“Dance, herring!” direction. Alexandra Lupashko
Zhanna (Sasha Bortich) He returns from Moscow to his hometown where he has to bury his father. (Pavel Maykov), who abandoned them with their mother 20 years ago. The task turned out to be not the easiest: before burial, an examination is required, and this is done only in the regional center, 200 kilometers away. We agreed on transportation with suspicious neighbor Kostya (Ilya Antonenko)The girl, Zhanna’s childhood friend, puts her father’s body in the backseat of her old car and goes on a strange journey through her small hometown. On the trip, he gets a chance to, in a sense, close the old gestalt: his father’s corpse “comes to life” and begins demanding that Zhanna spend his upcoming birthday with him.
There has long been a peculiar subgenre of debut feature films in Russian cinema in the form of road movies about fathers and sons: but so far only men have worked in it (Andrei Zvyagintsev, Boris Khlebnikov and Alexander Hunt). only about men (i.e. sons). Now in the series “Return”, “Koktebel” and “How Vitka Chesnok took Lyokha Shtyr to the nursing home” “Dance, herring!” They have wedges. – Black comedy by Alexandra Lupashko (The last three episodes of “Christmas Trees”), diluting the obvious gender bias a bit. Intonationally, “Herring” is closest to the latest representative of the series “Vitka Chesnok” in its pure diversity, and in this sense it refers to another recent release of the Russian director – “Masha” by Anastasia Palchikova, who also starred in it. Transition to the drama of the 90s through the eyes of a little girl.
At times, Lupashko’s film seems too eager to extract a nostalgic feeling from works of the time, relying too much on a soundtrack full of Mumiy Troll, Shura, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Tatyana Bulanova, Irina Saltykova and other figures from tape collections. However, at the right moments, “Herring” pulls the right strings and doesn’t come across as discordant, so you end up believing the movie. And thanks to him, Nike Borzov’s song “Riding on a Star” turned out to be the perfect song for a funeral (take notes).
“Scraper” direction. Charlotte Reagan
After the death of 12-year-old Georgie’s mother (Brilliant debutante Lola Campbell) lives alone in an apartment. He cleverly deceives the social workers by pretending to be under his uncle’s care (a salesman he knows at a grocery store writes the necessary lines for him, which she plays into the telephone receiver), and earns rent and food by stealing. and I sell bicycles. This continues until a young man named Jason appears at the door with a bag and flowers in his hand. (Harris Dickinson) – Georgie’s father who abandoned her and her mother 12 years ago.
“Zorba” is also the debut film of a young director and is also dedicated to the reconciliation of an abandoned daughter with her unlucky father, but here the prodigal parent is not present in the form of a zombie hallucination, he completely appears as something. a living person (but this is not a fact in the plot that he flew from Ibiza). The framing of “The Bully” is also completely opposite: there is no trace of the “herring” pace inherent in the road movie genre; instead there are static shots of cameraman Molly Manning Walker (whose directorial debut was also recently seen in Russia). box office) seems to capture frozen time and space—that’s roughly how the world feels after the loss of a loved one.
This is an incredibly funny and, in some cases, incredibly touching film – something similar was masterfully shot by Taika Waititi in the first “pre-Marvel” phase of his career. “Badass” is a gentle, respectful and careful film: the ease with which Charlotte Regan tries to surround little Lola Campbell, a non-professional actress and an extremely shy girl, seems to be transferred to the film itself, and subsequently to the viewer. The great thing was that the tactic worked: the main local star was, of course, Harris Dickinson (who can now also be seen on the big screen). Full Steel from Sean Durkinand lastly, the TV series “The End of the World Cinayet” with the participation of the actor was among our series. The best TV series of 2023), but Campbell steals every scene he’s in.