I used to make “bombs” when I was a kid
Alexey Balabanov called his family “nomenklatura”: the director’s mother headed the Sverdlovsk Institute of Balneology and Physiotherapy, and his father worked as an editor at a local film studio in the department of popular science films. Recalling his childhood, Balabanov emphasized that his parents worked hard and often went on business trips, so he “grew up as a hooligan” and followed the rule “everyone ran, I ran.” In one of the interviews, the director admitted that he differed from his peers only in his love for chemistry: “I loved making bombs from Young Chemist kits.” I knew many different compositions that were mixed and blown up.
I played in a rock band
During his school years, Alexey was more interested in music than cinema. In 1975, together with friends, they formed the rock band “Keri”: Balabanov played the guitar, and classmate Evgeniy Gorenburg (now a well-known organizer of rock festivals in Yekaterinburg) played the piano and electric organ. The young people’s repertoire consisted of hits by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and other rock bands popular among Soviet youth. Even when the Keri group won first place in the political song contest in the city: but the guys sang not the Beatles, but the anthem of the Chilean communists. 40 years later, Gorenburg recalled those times in an interview, saying that Balabanov “played his guitar very badly and in general sang disgustingly.”
He served as a military translator in the army
In 1981, Alexey Balabanov graduated from the translation department of the Gorky Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages and entered the army service as a military translator. During his two years in the army, he visited Ethiopia, Angola, Guinea, South Yemen and Syria, and once went to Afghanistan. The director later said that his own military experience, as well as the stories he heard from his colleagues, were reflected in many of his films.
I chose a vest instead of a suit
Alexey Balabanov did not like excessive attention to his person, which affected not only his communication with the public, but also the way he dressed. The director rented tuxedos and suits for the red carpets of film festivals, but in everyday life he preferred the vest, a habit he has maintained since his time in the army (in recent months Balabanov served in the navy).
I wrote the script of my first movie in one night
Alexey Balabanov’s first feature film was the short film “It Used to Be a Different Time”, which he shot in 1987 while studying at the Higher Courses of Screenwriters and Directors. The director wrote the script of the film in one night, and then – since he had no money for decorations and wages for the actors – he agreed with the management of the popular Sverdlovsk restaurant “Old Fortress” for night shooting. Already in the establishment itself, he persuaded visitors not to leave and play extras and used his friends, musicians of the Nautilus Pompilius group, as guest stars. By the way, the name of the film is a quote from Butusov’s song “Nobody Will Believe” from his 1985 album “Invisible”.
I shot “Brother” in my own apartment
At the dawn of his career, Alexey Balabanov moved to St. Petersburg with his second wife, Nadezhda Vasilyeva. He lived in a shared flat on Ligovsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg. At the same time, Viktor Sukhorukov, a friend of the director and then still wanting to become an actor, shared the communal apartment on Vasilievsky Island with an alcoholic neighbor. Friends had an exchange of ideas: Balabanov and his wife moved to Vaska, and Sukhorukov’s neighbor moved to the director’s room in Ligovsky. Later, Balabanov will shoot several important scenes for the first “Brother” in this communal apartment.
Actors were not paid for the filming of the movie “Brother”
Due to a very modest budget, the team of the film “Brother” saved on everything: many actors agreed to participate in the film for symbolic money or even for free. Vyacheslav Butusov, the author of the soundtrack “Brother”, also remained without payment: the musician starred in the film and provided his songs in exchange for the director’s promise to create a video for him for the song “In the Rain”.
Actors are forced to speak in someone else’s voice
Alexey Balabanov paid great attention to the soundtracks of his films. The director called this process a reshoot and was confident that casting one actor in the other’s voice would give the film “extra energy.” So, in “Brother” and “Brother 2” Viktor Sukhorukov (Vitya Bagrov) speaks in the voice of Alexey Poluyan, Sergey Murzin (the bandit nicknamed Krugly) – in the voice of Alexander Stroev, Daria Yurgens (prostitute Dasha) – in the voice of Natalya Danilova and Roman Tokar (taxi driver who dropped Danila Bagrov off at Brighton Beach) – voice of Yuri Stoyanov. There was also an exchange of voices in Balabanov’s crime comedy “Zhmurki”: here Alexey Panin (the bandit Seryoga) speaks in the voice of comedian Yuri Galtsev, while Panin’s voice goes to Sergei Glazunov (medical student).
I bought clothes for the actors from a second-hand store.
The modest budget affected not only the actors’ wages but also their costumes. For example, the hero’s now legendary gray sweater was bought by Balabanov’s wife Nadezhda Vasilyeva (who was also the film’s costume designer) in a second-hand store for 35 rubles. The director himself thought the sweater was “too cool”, so in the film Danila Bagrov wears a cheap Bolognese windbreaker. Bagrov Sr. For Vasilyeva found clothes in her wardrobe: during the filming of Balabanov’s film “Castle”, she bought the green coat worn by Tatar in the first film “Brother” in Germany.
He taught the actor how to drive a tram
While filming Brother, the cast and crew had to learn new skills. So, actress Svetlana Pismichenko, who played the hero’s friend Sveta in the first film, learned to drive a tram, and cameraman Sergei Astakhov turned into a truck driver, and in the finale he got behind the wheel of the truck on which Danila Bagrov went to Moscow. scene. In the second film, the operator again played an unexpected role: when American pyrotechnicians refused to create a self-propelled gun for the main character, Astakhov made it in an hour from a brass tube, iron clips and manganese shavings.
I liked shooting without stuntmen
In Balabanov’s films, actors often filmed stunts on their own, without the participation of stuntmen: the director wanted fear to be truly visible in the eyes of his characters in dangerous moments. For example, in the first “Brother” Sergei Bodrov jumps into a tram on the move, and in “War” Ingeborga Dapkunaite swims in an icy river with a fast current. But most of all “I understand” To Alexey Chadov: “My first personal “fear factor” happened at the age of 20, on the set of the movie “War”, in the mountains, when they threw me into an icy river with an automatic weapon – “let’s go to war. “It was at this point that I got really scared, we almost drowned on the raft.”
He brought the homeless to his home
Alexey Balabanov was a caring person and very sympathetic to people in trouble. According to the memoirs of Nadezhda Vasilyeva, she often brought homeless people to her home so that they could warm up and eat. Then I showed them my movies: “They can’t go to the cinema.”