The game at Chekhov Four completely different characters: Prince Grokholsky (Sergei Shakurov), his son Grigory, the county officer-corrector Danila Okhlopkov (Boris Mironov), and the famous writer von Dideritz, perfectly performed by the wonderful actor Pavel DeLong. All of them have one thing in common – the object of adoration, von Dideritz’s wife Lisa (Anna Popova), who has the gift to charm men from her first appearance. She deftly uses this wonderful ability and now in a small town a real district drama flares up.
Filming began in October 2013 and mainly took place in Bobruisk. Before that, they were held in the village of Snov (Nesvizh district) and in the church of the village of Volno (Baranovichi district). Filmed quickly, because by the new year it was already planned to complete the work, however, as usual - with this case delayed, and the game actors hastened, too. Their characters are very serious and harsh, thinking about high and serious things with philosophical precision, then all the action suddenly slides into caricature and stupid humor. In general, the film reminded me more of a theatrical production with bright colorful sham scenery, excessive emotionality and overplay.
They were shot mainly in Belarusian castles and on the territory of the Bobruisk Fortress, and the rooms where the action takes place were built in the pavilions of the Belarusian Film Studio. The actors later admitted that the shooting in Minsk was so cold that they had to warm the pavilions with a heat gun.
The director Oleg Basilov, already known to the Belarusian viewer on the “Hunt for Gauleiter”, admitted: when he received an offer to create a picture based on the works of Anton Chekhov, he doubted a little: “What can be surprising, everything has already been filmed. And we decided to construct our own story, in which all the characters speak the famous phrases from the works of Chekhov. In the end, we have a story in which the characters of “The Seagull” go to “Three Sisters”, and from there to “Living Goods”, and now they are in “Uncle Van”. Yes, it is almost hooliganism – but in order to shoot another classic production. I am interested in my own game of Chekhov. In total, the “Object of Adoration” included 17 stories by A. Chekhov, and the director described its genre as a postmodern story.
Most of the funding came from Moscow, filmed in Belarus, and mounted in Kiev, according to some of the actors — just during the Maidan. Apparently, a difficult time affected the work on the film. As a result of long arguments and contradictions, lack of budget, almost a year wasted - the film was released only in 2015. And not in Minsk, Moscow, or even Kiev, but on Channel 9. It is this 79-minute version called "Country Drama" that can be found online. The crew was unhappy with her. Oleg Basilov called it working material for the film. "Belarusfilm" has released a two-part detective "Object of Adoration" based on the works of A. P. Chekhov with the same characters and actors. Apparently, the material was filmed a lot, since this is a detective - in the Belarusian version, a line is developed with the search for the missing Lisa and her alleged killers, in the version walking on the Internet (channel 9), reduced to only a few final minutes. It would be interesting to look at both versions and compare them, only the 2-part version is poorly available to a wide audience - copyright protection. As the actors present at the premiere screening in Minsk admit, “these are two completely different films.”
It’s a complicated story with the title of the film. At first, the project was called “Zugzwang”, not quite clear to a simple layman, at the stage of filming the name was changed to “Uyezdnaya Drama”, but even then this question remained open. As a result, we stopped at the vaudeville “Object of adoration”. Regarding the prospects of the film, the director was skeptical, since the picture is low-budget - it is unlikely that it will interest a wide audience and will be in theaters. Thoughtful age category, according to him, “The subject of adoration” is addressed to her, enjoys watching series on classic works on TV, apparently this prompted “Belarusfilm” to create a 2-part format of the picture. However, O. Basilov was wrong. The film got into the February rental of Russian cinemas, and in my opinion Belarusian. Personally, I enjoy watching Belarusian paintings (good and bad, even if co-production), because I consider myself a lover of domestic cinema (opponents can throw me tomatoes).
6 out of 10