“Peace, fireplace, books, silence... Before that, one thing was seen. These are now dreams of a lost paradise. – E. M. Remarque, Arc de Triomphe The development of digital technologies today allows literally everyone to make their own film. The digital camera that shot Star Wars episode III in 2005 had almost the same characteristics as modern semi-professional home cameras and cameras. And some home appliances completely surpass the “eye of Revenge of the Sith”. Accordingly, millions of young (and not very) talented (and not very) people are now trying themselves as filmmakers. However, one camera and naked enthusiasm are not enough. More than half of these “cinema opuses” are worth nothing from an artistic, technical or commercial point of view.
However, the new film of the Merkulev brothers belongs to less than half of these films, where the ball is ruled by quality and skill. If their previous short film “Forest” was still generally weak and at an amateur level (the brothers had little experience of staging due to their age), then “Silence wanders through the streets” has already become a semi-professional picture, and with a clear desire to go into pure professionalism. Nevertheless, of course, there were no mistakes. So let's look at something in order from two sides: artistic and technical.
In a big country (the analogy here is not with Russia/Ukraine, but with Bradbury’s creative world), a civil war is boiling with hints of foreign intervention. But the action takes place somewhere away from capitals and huge human clusters. Someone nicknamed "Hunter" removes people unnecessary to one of the parties to the conflict. But by coincidence, he meets a teenager and takes him under his wing. In general, this plot application in itself is very deep and large-scale. That's her plus. Another plus is that during the film, the characters of the characters are transformed (oh yes, now, thanks to the Russian commercial, his motherfucking, “cinema” you should pay attention to these truisms and praise independent novice directors for this). The conflict is clearly marked both between the heroes and within them. But here we are faced with the first (and probably the main) problem: the full development of such a large-scale story is not enough timekeeping tape. 50 minutes, I didn't think it was enough. I wanted more, and there wasn't any.
Accordingly, it is not difficult to guess that since I wanted more, I did not have to be bored during the viewing. One of the main troubles of amateur cinema is its disgusting production. But not here. The directors (combining the cinematographer's path) gave their all. Mizan scenes for the most part are built correctly, the camera grabs pleasant angles even among the field. Again, compared to the past work of the Merkulevs, this is a huge step forward. With a minimal budget (very minimal) in the film there are quite simple but high-quality special effects. Of course, there are shortcomings here, but they are few and they apply only to individual personnel.
As for characters, dialogues and overall acting. Yuri Senokos and Ilya Yerokhin tried their best, they do not just read their lines, but bring to the viewer the feelings and emotions of their heroes. So you empathize with them from beginning to end. The dialogues of the characters were also endowed with literate and well-written. They do not just “silent ears”, they are generally pleasant to perceive. I especially liked the clever words about revolution, state and democracy.
As I mentioned, the characters of the central characters are correctly spelled out, but the final twist with “Hunter” though logical, but due to the small timekeeping too fast. Supporting actors played worse than the central ones due to the fact that they did not play and read their lines in places with the wrong intonation. However, the replica of these among the group of harsh men was a little, and they are compensated by the action scene with their participation, where the guys coped with “hurrah”.
Regarding the last technical aspect - sound - I want to say that in general it is not bad, but often there were excesses with volume (and all of it resulting). The music of St. Petersburg composer Mikhail Robkanov corresponds to the mood of the film and is quite good, even if you listen to it in isolation from the film.
So, at the output we have a skillfully staged "middle" film with a problematic topic for modern society, the roots of which go as far as the French Revolution. Had the picture taken an extra twenty minutes, it could have been even better. And yet a group of people, thanks to whom the film was not just “seeable”, but interesting, worked honestly and talentedly. Like an amateur film, " Silence claims to be a solid eight. As a real Russian cinema, it is more difficult to evaluate it, but here it could grab seven points out of ten. In the end, I put what I put (8 out of 10). Sergei and Nikolai Merkulev set themselves a high bar of quality, which in the future they are only obliged to raise.