If someone has studied the filmography of Ivan Shakhnazarov in a little more detail, then probably noticed that the name "Rock" first appeared not in the 17th, but in 2013. Short-meter format. And the screenwriters are still the same, two Ivans: Shakhanzarov and Zavaruev. And the plot is similar. And the heroes are the same: Gosha, Seva and Shmon. But the story, after almost 5 years, grew to a full meter. The young director did not abandon the idea of dipping three musicians into a more global adventure. He made his dream come true. ...maybe in vain.
Unfortunately, it was not possible to find in the open access a short film of 2013 (for sure, VGIK-ov diploma), but for some reason it seems to me that it looks more poignant, dynamic and interesting. Because in a full meter, the plot spreads at the seams. And the adventures of the three musicians, at times, become something completely sucked out of the finger.
But everything in order. The first thing that scratched in the main trinity of musicians: age. There were clear overgrowths before us. Such ambitions and actions are typical of yesterday’s teenagers. The boys are already over 25. They're too old for such adventures. Yes, the age of 26 was indicated only by Goshi. But his friends don’t seem to have gone far. In any case, according to their appearance, the difference is more than 2-3 years. This immediately raises the question: in what institution does Seva study? What kind of perpetual student is he? At this age, he should be a graduate student. No less. This means that the main characters should throw off 8 years. And stop them at the turn of 18-19 years. And then all these adventures become more appropriate. After 25 years, a person usually already has a job, a certain status in society, and sometimes a family. And if at this age he remains a loboshak (and the three musicians are exactly such and shown in the plot), then there are already certain suspicions about his legal capacity.
Of course, you can say: "Rock and roll all ages are submissive." Yes, I agree! Then it was just as successful to show 60-year-old grandfathers with guitars at the top. Since Goshi’s words about being 26 years old and still dreaming are relevant at any age. For example, I am over 40, and the thoughts are exactly the same as the main character. I am not a musician, of course, but if you imagine for a moment that a producer from the capital suddenly invited to play on a federal radio station, I would go without hesitation, try my luck. The difference is that with age, a person is more balanced approach to such turns of fate. And does not vote on the side of the road, and does not ride in freight cars on semi-stations. These are actions peculiar to windy young men who only said goodbye from school. So our heroes are too old to travel like this. And this is perhaps the main improbability of the situation.
Second point: music. Alas, she's barely in the story. I wanted to hear more music. She was supposed to be the hero of the story. A trio of guys, if they were really passionate music lovers, had to reach for instruments in any spare moment and play. And that would only brighten the story, make it deeper. Such a moment was when during a trip on a draught Seva reached for the pipe. It seemed that the soul of the musician turned. But no, this moment is mired in the plot chaos, finding no continuation. Sorry. As a good example, I will give the film Sergey Solovyov 'Assa'. The main character is also a young musician. And the plot, as if with every stroke, every sound emphasizes his state of mind. Music sounds constantly not only in the form of finished and processed compositions, but also at the level of third-party noise, accompanying the hero everywhere. This, in my opinion, is the correct presentation of material about musicians. And in ' Rock' played by a trio of guys at first some uncomplicated composition, and then all day walk with covered tools, as with ordinary suitcases and bags.
And the third plot drawback is the absence of at least a little love line, and in general, the female presence in the frame, as such. It made the story flat and dry. Because the love line, like the music, brightens the plot and makes it more multifaceted. There was a lack of female roles. The situation turned out like a trumpet in the hands of Seva: a girl flashed in a scene with... or old believers, or shamans (don’t understand who they are at all) and disappeared without a trace. And along with it, the hope for at least some intrigue and dispute and rivalry between the guys disappeared.
I’ll add a fourth drawback: I still don’t understand why the heroes went to catch a ride on some local road when there is a railway in the city where they live. There are train stations and trains that run to Moscow. After all, at the beginning of the story Volodya with “Rock radio” was late for the train, was in this city? This action can only be explained by the catchphrase from the film "Aybolite-66": normal heroes always go around. (Therefore, I put it in the title of my review). Here is Gosha, Seva and Shmon, bypassing the whole film and walk.
About the rest of the plot clutters and blunders already remind and do not want to. A lot of them at Rock. I wish I had less, but alas. So the picture of Ivan Shakhnazarov turned out to be weak. But if you consider that the son followed in the footsteps of his famous and authoritative father, then all his roads in cinema are open. Any budgets will be provided for his new creations. Even such insignificant, at first glance, facts that 'Rock' was created on the production and technical basis of the film concern Mosfilm, and the financing of the project attracted ' Film Foundation' already talk about a lot. So get your hats down and bow your heads. The new talent is walking along the red carpet.
Ivan Shakhnazarov's film "Rock" is an easy adventure road movie - and so you can briefly describe this picture. But we still need to look deeper at it.
Three members of the group "One and a half cat" (the name of the group quite corresponds to the style in which the guys perform) can not convey their vision of musical art (rock songs) to the locals of their small town. Heroes (Gosha, Shmon and Seva) feel undervalued and seize the first chance to speak on the radio in Moscow. Well, on the way there, so incredible things begin to happen to them that the main characters only have time to say the phrase “Well, it does not happen!”
In this picture, unfortunately, only two songs are performed. I wanted to have a song for every story twist, and I’m sure that would make the film much more appealing.
The acting of the main characters seemed to me inconclusive, especially against the background of brilliant living in the role of supporting actors – Vitaly Kishchenko and Evgeny Stychkin. But to be honest, it didn’t really affect my impression of the film. The picture has obvious advantages that outweigh the minuses.
First, I would like to pay special attention to the main soundtrack. Yuri Poteenko created a magnificent musical accompaniment in the rhythm of tango with the help of wind instruments. This melody was able to emphasize some incomprehensible mysticism and fatalistic events in which the main characters were.
Secondly, I would like to express special gratitude for the periodic references to rock legends Ozzy Osbourne and AC/DC, which, of course, adorns any film related to rock.
Thirdly, the operator worked well with the plans, so you can again plunge into the life of provincial Russia and for a second feel yourself part of this film.
Anyone who read the title and thinks they’re going to see a movie about music is wrong. That's not what this picture is about. It is more about the fact that rock is not limited to style or performance. Rock is a certain life style and, if you are a real rocker, then you will not have ordinary situations from the life of an office clerk, but a confused and exciting stream of events accompanied by unique AC/DC songs.
The film "Rock" is perfect for viewing in the company of friends on Saturday night to cheer everyone up, sometimes laugh at the characters and at themselves, and almost for an hour and a half to feel at least a little rocker.
7 out of 10
The film of Karen Shakhnazarov’s son “Rock” has almost a twin brother, released a year earlier – “Lights of a large village”, and shot it, you are an evil irony, the son of Alexei Uchitel. It would seem that there is an outwardly action-packed road-movie, and where there is a gaggy comedy, but they actually have the greatest number of similarities. The most unobvious and striking thing is that both films have pretty good scripts with great ideas, and this despite the fact that for a good decade, any experienced filmmaker will say that the main problem of Russian cinema is the lack of good scripts. In both films, quite appropriate actors play, and the funds allocated for production show that they did not need much more. Both films were present at local and non-local festivals and received something there. And most importantly, both films could have become prominent events in Russian cinema, but they were extremely boring and passable, because the huge potential laid down at the level of scripts simply was not realized. Ilya Uchitel has everything quite bad, but the task was more difficult: to show vulgarity inside vulgarity, turn everything inside out and show a grotesque reflection of Russian humor, with its origins, carriers and admirers, without offending them - instead, "The Lights of the Big Village" is just another strange, and mostly ridiculous comedy. With "Rock" everything is simpler and for its production you do not need to read the book "Think like Fellini" - it was enough just to make it sincere, with a spark of enthusiasm, with a dose of imagination and ingenuity. Perhaps it was necessary to rewrite most of the outdated images, making them more modern and convincing. I mean, we just had to make the whole story come alive.
But no, you’ll be watching a movie about three unlucky rock musicians going to Moscow to perform on a radio station called Rock, because that’s probably their only chance of success. Can you feel that musty soul? He walks straight out of a vacuum in the head of the son of a famous director, reflecting on the topic of the province. And he probably knows many popular artists, and even quite young. I’m sure he’d be like, ‘How did you succeed?’ and they’d say, ‘Well, we’d go to all kinds of bars and then we’d go on the radio, and then we’d kind of wind up.’ And so, in the head of our future director, they, alone and stuffed, already perform in a restaurant in front of fat cats with pig snouts, and then walk through the deserted streets, where a stranger gives them the address of the radio station, and then they catch a ride to Moscow on a lifeless dark highway. Oh, yeah, that's Rock! And so that you do not catch our young talent in a primitive vision of reality, then the film will try to be action-packed and criminal, where the characters will run with a lot of money from an elusive killer, enjoy freedom with runaway madmen and escape from Old Believers in the woods. And all this while the Coen brothers are weeping in the corner with the realization of their own incompetence, and the audience is wary of walking past Chekhov’s guns aimed at them, suddenly at least one of them is loaded (attention spoiler!!!: no). What about rock? Rock is destiny. And the fact that the heroes are actually rock musicians, you can forget until the very end (very, by the way, not bad and even elegant).
What good can there be in a scenario where all the guns don’t shoot, the idea of the modern rock environment, as the scientists of the fifteenth century about the universe, and the plot jumps from genre to genre at the request of the left heel of the authors? Well, Chekhov died a long time ago, and if the gun does not fire today, then the author wants it so. “Rock”, if we discard its perfect external unrealism, is a rather touching film about the desire of young people to be someone “in spite”, about the desire to escape from the gray desert world to meet “adventures”. The wish is beyond logic, and therefore in some scenes the characters will seem just infantile morons, abandoning the elementary sense of self-preservation in order to get to the goal faster, even if the target is physically destroyed. But in their hearts, they behave the way children should behave, who were sure that by the age of 25 there would be some important change, but it did not happen, and they are now 26, and they are still children with childhood dreams and ambitions, while the entire adult world lives according to some other alien scheme. Therefore, at the level of a good scenario, guns do not shoot - all guns are not from this story. Therefore, the escaped madman will not play a role for the plot, no matter how much local law enforcement officers poke into his photo sketch, and the girl who saved the heroes will not become some important traditional part of the story, except that the ubiquitous antagonist-killer should come up with a smarter ending. And to the foreground to put forward not sincere dreamers, but to try to talk about the severe problems of growing up, as it was done in the same, not without huge shortcomings, but much more bold and straightforward "rag union" Mestetsky.
“Rock” has an interesting plot with which you can steer a serious movie, if you correctly place accents and do something to ensure that the characters can be believed and empathize with their pretentious infantility, but, as in the case of “Lights of the Big Village”, you need a clear idea of the complex result that these plots imply, because despite the external stamps and simplicity – these are two extragenre stories and they could not just be taken and removed. But neither Ilya Teacher nor Ivan Shakhnazarov do not want to go to a complicated movie yet, just as they do not want to shoot a simple passing pop, they want to make an average movie, so that the dads patted them on their heads and said: "Good son - you will be a general."
“ROC” is the first feature-length film by a young actor and director Ivan Shakhnazarov. This picture is an expanded version of his eponymous short about three musicians who on the way to Moscow got into a real binding. In general, I liked the film, except for the episode with sectarians, which looked quite theatrical. And so quite a meaningful story, shot in the style of “road-movie” about three guys, the eternal road and tragicomic adventures. But despite all the beauty of what was happening, the whole film did not leave me a kind of déjà vu, or, to be more precise, from the whole film, the atmosphere of another film called “Oh, where are you, brother?”, the Coen brothers. I’m not saying it’s bad, but Rock lacked the specifics of the director’s hand. There is no style in the film, although it was all in big letters.
As a result, we get an absolutely standard production of ordinary Russian festival films. Some scenes had to be pressed, interrupted plans to speed up and prescribe more vivid dialogues. The drawn-out picture, alas, simply put the viewer to sleep, thereby killing all interest in viewing. If the story is bright and strong, then the staging, editing and heroes should be unusual. Unfortunately, the cast did not particularly please, or rather, their images. The bright guy still somehow stood out from the trinity, but the other two simply merged with each other in emotions, facial expressions, and even facial expressions. Two stone glances throughout the film - cape! In this case, there is a clear omission of the director that he did not work the characters and did not require the actors to serve. After all, if the villain performed by Vitaly Kishchenko was chicly invented and the character of Evgeny Stychkin looked good, but why did the main characters turn out boring, gray and none? In general, despite some disadvantages, the film is definitely worth watching, since the final scenes deserve special respect. Knowing Ivan, I am sure that he will still amaze, surprise and truly please us. Looking forward to new films and big premieres!
6 out of 10
I had no expectations when I went to see this movie. What's interesting? I don't know. However, I did not regret watching it, but remained completely delighted. The name of Karen Shakhnazarov, I think, is familiar to everyone, but I personally encountered the work of his son for the first time.
Here is the story from the series “And you will not guess what will happen next!”. Beginning rock musicians: Seva, Gosha and Shmon dream of Moscow. And then, by coincidence, they have a happy opportunity to become participants in the program on the famous Moscow radio station Rock. That’s just the problem – from the province you need to somehow get to Moscow. The adventures of the boys are just beginning. The only question that can arise from the audience is “when will the heroes disappear all the difficulties?”
And then there is something that does not fit in your head: the abducted millions, and a criminal, and a kind forester-rescue, and a freedom-loving hermit traveler, and a gathering of religious fanatics in the forest more often. Illegal movement in a freight train, a stolen car, a trolley - everything to get to the cherished capital.
From adventure to adventure, the viewer takes to a completely open ending, and thinking about the ending is your worries. The synopsis for the film does not accidentally begin with the phrase “Rock is a musical genre or evil fate?”
Rock is also the wonderful songs of the group “Twelve”, it is both cunning dead ends and traps of fate.
These are dreams and just a boundless desire to make them come true.
Rock is a beautiful, addictive plot and quality work of the director, actors and cameramen.
Of course, I recommend this film to those who want to bring into their lives a sense of adventure.
I recommend the film to those skeptics who confidently say that Russia does not shoot high-quality adventure films.
Brothers, there is no joy without sorrow, and sorrow without joy, but there is always joy to sorrow, and sorrow to joy, and all things pass away. "
Unknown ancient Russian icon painter.
In Russian folklore, there are almost no fairy tales of the absurd ("Ryaba Turtle" is one of the few vivid examples). In English folklore, the absurd is one of the organic components. If not his base. Absurd is quite organic for English-language cinema. For some authors, it is the basis of all creativity. For example, the Coen brothers.
Ivan Shakhnazarov and his team of like-minded people in the full-length debut of “Rock” created a paraphrase of one of the most vivid and famous films of Ethan and Joel Cohen “Oh, where are you brother?”. Which at one time turned out to be a paraphrase of Homer's "Odyssey."
Screenwriters of the film “Rock” Ivan Shakhnazarov and Ivan Zavaruev supported the tradition of addressing folklore and myth. In the cinematic genre of "road-movie" put the structure of a fairy tale. Practically according to Propp.
According to the “Morphology of a Tale” by Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp, folk tales remind us of totemic rites of initiation. It is the rite of initiation that the characters of the film symbolically pass. Young musicians of the rock group “One and a half cat” (so, by the way, called Anna Andreevna Akhmatova noisy well-fed cat neighbors) in the beginning of the story are still boys who randomly go on a long journey to the cherished dream.
On the way, as befits in the fairy tale, they will meet the main characters:
antagonist-pest (hired killer - an obvious homage to Anton Chiguru from "No Place for Old Men"),
the donor (good grandfather-railroader - inevitable allusions to the old man-ladder from the fairy tales of Alexander Arturovich Rowe),
assistant (driver of a van with fish - like a certain Charon carrying human souls across the river),
crooked trickster (a clever fellow traveler Kostya - another homage to the character of the movie universe of the brothers, Big Dan from "Oh, where are you, brother?"),
A failed princess (a sectarian girl who wants to help the heroes).
Heroes according to the invariable structure of the fairy tale will have to fight evil and try to win. There will be challenges that will require solutions. This is where the heroes grow up. And in this, the film "Rock" is surprisingly consonant with modern life and youth.
The flexible, uncombed, unpredictable reality of Russian life poses challenges to society. And while the middle and older generations continue to swim with the flow of life, blaming it for its injustice and imperfection, the young are trying to solve the tasks set for them. Go through that initiation rite.
How went his characters in the film Gosha, Seva and Shmon. Through pain, loss, testing and testing of vitality. Becoming brothers. Not by blood. In spirit.
The authors of "Rock" managed to embody the story of three friends with amazing cinemagenicity for debutants. The film has light and light breathing.
Ivan Shakhnazarov managed to direct an amazing fusion of road-lyrical and fabulously absurd intonations in the narrative fabric of history.
The stunning views of the native side, captured by the camera of Yevgeny Musin, are filled with the subtle air inherent in the works of experienced masters.
Ivan Ivashkin, Dmitry Chebotarev, Kirill Frolov (players of the main roles) quite organically “live” in the frame, charging the surrounding space with the energy of youth and creativity.
In an interview, Ivan Shakhnazarov noted that the key to victory is a simple decision: “Be yourself.” I'm glad that the creators of the film "Rock" succeeded.
“Rock” by Ivan Shakhnazarov is his debut full-length work. There is some madness and clumsiness in the film, but it is such a fun and, sorry, cool movie that Shakhnazarov Jr. can be forgiven all the nonsense of “Rock”.
The plot is quite simple: a trio of provincial musicians under the general name "One and a half cat" after a not quite successful performance in a rural DC are invited to come to the radio in Moscow. Gosha, Seva and Shmon decide that this is their chance to get out of the backwaters. But from the start, things didn’t go as planned. While they are trying to get to Moscow, constantly getting into various troubles, who only does not meet them on the way.
It would be strange to expect from the debut work of a twenty-four-year-old guy deep drama with internal conflicts. But it is difficult to call this work easy. Road Movie is not a typical genre for Russian cinema. It is not easy to tell the story of one trip without breaking it into separate comic scenes. From such trips usually pull out specific cases, which are then retold as an anecdote. What could happen on the road? Anything you want will be confirmed by any traveler. Shakhnazarov somewhat exaggerates the unprecedented characters that arise in the way of the main characters. They appear like a devil from a snuffbox, but they willingly believe in their existence - it happens and so. It seems that the performers of these inhabitants of the "most unforgettable trip" - Vitaly Kishchenko and Evgeny Stychkin - just relaxed and remembered their acting youth. They seem not to claim the full attention of the viewer (and it is difficult to take their eyes off, especially from Kishchenko), having qualitatively played their role, secretly go into the shadows to give way to the young.
“Rock” turned out to be, you know, a road-movie, but in the Russian way. The film is reminiscent of a folk tale, where the hero also passes a number of tests on the way to the goal. There are three heroes, and they are all very different. At the very beginning of the journey, Gosha (Ivan Ivashkin) is a kind of serious, frowning head of the team, who pushed the others to start looking for adventures (read: misadventures). Seva (Kirill Frolov) is a quiet, home-schooled student for whom music seems like a hobby. Shmon (Dmitry Chebotarev) is a real detachment, he does not play music, he lives with it (he even received a book corresponding to the shot - "The True History of Punk Rock"). They go, sometimes ahead, to the main goal - listening to the radio. In parallel, they do not fight anyone, but they often fight back. And by the end of the film, all three turn out to be much closer to the image of three heroes than to lightweight young men. Unlike a fairy tale, there is no bombastic happy ending and morality.
Is Rock a musical genre or an evil fate? In fact, this picture is more of an evil fate than of music. Yes, the main characters are musicians. They go to Moscow for a dream of a musical career and they quarrel on the same grounds. But with the music, that’s all. She's just a leitmotif here, the reason why this whole "Rock" took place. Well, let's get some fat in here. What does not happen to the heroes and all this is somewhere on the edge. Sometimes it seems that they may have enough, but the director again wraps the plot in the direction of another incident. Shakhnazarov deduces an effective causal relationship and it turns out that in general all events are connected. So there is nothing to blame him for - everything is fine with the script of the picture. Ivan Shakhnazarov managed to collect those very specific situations from the anecdotes retold into one story. And "Rock" turns out to be a tragicomedy, where "comedy" can be written in capital letters.
For an hour and a half of screen time, you sometimes wonder: “Did you overdo it?” It is difficult to answer, because either the director played a little with exaggeration of the characters, or the film as a whole turned out too dynamic. However, when did eventfulness begin to equal the phrase “bad movie”? Here it is, though sometimes too much, but still in the end in moderation.
Perhaps a similar impression from the fact that “Rock” was shot by a young director, with young actors and for a young audience. Youth enthusiasm in the picture is enough: the characters, for which the actors are to be praised, turned out to be characteristic of the young generation; the music of the Twelve group (formerly Narechye) sounds organic; camera work at the level - large and long-range plans are executed perfectly; and the budget of the film is impressive. Add to this excellent humor, which, often, did not depend on dialogue – the situations in which Seva, Gosha and Shmon fell, and, however, all the other characters, such that it is impossible not to laugh.
“Rock” does not need the logic of the series “was it impossible, like people, to get on the train and get to Moscow in a day.” No, that's absolutely impossible. It is much cooler and more interesting to go to the rural road and catch a ride, then find yourself on a draught, and then jump on a freight truck, running away from the pursuer along the way. Brash young provincial musicians don't need logic, they need adventure. And as for evil rock - then with it, one way or another, the guys cope. Honestly, the viewer can only envy the guys, with some caveat - "I wish so, though, God forbid."