Alena Solntseva about the exhibition Balabanov the Savior from the Cinema Universe and one of her unfinished films November 6, 2022, 11:38

In October St. The “Balabanov” exhibition-trip, which opened on the second floor of “Sevkabel”‘s “Workshop” in St. Petersburg, was definitely an event. This is a new, modern type of exhibition created by the famous and successful set designer Agnia Sterligova and the Planet9 bureau, where the exhibits are immersed in a theatrical, so to speak immersive environment. exhibition curator Tatyana Getman. CTB Film Company organized this large-scale exhibition to mark the 25th anniversary of the release of the movie “Brother”.

Among the metal mountains and gorges there are pavilions, where an atmosphere is created that sends the viewer to the set of the movie “About Freaks and People”, then to the Karmadon Gorge, then to the tent from the movie “Battle”. Many items belonging to Balabanov participated in the shooting of many frames from films, archive documents, audio stories.

And the last part is devoted to the unfilmed films of Balabanov. A very effective installation in this hall – fire and water on the walls – stills from the film on the screens immerse the audience in the world of “The River”, one of Balabanov’s most unexpected works. The film began to be shot in 2000, but did not have to be completed – in the fall, on an expedition with the entire film crew, the young Yakut actress Tuyara Svinoboeva died in a car accident. Balabanov decided not to continue filming after his death. A few months later, he was persuaded to collect what he had previously shot in the film.

I remember very well the first time I saw this painting. In 2002, at the State Film Fund in the White Pillars, a forty-minute film was shown for the first time at the annual film festival at that time, which Alexei edited and voiced himself, according to the images. I remember the strong impact the movie had on all of us. After “Brother” and “Brother-2”, which at that time passed with incredible success on video screens (there were very few cinemas in Russia at that time), it was surprising to look at a completely different genre film.

The story “The Limit of Sorrow: A story from the life of lepers” by the Polish writer Seroshevsky was published in the Russian magazine “World of God” in 1900. Seroshevsky at that time was serving a link in Siberia, in Yakutia, a rather young twenty-year-old man came there, married a Yakut girl, plowed the land, cultivated, worked in the forge, but managed to observe and record. From his observations emerged several stories and short novels that attracted great interest of the reading public at that time. Then Seroshevsky was forgotten. And then something wonderful happened.

When the screenwriter Evert Payazatyan read the story “The Limit of Sorrow” and was so interested in it, he decided to make a screenplay out of it at his own risk. He gave the script to producer Sergei Selyanov, who showed it to Balabanov. Alexei, as he himself remembers, read the script, then the story, and then rewrote the text in his own way, although he departed from the ending that Payazatyan invented.

Balabanov’s script can be read, published, much of the story remains in it, even the dialogues are preserved, but the psychological motifs are released, explanations of the details of the relationship, that is, a difficult plot, are stripped away. outside the ethnographic narrative – the story of a small colony of lepers left to their own devices and surviving on a desolate Yakutia plain. Interestingly, there are no violent scenes and no sex in this movie, although Balabanov, whose movies are often full of all this, believes that: “The theme of the whole movie is violence, because the audience loves it when fifty bullets are fired on a character, then he smokes and goes for revenge. This does not happen in life and the audience is interested. I have no particular and personal interest in violence – it’s a plot requirement, nothing more.

There was no need for such effects in this movie. I had leprosy. It’s a special challenge because cinema is an image and it’s very unpleasant to look at ugliness and decay. But Balabanov deliberately pursued it. The artists created ulcer dummies and destroyed tissue, even though the operator did not focus their attention on them. Leprosy is a mysterious disease, it kills but slowly, lepers can live for a long time without suffering but dying. This frightened the people so much that the lepers began to live separately from their living quarters for fear of disease. It was believed that a simple contact was sufficient, not only with the patient, but also with the dishes he ate, the clothes, even the place he stepped on. Air can also bring infection. Therefore, patients were sent and provided with a minimal amount of food and clothing so that they would not come to the rest.

Here, action takes place in one such colony, where six adults and a girl live. The leprosy has excluded them from society, they cannot return to the big world, they must be content with each other’s companionship. And although their life is difficult, food and warmth are difficult to reach, and although they are always on the verge of death, a conflict is developing within this group. Not all sick, two women came to the lepers healthy – one was brought by her husband to get rid of her, leaving her tied up in the tundra, and the sick found her. The latter came there voluntarily to live with her beloved husband. The girl, who was born in the colony and has not seen another life, is not sick either. However, the fear of leprosy stronger than any fence now separates them from their tribe members.

Judging by the script, Balabanov wanted to make a film of a very exotic nature, a lot of work was done to collect authentic items, the life of the Yakuts was very carefully studied, a very picturesque and very detailed setting was created. .

And although the film was shot not in Yakutia, but in the north of Russia, the landscapes of incredible beauty in all four seasons: winter, spring, summer and autumn had to be part of the amazing world in which the action took place. They planned to record these features of the almost primitive economy, which became most of the lepers: catching fish, cutting, drying, cooking – all this can be not only background, but also the meaning of history. It’s about how a person clings to life, fighting for his existence, even when he has no obvious purpose or meaning, even when he has only a bare existence. How he acquires habits and attachments, how he lives with hope, how he rejoices in small things. However, very little of this idea was implemented.

When Balabanov edited the filmed episodes, the picture turned out to be different. All intermediate stages disappeared, history straightened like an arrow and hit a new target.

Balabanov showed a film about leprosy in the human soul, a powerful, simple and terrible story of how a terrible disease can be more merciful than human passions. We didn’t have time to see all the details and get used to reading daily life and details. But individual scenes reached an epic scale. The outside world was supposed to appear in several scenes, but as a result, it remained in only one – the place where a powerful shouted to the unfortunate Anchik that he had come to seek help from his former neighbors. There is no translation in this scene – so are the others (the protagonists of the movie speak Yakut). The outside world does not exist, and if sometimes it looks like a Ruby, who with a cow pleading to Anchik, returns to the world of lepers, then he does not want to notice the people inside, he just takes pity on the cow, “creature of God” “will rot in a cursed place.

At the same time, there is so much goodness and humanity inside the small colony. There are old people in this model – they are gnawed by the disease, but they keep their humor, enjoy food and warmth, and fondly remember the past. There are grown men, one is Anchik’s husband, indifferently enduring her grief, “shamefully indifferent” to good and evil, the other – played by Balabanov’s favorite actor Mikhail Skryabin (“Cargo 200”, “Stoker”) – on the contrary, a gentleman and philosopher, hunter and fisherman, real worker and winner despite his aching legs. The girl is still a child with her usual childish thirst for impressions, joy and happiness. And two women – the docile and obedient Anchik and Megren – are angry, passionate, tough, jealous of everyone around and pitiful in their loneliness. In this weak world, Megraine is a thief and a robber, she gives orders, demands obedience, and everyone obeys her. In the pursuit of peace and tranquility, no one tries to contradict him, everyone simply softens conflicts, surrenders and surrenders. But this is not enough. And in the finale, in a helpless rage, she destroys his small and sickly yet familiar world.

After watching it, a well-known critic approached Balabanov and said: “Lyosha, I am surprised that you stick to one theme in all the films: these are the ways and methods of suicide of the Russian people. And the perseverance that people strive for. Balabanov called Sergei Selyanov: “Look, here’s one of the few who get it.”

Pessimism was inherent in Balabanov, he saw the world as a rather gloomy place, in essence tragic and tragedies were drawn to him – in front of him was the death of Tuyar, his Megrain, the unfilmed “American”, the terrible death of Sergei Bodrov. and most of the film crew, from which Balabanov “borrowed” Bodrov, whom he loved like a son, a brother. own disease Premature, essentially death.

Balabanov lived in an age of hope, when the young Russian world was full of illusions and plans, in a hurry to live, earn money, consume, build. Against this background, Balabanov’s worldview seemed unnecessarily compelling, gloomy, many said that his films were too gloomy. But it is not. Despite all his inner sadness, Balabanov did not feel hopeless – because he had a movie. The films he made gave him strength. In the cinema, one can put aside heavy premonitions and point out something that is not present in life: a good ending.

In Seroshevsky’s story, fire houses buildings, a bear swallows corpses, and a little girl becomes his last victim. The movie has a different ending. A child appears in it, born of the already dead Anchik. The boy cries, the girl finds him, washes him, swaddles him in his elegant scarf, spilling the last milk, just as Anchik did with Megraine, the child who did not live long and died of starvation, not waiting for the holiday. puts the bottle and the nursing baby in the boat. The boat floats to the river, and from there to the ocean, and no one knows where or how to land.

This is how Balabanov finished his first film “Happy Days” – St. Petersburg streets flooded with water, an arrow appeared on the film, the landscape turned into a child’s drawing, a boat rocked above it. waves. It has the inscription on it: “Mine.”

In general, Balabanov’s films in the cinema continue to exist in the history of world cinema. This is important. This is encouraging.

The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.