Modern Russian cinema has a unique relationship with the Russian classics. People regularly try to film this, which is usually natural and even praiseworthy, but the offenders often end up with the “love yourself in the art rather than the art in you” standard (let’s not point fingers so as not to offend the authors, they did a great job), which is not at all anyway not praiseworthy (though still reasonable). It’s a shame: in the classics, due to its almost unlimited capacity, you can hide a lot if you do not fill the space with narcissism. Almost the same as a container, the classic has an unlimited weight – in the sense that a rare boxer is ready to bark at such a net. In the sense that it is still possible to shelve the film adaptation of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s novel “We”, but it is unlikely that the adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita” will be removed from distribution (but we will not make any predictions).
So a lot of work has been done. This is no longer a diplomatic statement intended to offend the authors, but a statement of fact: a lot of work has been done. Big. And it looks shiny. The film was released in theaters for more than six years (not a record for film adaptations of The Master and Margarita, but still), during which the budget reached a fabulous amount of 1.2 billion rubles, the project survived script revisions, a change . directors, the coronavirus pandemic and the last two years. Initially, the director of “Legend No. 17” and “The Crew” Nikolai Lebedev was at the helm, but at some point he switched to the film “Nuremberg”, and “The Master and Margarita” went to director Mikhail Lokshin and his screenwriter. “Epidemic” Roman Kantor – creators of the hit holiday melodrama “Silver Skates” (the first Russian film in the Netflix Originals series).
All this seemed to only benefit the picture. In “Kates” there is a magnificent late 19th-century St. Lokshin, who built St. Petersburg, dressed in the suit of Noel Hoffmann-Andersen, is now showing his mastery of Moscow renovation. The local retro-utopian capital of the 1930s, where a tram runs on the patriarchs and Annushka mixes the mood of Alfonso Cuaron’s “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” with oil, resembles Inrand’s Gotham from Joel Schumacher’s films “Batman Forever” ” and “Batman and Robin.” Margarita, as part of a naked night flight, circles around the Palace of Soviets (a communist ziggurat crowned with a hundred-meter Lenin, which did not happen in reality), she has her own Joker in the person of Yuri Kolokolnikov, who portrays Koroviev-Bassoon ( in particular, the actor recently appeared in the role of half-Woland in the TV series “To the End of the World”, also inspired by Bulgakov’s novel).
The background of the resulting terrible phantasmagoria is the construction of a new, fabulous totalitarian world: a truly eternal construction site, generally familiar and familiar to Muscovites, with the only difference that here every penny is visible on the screen. At the heart of this phantasmagoria are hopeless lovers the Master and Margarita. (originally announced to focus on Woland, who would give the film its name, it eventually reverted back to its original location), embodied by the real married couple Evgeniy Tsyganov and Yulia Snigir. What a great cast, I don’t think it’s possible to play this much love.
But the casting turned out without any mistakes. German August Diehl played Woland. (“Inglourious Basterds”He spoke mostly German on set and dubbed himself into Russian in post-production (the effect is as otherworldly as possible). Dane Claes Bang played Pontius Pilate (“Square”, “Dracula”), Yeshua – Dutch Aaron Vodovoz (“The King’s Man: The Beginning”). In addition to the mentioned, the star of the TV series “Without Love” Alexei Rozin plays for the Russian national team. (Azazello), Polina August from “Actresses” (Hello) and the voice of Yura Borisov (“Peace! Friendship! Chewing gum!”), comes from inside the Behemoth cat.
Overall, it is the best film adaptation of Bulgakov’s work to date. Let’s be honest: today it is difficult to watch Vladimir Bortko’s series, which has been considered the most successful essays for almost two decades, without tears. The amazing cast didn’t go anywhere, of course, but the insultingly small mid-2000s television budget doesn’t make the great novel look good. Fortunately, the scale of Lokshin’s work “The Master and Margarita” was brought into line with the original source.
But the correspondence with the original source here is not observed in everything, and it must be said that this is the main sign of a good (also unsuccessful) film adaptation: Lokshin and Kantor had the courage (and, apparently, persuasiveness) first of all to make their own film, and secondly, Bulgakov’s an adaptation. In the world of films, the novel “The Master and Margarita” itself turns out to be a novel within a novel (that is, a novel in a film): the hero Tsyganov, whose play about Pontius Pilate promised to become the main event of the season, was withdrawn from the production on the eve of the premiere due to censorship, as if it were auto-editing he writes, placing the characters around him within a demonic, vengeful text. Margarita, the mistress he wasn’t really destined to be with. I met a stranger with a mischievous evil look in his eyes. A burning but mediocre poet. She is a promising actress. Your own cat. The chief physician of the psychiatric hospital where he was sent for compulsory treatment.
Official statements regarding the plot of the film say that at some point the line between reality and fiction began to blur, leading to different interpretations. But this is disingenuous in many ways: Lokshin’s film is ultimately much more simplistic, brutal and disappointing than Bulgakov’s novel. The messages of the film, shot in 2021, are quite categorical: In the darkest times, freedom can only be found in the field of art. This is its main purpose and value. That’s why manuscripts don’t burn.
We can only be glad that these darkest times are long gone.