A cinema adaptation of a once banned novel, directed by an opponent of the war and starring some non-Russian players has become a box office winner in Russia.
Russia Beyond have dubbed Mikhail Bulgakov’s most famous work, Master and Margarita `one of the favourite novels of all Russians`. This accolade holds in spite of the novel having featured in the Russian school curriculum for the last twenty-two years.
Bulgakov – Muscovite, physician, playwright and novelist toiled on this epic novel for the best part of two decades. That is, between 1928 and up to his death at 48 in 1940.
The strictures of the Stalin -lead Soviet regime, where `Socialist Realism` was exalted, proved the kiss of death to the visionary wildness and mockery which is central to Bulgakov’s voice. Not until 1968 – and in Paris at that – did a version of Master and Margarita see mass print in its entirety.
Poisoned chalice.
Since then this fantasia has left its fingerprints all over the culture worldwide. It is hard to conceive of Sergey Lukyanenko’s brand of Urban Fantasy or, for that matter, Viktor Pelevin’s `post-modernism` existing without Bulgakov’s prior prompting.
Then, for instance, the actor Daniel Radcliffe is enough of a fan to have travelled to Moscow to pay homage to the House of Bulgakov which is to be found there, as a birthday treat.
There have been repeated endeavors to enact Master and Margarita for theatres and for celluloid. A few of these have ended in tears. You can even hear a predictable rumour to the effect that – like the …er…`Scottish play` – a sword of Damocles hangs over those that would produce it. Nevertheless 2005 saw a much-repeated television series of it by the controversial Vladimir Bortenko.
Foreign agents.
Master and Maragrita (2024)[Wikipedia]
This latest version has been threatened for some time and has changed hands once or twice. At one point it was to be called Woland (the name of the magician figure in the story). Even with the traditional name the producers seem keen to stress that this is no straight reproduction of the source material.
The director is the 45-year-old Mikhail Lokshin, who studied psychology at Moscow State University, now resides in America and has made his disagreement with the invasion of the Ukraine clear. Roman Kantor, known for Epidemia , the television thriller that made it to Netflix, is the scriptwriter,
Alongside Evgeny Tsyganov, a Muscovite with a very lengthy string of screen appearances to his credit, as the Master, stars his real-life wife, the model Yulia Snigir who hails from Donskoy in the Tula region – as Maragarita.
The German West Berliner August Diehl plays Woland and the Danish actor Claes Bang, best known for playing the lead in a 2022 British production of Dracula, is cast in the very different role of Pontius Pilate.
Crazy Circus.
In this story, the Master works as a writer in the U.S.S.R of Five-Year Plans and purges. His latest play, which concerns Pontius Pilate, receives a hostile reception from a committee of fellow scribes with the result that his play is taken off. The Master’s despair is lightened somewhat when he encounters the elegant wife of a colonel – Margarita. They click at once and she becomes both his muse and his cheerleader.
In a fine conceit, the more fantastical events for which Master and Margarita are celebrated occur in the Master’s brain, sparked off by a meeting with an eccentric foreigner, and which forms the basis of a new novel.
Some of the antics of Woland and his merry troupe have been left out of the film but there does remain the exciting chase through Moscow and the conjuring show which culminates in money raining down upon the grasping Soviet citizens. The damned talking cat, Azazello is present too, of course – with some no too obtrusive C.G.I.
Then we get the cathartic scene which is Margarita’s story. She makes a Faustian pact with Woland’s set. Able to fly and become invisible she enacts vengeance on the tormentors who have imprisoned her husband in a mental asylum.
Also retained – being crucial to the overall coda – are the sequences involving Pontius Pilate in Roman ruled Jerusalem. We see him lower his own moral instincts and accede to the crucifixion of Yeshua Na Naziri – Jesus Christ to you and me. Interspersed into the main action, these scenes seem to be taken from the Master’s own aborted drama.
Extravaganza.
With a reputed 1.2 billion rubles at his disposal, Lokshin has laid out a feast for the eyes. (the lavishness reminds me of the film Empire V). The cast are all walking works of art (one of the Committee critics resembles Heinrich Himmler).
The Moscow of much of the film represents a parallel one where, for example, the planned Palace of Soviets has been built and zeppelin-like dirigibles are a common form of transport for the elite.
The lighting and colour is crepuscular and this, taken with the ruminating score by Anna Drubich (who worked on the American film Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark two years back), conjures up the right sense of sinister mystery.
Woland’s lines are in German and the Jerusalem scenes seem to be in Latin. This bold directorial decision is then compromised by the recordings being revoiced by the actors in Russian. This begs the question as to why they were not subtitled.
Enigmatic tale.
When I first slogged through Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita some years ago,I reached the last page with a feeling of irritated bafflement. What was Bulgakov trying to tell me? Russian readers told me that it was about Love or about Stalin. Then again it could be an expose of the kind of cowardice that Pilates gave in to. All of these readings could be true at the same time, but the novel still strikes me as one big riddle.
The Russian reviewers of this film have noticed a new relevance in it. Other than all being unanimous that the foreign actor playing Woland has excelled the others, they have picked up on the iconic line, `It’s allowed today, but not tomorrow`. The uncertainty as to what can and cannot be said in today’s Russia has given this sentence a new resonance.
Those who would shut down the film are out there. One Yegor Kholmogorov, columnist for the Russia Today channel, has characterized this release as `propaganda for satanism and terrorism`. Does he speak as a representative of those in power? Today maybe not, but tomorrow…
Small focal point.
I caught the film on a cold day in mid-February on a weekday afternoon showing in a small cinema in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Even so, I found myself among a flock of about twenty young ethnic Russians. Argument i Fakti (11th February, 2024)informs us that Master and Margarita has taken only second place to the ice skating feelgood drama Ice 3 and has already brought in 208.2 million on the weekend of 17th and 18th February alone.
Perhaps Kholmogorov and his fellow Z-Patriot cohorts can gain succor from the Curse-of-Master and Margarita-adaptations and just wait for it to work its magic.
Main image: sport.express.ru
