artistic statement, showing himself, among other things, also a talented reader. Work on the screen adaptation of the story of the Strugatsky brothers returned the director to the origins of his work in the film “Letters of a Dead Man”, on the script of which Boris Strugatsky worked.
For this reason, the discourse about the fate of humanism is resurrected again in the aesthetic universe of Lopushansky, but from a slightly different angle than in his full-length debut: if in “Letters...” the marginalization of humanism by brutal and embittered misanthropes did not cause any sympathy either for the director or the viewer, their sympathy was entirely on the side of Larsen and the pastor, then in “Despicable Swans” before us – a complex logical equation with many unknowns. Never before has Lopushansky so voluminously and multidimensionally confronted the opposing positions: people who view the locusts and their pupils as enemies, transgressing the laws of humanity in the name of their own security, and the objects of their hatred, robotic games of pure intelligence, do not believe people and despise them.
The protagonist finds himself, as if between two fires, not taking a position, he, like Larsen, seeks to solve this monstrous moral dilemma on the basis of humanism, but he is actually one, and therefore all his peacekeeping aspirations are doomed to failure. Children from the school of the locusts are a metaphor for the future missed for humanity, when the upbringing of a new generation is controlled by someone else, turning it into a sum of emotional disabled, hyper-developed intellectually, but with heart, as a hero from the story of Keyes “Flowers for Algernon”, remaining at a primitive level.
The problem posed by Strugatsky, the director himself defined (in the discussion of his picture in the television program “Closed Show”) as “the confrontation of intellect and anti-intellect”, meaning, in our opinion, not the struggle of reason with the irrational. On the contrary, children do not reason as rationalists, but rather as existentialists who have lost faith in the prospects for the development of civilization; they themselves, like the lice, are the irrational Other, from which people tend to get rid of as soon as possible, because they do not understand. But both Strugatsky and Lopushansky himself are far from idealizing children and sputum: in the film (I don’t know how in the novel, I haven’t read) they appear as a kind of robots of intelligence, creatures with hypertrophy of the spiritual principle and atrophy of everything else.
Of course, one can doubt how convincing the philosophizing of children looks in the film, how organic the performers are, but the director wanted to achieve the effect of stiffness and emotional deadening from them, so that their reasonings caused a splash along with confusion, these are no longer people. Like many other science fiction writers, the Strugatskys wondered about the prospects for the evolution of humanity as a species, thought about the leap as a breakthrough on the other side of the current degradation, because they have mutants-mokretsy – their own rada of apostles of spirituality, which is no longer needed by humanity.
But the very results of their upbringing of children are monstrously cruel: after all, their childhood, emotions, joy of life have been stolen, they are already deep old people who have lost faith in life, so at least it follows from Lopushansky’s film. In “Letters of a Dead Man”, “Russian Symphony” and here, in “Despicable Swans”, the director develops the same theme: what will happen to the living future of mankind (children), if no one needs them, no one is going not only to save them, but even to educate them? After all, simply monstrous are people’s attempts to “reformat” the consciousness of the pupils of the locusts – this is the path to disaster, to depersonalization.
On the other hand, the same locusts are nothing more than a metaphor of anti-civilization-minded cultural figures (some Nietzsche or Sartre – are they not locusts?) who raise children (of course, not entire classes and schools, but the most talented of them through self-education). After all, young misanthropes opposed to world culture and civilization are making modern art and science today, aren’t they?! Therefore, the very name “Despicable Swans” is not just a hint at Andersen’s fairy tale, but a reflection on what the result of the upbringing of Alien children is, the Other, antihuman and antihumanist principle. They're terrible and beautiful at the same time, these kids.
Lopushansky’s “Despicable Swans” is a reflection on missed educational opportunities: when people no longer believe in humanism and become cynical and ruthless, their children are kidnapped by the Other of culture and are brought up according to other, anti-humanistic laws. The hero Gladia is such a late Larsen, he can not do anything, time is lost. This picture is also about the end of the world, like everything in Lopushansky, but shows the apocalypse in a new dimension - as the loss of contact of humanity with its own future.
The infrared tones of aggression and the coming slide of the world into the infernal dimension are used by the director maniacally consistently, from picture to picture, but nowhere else, as in Despicable Swans, the viewer was not so afraid both visually and mentally. Shot as a thriller, tense, fascinating, without lacunae and pauses, this tape is one of the most powerful statements of Konstantin Lopushansky on the topics that concern him, primarily about the painful gap within the time triad, here the present misses its future, contact between them is lost, apparently forever, because the viewer is afraid.
If you love the Strugatskys - do not look at them - you will spit like me. Strugatsky is very unlucky with film adaptations, and I understand why. Due to their cult status, only very ambitious directors take on this, and they really want to bring something of their own. I don't like Stalker Tarkovsky, who made a rabid Redrik Schuhart a low-will reflective Stalker. And here Lopushansky not only turned Banev into no one understands, he also distorted the plot, replacing the central theme of the book (the ruthlessness of progress) with a banal political pamphlet about the opposition of bad authorities and good opposition children.
In this film, the story of the Strugatskys is presented, in my opinion, only in the form of some prehistory. So to say the background for revealing the main story.
And this background (book) antagonizes with the main message of the film. But how good or bad it is is hard to say. The brothers themselves, according to the director, said it was even better. I don't know.
The Strugatsky protagonist Banev does not understand that the goals and objectives of the new branch of evolution are different from the goals of our world. In the book, he expresses fears that there will be another attempt to build a new Tower of Babel.
Well, now that we see that the Soviet Union no longer exists, the film has this idea. Borya Kunitsa concludes that our world has already died, and humanity is just a tombstone, incapable of further preserving itself.
It is also believed that the world is at a crossroads. In the future, we see one side of this choice. And it is taken, apparently, from the Apocalypse (Revelation of John the Theologian):', twice dead, living after the death of God' The second part of the expression is not quite clear, if at first it refers to the first resurrection and the second postmortem, then in the second part it is possible to talk about some special view on the eschatological perspective.
In general, the film left a double sensation, in the recording of the radio station of students, which was listened to by Banev, it is said that they failed to approach the truth, but only to look at the world from the opposite side. Are they just students?
The title justifies itself - a nasty movie. It stinks of such a Soviet spirit, ideas about the world of the period of stagnation, and Sovietism climbs over the edge like runaway dough. What, however, does this mean, what are the generic signs of homo sovieticus? The desire to take a risk, buying something from the Farmers or endless conversations in the notorious "kitchen"? There's a scene in the film that shows how intelligent people can comfortably make this kitchen. From the ceiling pours, the bath is full of dirty water, and the characters argue about world problems amid a sloppy kettle, a bottle of vodka and cucumber on the table. Does the word “wet” not cause disgust? (in a normal person?)
Infantilism in thought and action is the main difference between the Soviet people. Not paying much attention to what is around, they set themselves tasks and issues that are not at all amenable to solution. (Here's at least about the "weeds"). From the point of view of moral philosophy, entangled in three pines, but certainly on a global eschatological scale. Indeed, it is hard to be a god. As they say, a hundred sages will not be able to answer questions, which puts one “fool”. In our case, two. The Strugatskys, after the young pathos of the commune withered, constantly kept fig in their pocket. And this "fig" was exactly what the Soviet kitchen education mainly "baldela".
What about "Despicable Swans" (a film for which, according to the director, he received a blessing from Strugatsky himself)? This is not just the eternal problem of fathers and children. Some scoundrels, forgive me, brilliant “wet men” take away children, seducing them with miracles – this is also a common practice of totalitarian sects. For the sake of faith/progress, for reasons of religion/humanism, will you give your child to someone unknown? At Strugatsky, then at Lopushansky this is questioned. What can one think of the morality preached by these “masters of culture”? Yes, duboloms in epaulettes look like angels against the background of our reflecting intellectuals. It's fantastic, it won't be. But where, then, is the notorious “relevance” of the Strugatskys’ prose and film? What a miracle, by the way. A little levitation (Tarkovsky in “Stalker” had telekinesis), and abstruse speeches of nerds in black turtlenecks – in the film there is no alternative to sinful humanity. All right, a few pompous and empty words. Talking. "Kitchen."
The moral conflict seems to be outlined, but does it reach philosophical understanding? There's nothing original about it. The remark is absolutely correct, with one specification: I really consider this “philosophy” to be “the origin of the scoop.” As you know, philosophy is different. French is now in vogue and German classic used to be. The first rejects the second, but with our historical experience we have a very indirect relationship to both. In the recent past, we have developed a special "philosophy" - Soviet. Its essence was to talk about a bright future and ignore, smooth out real problems. The S. brothers did not go far from this Soviet product, although many of their fans believe otherwise. At first they dreamed and wrote about the bright future, and then realized that it would not happen. That's their whole step forward. But their utopia was replaced not by dystopia, but by some dreary hopelessness. Sovok did not know, did not understand for itself a Worthy Future, although he desperately wanted to emigrate from his present. The fiction of the Strugatskys, in my opinion, is the playback of such an escape with questionable moral grounds.
It would seem that all this should die out. Ah, no, the smoker's alive. Popular characters of the TV party, who were after the release of the film at Gordon’s discussion “GD” (Massovka-approval) approve of all nonsense, this confirms. What is “Wild Swans” if not a sample of black, which was in abundance poured on the screens during the “catastrophe”. All around this endless rain, devastation and ruins, among them wander and talk strange people. Here they added tortured children who hardly understood what they had to say. It's on the screen, but if you go back to the literary basis, the Strugatskys are an important element of Soviet culture. This is not because they have great literary abilities. That just didn't happen. The level of “brotherly” fiction is not much higher than the general Grafomance writing of Soviet NF collections. But the prose of the “Natanychi” touched the living Soviet man, because in the language available to him, it asserted what he felt himself. The country and society are at an impasse, it is necessary to somehow get out (as in the old Soviet anecdote: “To build an eroplane for the f***ing mother of this kolkhoz!”). And in what way is another question. You can reach for the remains of an alien picnic on the side of the road or here - with the help of mutants. It is not a shame to burn down your house. Thus, our lice infected a lot of their admirers - the latter had only to want.
We wanted to. And how was it to cope with the viruses of this epidemic, the spiritual viruses in the body of our culture, insisting on its deadlock and hopelessness, which are disastrous for it, but so actively spread!
Many of his followers and his followers left behind. And how much more alive is it?
Stalkers-farters, locusts-dissidents, and other immigrants and mutants destroyed the old order. And so the population of the former Sovka, jostling with unexpected freedom, sent it to their favorite address; created a much more ridiculous social order and a wilder culture-cartoons than in times of stagnation I say. Of course, about "my" understanding. But it also has a direct bearing on the film. The Sow has been revived in a fantastic way and in a fantastic volume – that’s the problem. I would be glad not to scold him and switch, but it does not work. I switch TV channels – there are superscoops, I look around – young people born during the period of “perestroika” behave and reason like typical Komsomol activists, somewhat in other terms, but more cynical. Soviet intellectuals climbed from somewhere and interpret the water in the stupa, discussing the film adaptation of works that are good if they were interesting only to researchers of the genre.
2 out of 10
The next logical step after reading the Strugatskys’ own story “Despicable Swans” (before that I had not read anything from them) and going to the grandiose “Normansk” in the Meyerhold Center (and I because of it, i.e., just started reading it in advance) was watching the film of the same name.
Here I opened Kinopoisk, saw a rating of 7.1, a lot of positive reviews and... well, to say that surprised – nothing to say. There is such a picture ... a meme where a person with ecstasy pulls his hair out. This is me watching this movie.
Well, Yeklmn, what kind of boundless selfishness (what else can you call it?) in directors / screenwriters, when a good book should not be left on stone? Judging by the reviews, I can see that a lot of people have rolled. Maybe I don't understand something, after all, not an expert on Strugatsky. But I'm sure I got the message right (although, by the way, by the end, there were questions). But what the filmmakers did with the original source, I do not consider either justified or expedient, nor, especially, brilliant and thoughtful. Frankly, this is hellish shit. It feels like the guys were filming something. Some kind of fantasy. So have a conscience, write at least “for reasons”. I’m not one of those bores who in every film adaptation picky about the fact that every book was like in a book. I often like writers’ fantasies about a given topic. Although, I think, if you film someone else’s work, then to cover its original plot with your fantasies, no matter how good they are, is, again, a kind of creative egoism. In principle, this story often happens in the theater, when the director, instead of revealing the essence of what he puts, begins to express himself desperately.
So, in this particular case, it is not right to talk about “differences” with the text, but ... I do not even know. I think it's easier to identify what's left of the book than to identify those discrepancies. Reminds me of a lousy fanfic on the source material. What kind of a UN commission? What chemical weapons? There's nothing left of the plot. It smells like a cheap American disaster movie (although, due to a number of other advantages, it is still much better). Why should the characters be renamed? You couldn't call that girl Ira. Just Irma. Or this village woman here is not Lola. Well, yeah, they have her Lyuda... Why?!
Now, the plot is a complete failure. Totally. In the dry residue, we get a humanist writer who burns the hearts of the locusts and people with the verb and saves unfortunate children (who have become even more unhappy as a result) from a chemical scourge (which seems to come from somewhere from the West). In the climactic moment, drama is just on the verge of fiction. Banev in the most primitive way implores the spittlefish “let the children go, take it better than me”, and these arrogant creatures, which in the book you can not move from their place at all, instantly listen to him! I can't stand up.
There is no romance left with Diana (who is not Diana at all). There are no conversations “for life” with bohemian drinkers (and in the book these conversations are the juice). The saturation was generally minimal. With a modest duration, the film is also diluted to the edges with long close-ups of all sorts of puddles, water, glass; brooding faces and other peepers. Everything looks like a false meaning behind which nothing is hidden.
Things are a little better with the atmosphere and with the created world as such. At first, I was greatly strained by the yellow instagram filters of the solar “outer world” – apparently, to better contrast with the gloomy city. Fortunately, the rain is going well. But in this city for some reason eternal red night. Scared Soviet apartments themselves look quite colorful and convincing, but very unsuccessfully diluted with modern details such as a completely fresh Toyota or laptop. Completely evaporated from the film all the locations, so colorfully described in the book - and the gates of the leprosarium with a tower, and a sanatorium with piles of drunken carcasses, and a luxurious restaurant - the eternal residence of the bohemian (cognac! lamprey!) I was really hoping to see it all in the movie, but... nothing, nothing left. Well, everything is so clear before our eyes that it remains to imagine this world only in the imagination. It's a brazen lie, though. There is one place that the filmmakers spared. School. Great school! Great kids! Great scene of Banev meeting with students. My favorite. True, here for some reason already the lice are teaching children levitation and other joys, but this is returning to the godlessly redrawn scenario ... When it comes to school, I have no questions.
Smoothly move on to the characters and repeat that the children turned out just GOOD. It's better than Norman (I mean the show). And their talk, and those fabulous black suits. And, it seems, the untouched text of the original source in the scene of the meeting with Banev ... And Irma's eyes? And this little boy in the front row? And the levitation class? That's great, that's great! Hogwarts is resting.
And the wetheads? They're amazing! Unfortunately, they didn’t have much airtime. But in this film everything is on the principle of “good little”.
And what a beautiful courtney turned out! It is even smaller, so quality triumphs over quantity.
And finally, the main joy. Banev. Just because they have Banev, you can forgive them everything. All abuse of the original source can be forgiven. For the way they made Baneva, for the kids and for the wetheads. The writer, by the way, while reading, absolutely did not introduce himself. Then there was Banev from Normansk, who at first did not seem convincing, and then, while running after him on the floors, kind of got used to it. But this, performed by Gregory Gladius, conquered completely.
I can’t say at all that I liked the film. And I can't say, "Mimimi, look for it." I don't know if it's worth watching at all... In general, many important thoughts are preserved there. Although many more are cut, as well as most of the original... For those who have read it, you can watch it. Those who have not read, you can generally calmly evaluate without any ... comparisons. I got very contrasting emotions from watching, for this I am grateful to this strange picture, perhaps.
I scrolled in my head a terrifying false story and bland dialogue, appreciated the degree of loss of the essence of the work. Then I remembered once again the children in the black, luxurious wetheads and Banev - just the right one. And with a hard heart, I drew a six for the film. Although you can still separate the grain from the chaff and cleverly draw two estimates: 2 and 9. And yet,
“Despicable swans” is best viewed in comparison with the story of the Strugatsky brothers of the same name. And although the science fiction writers participated in writing the script, the film by Konstantin Lopushansky in places differs significantly from the original literary version.
Let's start with the main character. If in the novel Viktor Banev is a writer, rude to the President himself, and sent to indefinite exile in his native city, then in the film he is already a member of the UN Commission for the Study of anomalous natural phenomenon.
Actually, the anomalous phenomenon and its causes in the film are preserved unchanged. The so-called “wet people” made an incessant rain over Baneva’s hometown, which made it look like a kind of Venice. But if in the story the territory of the "mokretsov" was limited to a carefully guarded leprosarium, then in the film the whole city falls into a special zone.
And then there are children (including Banev’s daughter), who are taught by the “mokretsy”. Not like anyone else, leading eerily intellectual discussions.
And then there are significant differences. In the story, the “wet men” came from the future. The future is so ugly that they decided to change the past. Fairly believing that adults can no longer be corrected, they took up the education of children. In fact, they were very successful.
In the film, the fantastic element is minimized. And who are the “wet people” remains unclear. But, despite all their power, the authorities decide to close the issue of the anomaly in a cardinal way - spraying a reagent over the city that kills all life.
Yes, the film lost its ending in the globality of the questions posed, but probably it was inevitable. You have to choose between great ideas and story dynamics. Still, Lopushansky intended to shoot not an elite film, but a picture designed for the mass audience. However, his interpretation is worthy of the original. It turned out quite independent work with its own philosophy and view of the world.
9 out of 10
For several decades, directors have drawn inspiration from the works of the Strugatsky brothers. Indeed, although their books are not easy to read at night, they are fascinating and multifaceted. One and the same work, read the first time at twelve, and the second time at twenty, is perceived quite differently; in other words, with age, a person plunges deeper into the book, finding at the bottom more and more new topics that he did not notice in the work before. But, unfortunately, in the modern world, not everyone can master the literary works of the Strugatskys in view of the lack of time, and here directors come to the rescue, filming the works of the brothers.
One of the most striking film adaptations I consider the Russian-French film tragedy ' Despicable Swans' filmed by Konstantin Lopushansky on the novel of the same name by the Strugatsky brothers, banned in the USSR.
According to the plot of the picture, battered by life, writer Viktor Banev (Grigory Glady) arrives in the city of Tashlinsk together with the UN Commission for the Study of the Phenomenon of the So-called Wetheads. However, unlike the other members of the commission, Victor’s motive is personal – after all, in this city under the infrared sky there is a gloomy boarding school, where his daughter (Rimma Sargsyan) and several dozen more brilliant children are taught by those very mysterious creatures. There is no other way to get to Tashlinsk – the city, flooded by incessant rain, is recognized as a place of climatic and genetic anomaly, and therefore is fenced from the world by the strictest checkpoints and energy barriers.
And who are they, these wetheads? ': They're different. And they are the enemy' – gives the answer humanity in the face of the dwarf Dr. Pellman already in the fifth minute of the film. Yes, they are different, but is that a reason to call them enemies? As you know, enemies must be destroyed. According to scientists, these wonderful creatures have declared a silent war on humans, and the only way for us to win it will be a chemical attack on them. Upon learning of this, Victor rushes to help the students with the evacuation, but suddenly it turns out that they, at twelve years old, see all of humanity as a dirty, drunken old man who has gone through hell, because he deserves nothing else, decide to stay with the wetheads even at the cost of their death. Thus, Viktor Banev faces a difficult task - to find out who the locusts are, why these creatures need children and why students are so tightly attached to them. Moreover, the writer needs to convince these older serious and somewhat dreary children to change their decision, if only because his daughter, too, preferred death with lice than life in the "Reign of platitude, glorifying its own emptiness" 39; The end of the film is ambiguous - someone can call him happy, and the other categorically disagree with this opinion.
A person familiar with the works of Tarkovsky, it will be noticeable that ' Despicable Swans' filmed with an eye on his films, and this is not accidental - because in his youth Lopushansky was an assistant on the set of the legendary ' Stalker'. The atmosphere ' Despicable Swans' rather gloomy, and probably for the first ten minutes, some will even want to pause the film and watch something more entertaining, but soon the viewer plunges headlong into this raininess and is unlikely to be able to come off all the next hour and a half.
Also, it can not but rejoice that the director refused the Russian “star actors” & #39; and this gives the gloomy atmosphere of the film some freshness. Especially remarkable is the power of the play of children, in whose characters teenage decadence forms a nuclear mixture with adult skepticism. As for the costumes of the heroes, they are extremely simple - black hoods and raincoats, and thanks to this intentional simplicity, the viewer pays attention not to the clothes of people, but to their appearance and character.
As a result of Lopushansky’s cooperation with the French film studio, it turned out to be a fantastic film tragedy in the spirit of Stalker' with a similar longing for something unrealizable and conviction that the world has rotten to the ground. And the fault of the people who led the world to a state close to the apocalypse. Moreover, the director hints that the cause of this apocalypse will not be nuclear weapons, but the callousness and narrowness of people who consider everyone who somehow stands out from the faded biomass as enemies. The problem, which because of its acuteness became taboo in the Soviet Union, is still relevant today.
10 out of 10
The peculiarity of this film, apparently, is its focus on causing the viewer a cultural shock, deep inner experiences and reflection. In Konstantin Lopushansky and his film "Despicable Swans" (2006), this turned out to be extremely successful. The film is based on the work of the same name by the Strugatsky brothers, the most prominent Russian science fiction writers of the twentieth century.
While watching the film quite often there were various associations, for example, with the picture "Stalker", and here everything is quite obvious, because Konstantin Lopushansky is a student and follower of the great Andrei Tarkovsky. Both of these directors definitely have a great love of nature, which in itself is a natural source of artistic imagery. First of all, water plays an important role, rusting in “Stalker” and endless in the movie “Despicable Swans”. In the film, we see the climatic anomaly of a single “zone” – the city of Tashlinsk. It rains all the time.
At the same time, the film perfectly shows the extent to which man is an adaptable creature, he can adapt even in conditions of a global flood. The water keeps coming, and people open cafes - you have to live somehow. What is it but an impromptu picnic on the sidelines? With all the gloomy philosophical background, “Despicable Swans” is a humane movie.
The main character of the film is Viktor Banev (Grigory Glady), a famous writer, a member of the UN commission that decides what to do and who is to blame for everything. The main plot is that in the city of Tashlinsk there is a boarding school for brilliant children, almost Hogwarts, and strange creatures are taught in it "mokretsy" without faces and at least some manifestations of physicality. Children are frighteningly intelligent and morally much older than most adults. Little geniuses reflect on whether humanity is worthy of transformation and mercy, because vulgarity and spirituality dominate the world of people. Children have their own small world, and life beyond it seems impossible. In this regard, there was an association with the magnificent book by Mariam Petrosyan “The House in Which...”, which tells about a special community of extraordinary children for whom the appearance, namely that outside the walls of the “home”, is hostile and frightening.
Victor comes to Tashlinsk to pick up his daughter Ira, a boarding school pupil. Argues: “I know I’m a terrible father, but I have every right to take you out of here,” convinces her to leave, and she wants Dad, as a representative of the world of smart adults, to understand something. And he no longer has any rights, only an animal desire to save his wise and sad child, who has known the futility of life.
In addition to Grigory Gladius, the leading roles in the film were performed by St. Petersburg actors Leonid Brain and Sergei Barkovsky, better known for their theatrical works - their play is accurate and psychological. Musician Alexei Kortnev in the film is not a charming balagur, but a cruel person, weak in his own cruelty, he is afraid of everything unknown and unlike: “These children are completely different”.
“Despicable Swans” is an incredibly beautiful and harmonious film, you can see how attentive its creators were to the details – the play of light and shadow and other visualization elements. In this regard, I would like to note the brilliant camera work of Vladislav Gurchin, to whom we can also be grateful for the film “Bury Me Behind the Plinth” (director Sergey Snezhkin, 2008). The general idea and atmosphere of Despicable Swans has the effect of being plunged headlong into cold water. Mankind must become kinder, otherwise it will destroy itself, and no apocalypse is afraid of it. As Viktor Banev wisely observes: “To destroy the old world and build on its bones a new – old method, but it never brought anything good”. Thank you for this movie.
I can no longer remember which painting Lopushansky saw before - "Letters of a Dead Man" or "Despicable Swans". Probably, after all, “Letters ...”, too ambiguous reviews were from “Swans”. Critics reproached Lopushansky in "Tarkovism", and in imitation of himself, and in excessive, inappropriate arthouse. Viewers - in low-budget, obsession with the topic (again, they say, others!) and (a special kind of nose wrinkles) - in retreat from the original. I, to my shame, do not know the original, however - to no less shame (for the classic!) - I still do not hurry to get acquainted, remembering the disappointment that befell me after the Picnic on the Roadside. Yes, and that somehow do not go to me Strugatsky, since adolescence do not go ...
Perhaps my brain after Gregg Araki’s retrospective was already tuned to find some common idea, a link, but I thought it was no coincidence that the motifs that unite both Lopushansky’s paintings – all of which critics called “self-repeats”. And therefore, when one of the children said: “They created the world, which became your tombstone”, the footage from the “Letters” flashed in memory: a dead, destroyed by a nuclear strike world – a monument so monument, there is nowhere more than a gravestone. And the planes dropping chemicals on Tashlinsk in the final – as confirmation of this idea. No, now (after the fourth viewing), I am firmly convinced that both of these pictures should be watched in a row, and “Despicable Swans” is necessarily the first, so that in all the horror of its absurdity unfolded the stale struggle of man with otherness, which is, in fact, a struggle with himself.
But even excluding the familiar “they’re different and they’re the enemy,” Despicable Swans remains a very special and intimate film for me. Close as visual solutions: reddish glow, in which to the limit sharpened sounds and feelings hanging over the semi-submerged Tashlinsky sky; long shots, snatching from the darkness long corridors; and especially - the theme of inexhaustible longing for something unrealizable, distant, the quintessence of which is the incessant rain.
I am familiar with all the works of Strugatsky and as an expert I can say that K. Lopushansky worked on the topic deeper than the authors of the script. Undoubtedly, in terms of worldview and acting skills, this is an outstanding masterpiece of world art. It is a pity that the basic meaning of the work eludes most viewers.
It is obvious that humanity has exhausted itself and is striving for self-destruction. Nature needs a new ethically filled evolutionary branch, and it can be formed only by acting on the verge of a transcendental worldview with a risk to life, for Homo oranus root out such processes in the bud.
The theme of the ethical failure of mankind affects various films, from “Kin-Dza-Dza” by Danelia to “The Day the Earth Stood Still” by Darrickson. But such a deep penetration into the theme of the manifestation of the germ of posthumanity is visible only in the present work of K. Lopushansky.
I grew up with the Brothers. So I waited for the Despicable Swans with trepidation. I've seen it three times. Well... so it seems nothing – and dynamics, and intrigue... and directorial games with color – beautiful, nothing to say... and the entourage is familiar – Stalkerovsky (where now you get away from Tarkovsky!?
- There will be a black dog, and full compli!
And what will be thrown out of Victor’s affair with Diana is, apparently, only out of good intentions: not to obscure the main plot. Is it not enough that the Strugatskys tried it (the plot) and through the prism of the relationship between a man and a woman to convey!? – everyone knows how weak they are in this area – Luboff-Morkoff paint.
Okay. Let's move on. And fuck her, with the cheerful, when the kids soared in the lotus posture after the Master, the effort of thought overcoming gravity (Evon how to make noise on the top floor! - there antigravity is studied... But one thing is noise, and another - here they are, yogis flying (not tokmo jumping!) - with their own eyes (a kind of curtsy towards the East).
And you start to dull by the end of the movie: "Oh how! - gravitation is, it turns out, much easier to overcome than ... their own stupidity: wise teachers-"mokretsy" not a damn in the human psychology took them into the clutches of the commissions, with criminal naivety believe that if you take away children's childhood, it will be good, and in the end they are clearly not able to predict even the near future! ...
And then Mr. director Lopushansky seems to decide to finish off the confused viewer - he screws his own ending to the story of the classics: a completely grotesque mental hospital with Gestapo nurses and a 13-year-old "prisoner of Auschwitz."
Darkness, in short.
- Thank you, Kostya! Now it is already clear: well, this time you did not succeed in finishing the canvas of classics.
The provincial Russian town of Tashlinsk is captured by strange creatures who call themselves “Mokretsy”. They put invisible barriers around the city, prohibit entry and exit, and conduct some experiments there on children who become real prodigies under the influence of “wet children”. The writer Banev (Gladius) in Tashlinsk left his daughter Ira (Sargsyan). Banev, using his fame, falls into the international commission, whose members are allowed to enter the city. Once in Tashlinsk, Banev tries to figure out who these “mokretsy” are and whether they need to be protected from them.
On the one hand, the film “Despicable Swans” is a direct adaptation of one of the most famous and popular novels of the Strugatsky brothers. On the other hand, if you try to compare these two works on the level of thought and morality, then obvious and undisguised differences immediately arise, which, for sure, brought a lot of grief to the most loyal fans of Soviet science fiction. The main fundamental idea of the book (which Boris Natanovich later did not hide in his off-line interviews) was the thesis that “it is important to live for the sake of the future, but to die in time in the present.” All these external effects – rain, wetheads from a hopelessly spoiled future, child prodigies – only emphasized the complexity of the transition from the “old” world to the “new”.
Lopushansky's film, using the same images, provides us with a different side of this "medal." Cinema "wet" - a new branch of evolution, superhumans who remained misunderstood by modern people. We systematically destroy everything new, frightening, strange, not giving it a chance to prove itself in all its glory. Based on these new goals, Lopushansky dramatically changed the ending of the book, which caused additional outrage from fans. By the way, those who have read such Strugatsky things as “The Kid” and “The waves extinguish the wind”, will perfectly understand why the character of Gennady Komov was introduced into the narrative, which was not in the original story. We remember that he was obsessed with the idea of “vertical progress.” He was interested in the possibility of the emergence of a new species of humanity and worried about the coexistence of two civilizations on the same planet. The appearance of this hero is a very important and subtle hint to viewers familiar with the work of the Strugatskys.
In three words, I liked the movie. Yes, at times, Lopushansky went overboard with the visual component, apparently trying to imitate Tarkovsky. Yes, there were a few actors who were completely incomprehensible, especially some kids whose genius I didn't believe. But the approach to the source material and how Lopushansky introduced his own ideas and motives into this story pleased me. This is a truly author's film that is worth watching.
“Mom, we are all seriously ill... Mom, I know we've all gone mad. We are really mad if we are able to so ruthlessly and thoughtlessly bury our noses today to destroy and destroy our tomorrow, and there seems to be little that can save us. Humanity has grown old and is inevitably heading towards its end. It has become so old that the new and unknown no longer stimulates consciousness, but only causes rejection and fear. In a dense swamp, it is so warm and comfortable that we need distant stars.
The film is ambiguous. On the one hand, the all-consuming atmosphere of hopelessness with a burning and collapsing world, silence, the uniform sound of rain on the glass, white verse and music, introducing into a stupor - this absorbs and dissolves in itself, and on the other hand, a rather mediocre play of actors, a modest entourage, dialogues that cut the ear with the effect of a stop tap return to the ground. But everything changes in the last fifteen minutes, because when you look into the eyes of a broken child, you forget about all the details and nuances of the skin and feel the sentence. The verdict is that we have already dug our own grave, it remains only to push and we will make our last flight.
It is funny that the Strugatskys still hoped and believed in humanity, but Lopushansky, thirty years later, no longer exists.
The film is an adaptation of the eponymous story of the Strugatsky brothers. The problem is common to their work: the fate of our civilization. On one side, mutants are wetheads. They have technical capabilities that far exceed the knowledge and skills of our civilization. But their ethics are nonviolent action. Therefore, their tactic is to re-educate the most talented children. Preaching a thirst for knowledge, progress, they bring up a tough attitude to all the weaknesses, vices, contradictions of human nature. The youthful maximalism they cultivate turns into cruelty and cynicism in their desire to destroy the despised and imperfect adult civilization and build a qualitatively new society.
The trouble is that, in essence, our civilization has nothing to oppose the influence of the locusts in an honest ideological battle. Invited to children, the best representatives of earthly civilization in communicating with children are untenable. We have to admit that the vast majority of today’s earthlings do not seek any self-improvement, personality is leveled, hopes for development are illusory. Therefore, all talk about the useful influence of intellectuals on the mass of the population is more like a way of complacency, self-justification. The only way to preserve civilization is to destroy the wetheads by force, while it is still possible, punitive psychiatry for their pupils.
Lopushansky manages to extremely sharpen the situation, keep the viewer in suspense. He created a movie of moods: a wildfire at the beginning of the film, a flooded Tashlinsk, incessant rain - all this is an omen of inevitable doom; it can be postponed, but the spiritual weakness of civilization, which the most talented children refuse, is obvious.
But let's forget for a moment that we have mutants, let's take it as a metaphor. Instilling in pupils the desire for an ideal, a good teacher cannot but criticize the world around him, and therefore the lifestyle of the parents of these children, primitiveness, standardization of existence. The more authoritative the teacher, the more negative he charges students in relation to reality. But to live these children, raised on high ideals, in the society they despise. Will they? Hardly. What is their future? Break down in an unequal struggle? Don't change the world! So, urgently re-educate, become conformists? How do you solve this problem?
The strength of the film is not in the proposed solutions (there are none), but in the acuteness of the problem, its philosophical depth. In general, you need to watch the film to think.
Screening ABS is not an easy task, of course. But Lopushansky, in my opinion, coped with it with dignity.
A lot of people say that the film is very far away from the text. They present it as a flaw. But let me ask you, have you seen a lot of ABS movies that don’t deviate from the text? ' Stalker' Tarkovsky - a wonderful film, one of my favorite - a stone on a stone left from the novel ' Picnic On the Roadside' Sokurovskiy ' Days of Eclipse' - from the story 'For a billion years to the end of the world' And so - with almost every film adaptation, except, perhaps, ' Inhabited Island' Bondarchuk. 'Inhabited Island' - Yes, it follows the letter. But I don't think it gets any deeper. Bondarchuk made a good blockbuster. It is interesting to watch, but the essence of the book slipped away somewhere.
Lopushansky, I believe, found a successful compromise between spirit and letter. The atmosphere and, most importantly, the problems of the work conveyed accurately. Deviations from the text are justified by the fact that the action is transferred from some abstract world - from the blue folder of Felix Sorokin - to Earth, to Europe, to the European Union. And there is nothing terrible and reprehensible in this - on the contrary, the main problem of the book only acquires realism, scope and sharpness from this. The same goes for the ending. Winner ' backward' most - for sure, it would have happened in reality. On Earth, in the European Union - not in the blue folder of Felix Sorokin.
8 out of 10
Not that raw, but some kind of unfinished, slurred movie. Perhaps I am slightly clamping down on negativism, but why was it necessary to swing at the Strugatskys, and even so redraw, simplify, flatten the source material, without changing at least the "following the story" to "motivated"?
From Strugatsky remained exactly what the motives and the application, so to speak, the brand for meaning. If it were not for her, in principle, could be a tolerable one-time movie, but with meanings there is again not that it is quite tight, rather boring and largely primitive. Long shots and reasoning do not save, they are just techniques, and in themselves they do not guarantee the transfer of film production into the category of art. The director achieved a superficial association with Tarkovsky, but why? Now the film sags not only against the background of the Strugatskys, but also compared to Tarkovsky. It sags irritatingly. Long shots allow you to evaluate in detail their inexpressiveness, textures are not created, rhythm - and what is it at all?
Besides, with the exception of the main character Banev (he's really good), the girl Diana and seems to be her boss, live people are absent as a class - only careless stamping. And children with completely false intonations just finish, on the "mind, honor and conscience of the next era after us" these little zombies do not pull, as well as their mentors in gothic-trish robes. It seems that the emphasis is on the realism of what is happening, and give you a uniform from another genre, whether or not. After all, it was possible to decide on the style or (and even better in modern times) to make an organic alloy. But like the climate anomaly of Tashlinsk, underdoing consumed the whole film.
4 out of 10