“The Queen gave birth in the night, not that son or daughter.” Boris Kazakov’s mini-series “Stalin’s Diamonds” is an adaptation of Evgeny Sukhov’s books: “Diamond in the Thieves’ Crown”, “The Crown of Pahan’s Career” and “The Covenant of the Dashing Boy”. Here is a brief description of the book “Diamond in the Thieves’ Crown”: “The thief Zhor Gunkov smells a large prey for a mile, it is not without reason that he has a clique – Fartovy.” Nothing that this production is in a sealed container, under the protection of officers of the NKVD and Smersh, nothing that Fartovy himself is on the zone through which the secret cargo passes in transit. It is necessary to “freeze” the zone and seize the “trench” in the mess. Conceived – done, only the container went not to the thief, but to the former lieutenant colonel of state security, and now fine-firing officer Kupriyanov. Stalin and Beria know about this container, Fartovy knows, Major-Smershev Korobov knows. They know and wait. After all, hundreds of first-class diamonds do not disappear without a trace.
The book is written in the genre of action film, reader reviews about it are positive, but I think its content is more on the amateur.
The self-titled books by Evgeny Sukhov, which are the basis of the series, I did not read, but I watched the film. What can I say? It is stated that the genre: history, drama. Alexander Dumas also wrote ' historical & #39; novels. But reading them is much more interesting than watching this movie. It intertwines three stories (the Yalta conference, a love story and prisoners at the diamond mine), but the plot does not enrich itself. Rather, a message is given to a new idea, but then everything is blurred, loses its need and meaning. There is no single integral component in the film. It's all mixed up - horses, people. No accent, no rod. And the ending is muddled, slurred. It is also annoying that director Boris Kazakov and producer Yuri Volodarsky ruthlessly exploit the theme of the Second World War and the era of Stalinism for commercial gain. You can, of course, say that this is not a documentary, it rightfully contains the imagination of the director and screenwriter, but then in the line “genre” in the first place you need to put “fantasy”, and only then “history...”
The result was a weak television project. You can watch, but you can take it seriously and associate it with history – in no case. Something tells me that there may be a continuation. If, of course, the series finds a response from the audience. Yevgeny Sukhov’s books are probably much more fascinating, but not my genre. And after watching this movie, I will not read it again.
4 out of 10