I have been hearing the same thing from film critics and viewers for many years: Russian cinema is dead, nothing to watch, the Soviet school was killed, nothing new has appeared.
And most of the time there is nothing to discuss. Yes, there were the great Balabanov and maybe a dozen other talented directors. But when compared, for example, to the sixties or seventies, the picture looks sad. Those who wish can conduct an experiment – for example, open Wikipedia and see how much and what was shot in just one year in the USSR. For example, 1972 – “The Dawns Here Are Quiet”, “Gentlemen of Fortune”, “Russian Field”, “Solaris” and two dozen more films that everyone knows and remembers.
So what happened to domestic cinema? I grew up in cinema in the 90s. The whole family was engaged in filmmaking, my grandmother was the director of the central cinema in the city where I was born. I remember that time very well: unheated empty halls, constant American action movies starring Bruce Willis on the screen.
It seems to me that the flood of Western film production flowing into Russia at that time simply killed the demand for Russian cinema and, consequently, its distribution.
For my generation (younger ones aside), the phrase “Russian cinema” has become synonymous with something bad, boring, and shoddy.
The situation has changed a bit, with box office booming hipster idols like Dozory and later Zvyagintsev, and the taste preferences created in an entire generation by Afisha magazine in general. However, a new Russian cinema for a wide audience was not born until recently, perhaps with the exception of the aforementioned Balabanov.
In my opinion, the situation began to change at the moment when the cultural milieu as a whole was reshaped.
The first signs appeared earlier – they were quite successful at the box office, and the ironic “Arrhythmia” picture of Boris Khlebnikov’s drama Avdotya Smirnova, which is not at all silly “Arrhythmia”, literally thundered. Both that and another – a film that needs to be considered at the same time and presented to a wide audience.
Yuri Bykov’s films have aroused a certain interest, but personally they seem to me the same pompous epigonism of Balabanov. The work of Andrei Petrovich Zvyagintsev, frankly, a shame to discuss, all this is “a problem tailored to the answer,” as one well-known film critic put it. But I’m not talking about that.
I felt that the situation began to change last week at the premiere of Rauf Kubaev’s film “Temple” at the Cinema House. “Temple” is a photograph taken for a wide audience, but it is a real phenomenon. The fact is that during all the action in the frame, several actors are acting against the background of the same scene. There is no special dynamic, nothing burns and explodes, no one shoots, but it is impossible to escape – the stronger the psychological intensity. A similar focus succeeds in my memory, directed by Roman Polanski in the movie “Massacre”. I didn’t think I’d see something like this in Russian in the near future! In the center of the action – as expected, the gospel parable. But it is a meaningful and subtle dramaturgy, not a craft that is crudely riveted and hastily displayed before the audience.
A few years later, I was pleasantly surprised for the second time – the audience laughed and cried. The first – it was just “Arrhythmia”.
I strongly believe in the rule. If something happened once, it could be an accident. Two is a rule. Three – becomes a good party tradition.
Finally, they began to make films in Russia that they were not ashamed of. And this cinema was designed not for a narrow intellectual circle, not for a foreign festival, but for our lively and engaged audience. I hope this is just the beginning.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.