Alena Solntseva “I give you lyam in rubles and you make a movie for me” About the new image of the 90s, Constantinople, Byzantium and how it ended 01.01.2023, 08:22

On the first day of the new year, the movie “Clipmakers”, in which cult director Gregory of Constantinople remembers his youth, the 90s, his old friends, and the atmosphere of a flamboyant decade, is released in his own paradoxical style. The New Year’s spirit of the film is supported by a huge number of hits, bright costumes, clips, jokes and jokes that were popular at the time, as it should be in the unfading format of Blue Light, namely Old Songs About the Mother. Although a calm ending does not work: the fate of the four friends, who happily crossed fire, water and copper pipes, does not end triumphantly. It has remained in the cinema and since then The Drunk Firm, Dead Souls, Thunderstorm, Russian Demon etc. “Half Dollar”, withdrawn in 1999, remained heated.

Then a generation of videographers came to the cinema, the young, crazy guys started shooting commercials and music videos in their own studios for very little money, and they were eager to make a big movie. In fact, the young Grisha Konstantinopolsky made his first film about them: in it (with the participation of the screenwriter Avdotya Smirnova) exactly the same story is told about an aspiring director who receives money for the film from a bandit, but not for the film. away because of an affair with a rogue mistress. In general, something in the spirit of “Cards, money, two barrels” for the poor and naive. A deceived rogue investor (Fyodor Bondarchuk) is ready to kill a treacherous director (Ivan Okhlobystin), but dies after being choked with pistachios, a then-new trendy snack. But instead a new bandit with the same face immediately appears (the same Fyodor Bondarchuk) and history repeats itself. The film was screened in Sochi at the Kinotavr first competition, scolded by critics for its artistic failure, and subsequently banned altogether due to a copyright scandal. However, it sold out on pirated tapes. Young people fell in love with him for his spirit of freedom and fun, disregard for norms, boldly dementia and acting genres.

And in 2022, Gregory of Constantinople is shooting a new film, the main character of which is the clip maker Grisha Byzantium. Alexander Gorchilin plays her in a reddish wig, his faithful comrades stand next to him: Vasya Coppola (Alexander Kuznetsov), Armen Petrosyan (Aram Vardevanyan) and screenwriter Tonya Vodkina (Maria Shalaeva). The characters have prototypes: in Tone, witnesses recognize the features of Dunya Smirnova in Vasya – Fyodor Bondarchuk, but Armen has his own name. The author of the then thunderous music videos – “Crow” by Linda, “Airplane” by Valeria, “Tango Three” by Kristina Orbakaite, “I Love You” by Nikolai Noskov – died in September 1999. Trying to escape at high speed from two jeeps with flashing lights, his Mercedes crashed into the Moscow River opposite the Radisson Slavyanskaya Hotel. The film is dedicated to the memory of his friend Armen of Constantinople. But in the center of the plot, of course, the heroine of the beautiful and tender-hearted young Byzantine Gorchilin, the desire to take revenge on the unfaithful beauty in his chest, a loaded pistol in his pocket and a T- Portrait of Tatyana Drubich from the movie “One Hundred Days from Childhood” by Sergei Solovyov. carrying shirt.

There are several visually expressed stereotypes of the 90s in Russian cinema. Bandits in crimson jackets and striped tracksuits. Former Afghan veterans who became mafia. Beggar grandmothers selling their shares, aunts in checkered swimsuits in clothing markets.

The collapse of the Soviet world and the illusion of a future consumer paradise. Redistribution of property, new billionaires, factories under siege. A time of great opportunity and great risk. Lack of hope for new professions and old professionals. Revolution in the hierarchy of values. Crazy money and crazy bullets. The young and the strong succeeded or were killed. The old and the weak suffered, died, were forgotten. Freedom, mad with boundlessness, turned into violence, and violence wanted to embellish itself with art. Everything happened at the same time and flowed in different directions, and what was difficult for some became a sentence for others.

It would be interesting to understand this, but according to the producer of the film, Sergei Selyanov, the audience no longer wants something complicated and difficult. Thus, his view of the past, proposed by Constantinople as a humorous comic, seemed capable, if not huge fees, at least to win the sympathy of the audience and give the public therapeutic pleasure. “This is a hooligan, ironic, as always with Grisha, a bright and daring “biography” about his own youth, about how it all began (including cinema) – here it is – in Russia, in the 90s, about what happened, and what it wasn’t. The picture is very cheerful and moody, just for the New Year holidays,” Selyanov convinces.

Konstantinopolsky, who wrote the script, mixed all the stereotypes of the 90s in one cauldron, adding his memories of post-Soviet show business, which also dreamed of extraordinary victories, Cannes stairs and performances in Hollywood. According to him, this time it provides rich material for the script – “a rare combination of dark days and bright hopes”, his generation “lived with a bright future and a sense of freedom. We are not yet tired of freedom, we are not tired of it yet.” And although the future has borne other fruits, one sees one’s own youth happily today.However, despite its clearly autobiographical point of view, the viewer is not presented with psychologically reliable memories of the 90s – only grotesque, burlesque and black comedy. Gosha, Vasya, Tonya and Armen find themselves one they find themselves in a completely conditional world where there is a restaurant, a casino, a studio or a big crowd shooting at every corner.And everybody has a gun in their pocket, everybody shoots, cars explode, thugs get up and die again, nobody has time to sober up, whiskey it flows like water, sex is everywhere, and love only happens in particularly romantic areas.

The main enemy of the heroes, a bandit named Beaver, with an impenetrable head, but with a hollow memory, was wonderfully and stupidly played by Vladimir Epifantsev. The beaver is of course a bandit, dangerous but simple-minded. He believes everything like a child. Every time he willingly pays for the cinema, and only a weak head does not allow everyone to understand that he is cheating on him. The four of us deal with this deftly, just grab a chair and slap him on the head. This has been happening since 1992 and it always works. Until the time comes for political technologists, not video makers, Bober joins United Russia and Vasya Coppola goes to meet with a certain Bereza (Nikolai Fomenko). It looks like the guys will now confuse the same, albeit in a different spin, when suddenly much more dangerous opponents step in (and win).

Realizing that the ’90s is the promise of a future that has yet to come, somewhat overshadows the film’s finale, but still the art of cinema has its advantages. For example, the opportunity to reshoot something. In any case, his first movie, Constantinople, was re-shot today. Not everyone can be successful. All right, Gregory.

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