Chernovik (Rough Draft) : a colourful blockbuster based on the modish premise of alternate histories.
[Picture: kto-chto-gde.ru]`Which world would you choose? ` was the tag-line which appeared on the promotional posters in the metro about a month before this film’s release on 27th May this year. Best known for his dark fantasies Night Watch and Day Watch, (2004 and 2006 respectively) the fifty year old former doctor Sergey Lukyanenko has now seen his untranslated novel – Chernovik – from 13 years back also adapted for the screen.
This parallel worlds yarn has a 12+ certificate this time, but otherwise seems to be aiming at the same young adult audience.
Kirill, an ordinary young Muscovite (Nikita Volkov) who works for a computer games company, receives the shock of his life when he discovers one day that his whole identity has been erased from his known reality. A fellow gaming geek (Yevgeny Tkachuk) seems to be the only one to recognise him. Then, however a mysterious woman called Renata Ivanova welcomes him into a new role. He is now to be the curator of a way station straddling alternate variations of Moscow. His customers enter the water tower in which he resides and, should they show the right documents and pay, can exit out of another door straight in to a whole new version of reality. We glimpse a sun-soaked Moscow complete with palm trees along the river, a Moscow with steam punk airships crossing the skies, a variant of unreformed Stalinism, a sleek futuristic Chinese run Moscow, and so on.
Within all this kaleidoscopic adventure we are given a conventional romantic sub-plot as Kirrill pursues the same woman in different guises throughout switching between worlds. However, his friendship with the loyal and goofy coloured-shade- wearing fellow gamer packs much more impact.
The director Sergey Mokritsky made his name with the much more earthy DyenUchitelya (Teacher’s Day) (2012) but here he delivers the kind of glittery grandeur you would expect from a Lukyanenko product. It all gets very J.K. Rowling-meets-Bulgakov: in particular when there is a climatic showdown between the ruling `functionals`.
Apart from the giant killer matrioshka dolls – which are straight out of the sillier end of Doctor Who – the other most memorable thing in this flashy movie is that it graces the stately Lithuanian actress Severija Janusauskaite (last seen in a support role in satisfying psychological thriller Selfie) with a rather more fitting part as a superhuman supervisor.
The Grand Old Lady of Russian letters has some weird tales to tell.
Nina had always been a disorganised person who let things go; thus her leave from the newspaper to go `freelance` and the apparent total unravelling of her life…. She ate, she drank…and they didn’t need any money, since every day the young fisherman would bring the fruits of the sea home to them.
`Who is he? ` I asked, and Nina, without any hesitation answered that he was the son of Poseidon, god of the sea, that he could breathe underwater, that he brought home literally everything from there….
For all the reputation for `chauvinism` that still sticks to Russian society, the fact remains that one of its most revered authors is a woman, an elderly woman at that. Moreover, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya is neither a veteran critic of Soviet repression like a Solhenitzyn, nor someone exulting in the shiny new capitalism like a Sergey Minaev. As such, this writer, playwright and novelist can offer the Western reader a fresh take on how a great many Russians really think and feel.
Amongst the nation’s best-known contemporary writers, Petrushevskaya cuts a figure of a sort of literary godmother. From her thirties this Muscovite has been producing stories and plays and following a long period of being disregarded came to prominence in the 1980s when her dramas – compared by some to Harold Pinter’s -were seen as fit to be performed. Then as she reached fifty her first book of short stories saw print in Russia.
Now these tales have been translated into English by two Americans, Ann Summers – a Slavic literature academic – and the Moscow born Keith Gessen, founder of `n+1` magazine. Penguin Modern classics have collected them under the title There Once Was A Woman Who Tried ToKill Her Neighbour’s Baby which hit the shelves in 2009.
This collection is made up of 19 short tales grouped into four categories: Songs of the Eastern Slavs, Allegories, Requiems and Fairy Tales. They defy easy categorisation but the tag `magical realism` is a hard one to avoid. Readers who have encountered Vladimir Sorokin might also be reminded of him, but her work relies less on shock tactics.
To a British reader they offer not such a great challenge as similar developments occurred in British fiction in the same general period. I am thinking of The Cement Garden period Ian Mc Ewan (or `Ian Macabre` as he was then sometimes dubbed) as well as the Gothic fantasias of Angela Carter.
Petrushevskaya tells us of women, married couples and families who undergo strange life and death situations. Some of these invoke the supernatural, others can be accounted for in terms of psychology but in all cases individual experience is paramount. Whilst Petrushevskaya avoids local and historical references it is clear that it is the seedy apartments of the Russia of the Eighties to the present day that she is showing us.
Two of her stories – `Hygiene` and the infamous `The New Robinson Crusoes: A Chronicle of the End of the Twentieth Century` function as sketches of dystopian catastrophe. In the former, for example, a man who has recovered from a mystery plague knocks on the door of a family apartment to warn them of the coming social collapse. This does indeed occur but the family survives through robbery, although end up having to quarantine their own daughter.
Others such as `The God Poseidon` (quoted from above) and `The Black Coat` can be enjoyed as supernatural chillers. It would not be difficult to imagine them being anthologised in the more thoughtful type of Horror collection sandwiched between Robert Aickman and Ramsey Campbell. (Indeed Petrushevskaya won a World Fantasy award for this book in 2009).
`There is Someone in the House` however, suggests a study in morbid psychology whereas `Marllena`s Secret` is a bold fantasia and `My Love` an extended exercise in tragic pathos.
Her prose is spare but with enough observant detail to bring some reality to her fables. The fast paced narrative is told by an earthy and unsentimental voice, which is matter-of-fact, and without overt humour. The resulting effect – pithy and sensational- resonates in the West as much as it does in Russia. She has been on the New York Times bestseller list.
Petrushevskaya casts a flamboyant figure, dressing like a grand dame and singing cabaret. From not being able to get published in her own country at all she has become its national treasure, an icon of survival.
There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbour’s Baby:Scary Fairy Tales by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, translated by Keith Gessen and Anna Summers is published by the Penguin Group (London: 2009)
(The above quotation is from p-85, `The God Poseidon`).
Vintage garage rockers promote gleeful disorder among younger fans.
Photography by Iain Rodgers.
I have been among many gig goers in Kazan and Moscow to catch a bit of darkwave (Otto Dix), some grindcore ([Amatory]), some blues (Blues Gravity) and a bit of pop-rock (Gorod 312) but had not really been witness to any rUsSiAn PuNk. Until now that is.
In fact Russian punk rock has a longer history than you might expect. Many trace this genre’s origins back to Leningrad (now St Petersburg) in 1979. And what if I told you that there was a punk band called Adolf Hitler from Siberia – in 1986!
Posledni Tank V Parizhe (Last Tank in Paris) – often abbreviated to P.T.V.P – were formed ten years later in 1996 and in fact they hail from the supposed birthplace of Russian punk. They are said have kept hold of some (whisper it) political dissent. As so many newer acts seem to fail in this regard, this would be worth seeing.
Their appearance in the capital on 16th September this year was not well publicised and even grabbing an advance ticket proved to be an obstacle course. The babaushka at the kiosk who would be the usual supplier swore blind that there was no such band on at the Red Club, and it was to that club that I had to go to in the end to get satisfaction.
Situated on Bolotnaya Nab on the bank of the River Moskva, this long established nightclub-cum restaurant serves as a place for big acts, with the emphasis on rock. This event was billed as Demokraticheskoi KonsertPo Zayavkam which I first took as a bold plea for a more representative government before realising that it had more the sense of `Due to popular demand. `
I estimate that the mixed sex and age audience that came in from the early autumn nippiness reached 800 or so. Few looked like hardcore punks: I espied a `Punk’s Not Dead` t-shirt and a `Motorhead `one and one guy with a mohican, but the rest of us had come as we were.
As we sipped our 400 rouble a throw Budweisers, a backstage projection behind the stage shone the initials P.T.V.P and we grew restless. They arrived at about 9.00 pm, an hour after the ticket time. This four piece string and drum outfit consist of Denis Krichov hitting the skins and adding to the vocals, Igor Nedviga on bass and also some vocals and Anton `Bender` Dokuchaev, the axeman. These came on first as the gathering chanted `P! T! V! P! `
Then, from the back of the stage, emerged Aleksei Nikonov, the poet and kingpin of the ensemble. No pretty boy, chunky and in a dark suit and shades he resembled a member of the Blues Brothers except for his slicked back hair and man-bun.
Nikonov greeted Moscow and they kick-started their two hour set. Their dirty sound was predictable for the most part: honed down energetic rock and roll (think The Damned era punk) and some more upbeat power pop but also some more thoughtful alternative rock interludes which brought to mind Magazine. This was a big sound for a four piece (I think I detected the use of a backing track only once). Some of their guitar work reached a divine level. Nikonov’s vocal delivery, on the other hand, aped the standard telegrammatic nagging of early British punk rock.
The musicians presented a nondescript appearance but Nikonov compensated for this by his `Red Indian` style circular stomping, his waving of a baton and by appearing to swig from a wine bottle (I say `appearing` because I believe that onstage drinking is banned in Russia. At least I have never seen it done for real).
The audience were the ones providing the main spectacle though: women gyrated like charmed snakes and I saw a guy held up by two walking sticks head banging with his dreadlocks flying everywhere. There was much in the way of slam dancing and its attendant stage diving. One girl, after doing her first exploratory stage dive, ran back to the embrace of her mother.
I think I caught the word `revolutsia` once but any sense of taking on state control was lost in the indiscernible lyrics. While the motley crew who came to see the band were no conformists, they had not come for that. The word had clearly got out that P.T.V.P could create a backdrop for a bit of organised mayhem. So what!? Naff off!
Witchcraft is afoot in the village again and Gogol must pull himself together enough to help…in the latest in this genre-busting movie series!
The distraught friends are carrying a coffin to the burial ground of Dikanka. This contains the body of Nikolai Gogol, demon-slayer. After the earth has been piled onto this, Gogol’s eyes open and, screaming, he begins the frantic scramble to escape premature burial. A departing friend hears the noise and turns in time to see a hand emerging from the grave. Gogol is back…!
Gogol: The Terrible Revenge (Gogol: Strazhnaya Mest) forms the closing act of a trilogy that introduces a fictional variant of that famed Ukrainian Man of Letters: Nikolai Gogol ( a standard bust of whom is shown above, in a random park in Vladimir). In this he is a psychic who assists a detective struggling to banish an ancient curse which had been cast on the village of Dikanka. The premise seems preposterous and I called my review (for Moskvaer) of the first in the series Sorry, Gogol. (Read it here).
The second part Gogol: Viy I even declined to see, not wanting my memory of the great Soviet horror film Viy (1967) to become besmirched.
Here we are again though! Wikipedia terms this franchise `fantasy-action-horror-mystery-thriller`. So as not to be short of breath, I would rather just say `Dark Fantasy. ` If you can imagine that Tim Burton had overdosed on Slavic folklore you would get the idea.
The I hour 50 minute long 16+ certificate film spooked cinema goers since 30th August this year and was produced by a collaboration between Sreda Production company and the entertainment channel TV3. The latter, which is already known for its hocus-pocus content, intends to broadcast the show later as a TV serial. Indeed (according to IMDb) this constitutes the first TV show to be screened first at the cinema!
Pantomime.
The action takes place in a fairytale 1829 universe where a large cartoonish moon hangs over the village. The colours of the photography seem autumnal and muted, the actors faces pallid. The acting seems quite `stagey` but the swashbuckling glamour of the early Nineteenth Century is put across well. The cast seem to be enjoying themselves but are serious enough about it so as not to let the whole thing descend into camp parody. They are an attractive lot too: in particular the 22 year old Taisa Volkova, a sort of Russian Billy Piper, has the sort of features which you feel you could gaze at forevermore.
Witch-hunt.
There is no need for a Spoiler Alert here. The plot is serpentine and the proceedings held together by quite lengthy dialogue (making it heavy-going on this Russian learner).
Suffice to say that Gogol (Alexander Petrov) continues to be overwhelmed and discombobulated throughout as friends and lovers turn out to be in league with demons. His ebullient associate, Inspector Yakov (Oleg Menshikov) then arrives on horseback from St Petersburg with handcuffs ready to arrest these blackguards. Meanwhile, we encounter much in the way of talons extending from human fingers, infernos and swirling flocks of birds and all that sort of thing.
Hip History.
On a more educational level, we get a bit of a biography lesson as scenes from Gogol’s early work Evening on A Farm in Dikanka are interlaced with episodes of Gogol’s own life. The conceit is that these fantastical occurrences really happened to him and that he later wrote them up as fiction. It is all rather innovative, but to look for a precedent imagine Shakespeare in Love meets Van Helsing
They deliver the whole farrago with gusto – there is even a bespoke song as the credits roll by the lead singer of the group Leningrad. Even though I felt that I had viewed nothing more than a diverting side-show, nevertheless I will never quite see Nikolai Vasiliech Gogol in the same way again.
The two members of Russia’s most popular band have both played in Moscow recently -and I caught them both.
Fame.
A girl synth pop-rock duo formed in Moscow in the late Nineties, the Russian outfit t.A.T.u produced a string of international hits through a nine year period in the Noughties.
As much as Eurovision followers may recall who Dima Bilan is, or rock historians may have read something about Machina Vremya or Akvarium, or metal-heads could well have head banged to an anthem that Aria played, the Russian group with a worldwide profile is t.A.T.u. They were the `National treasures` who featured in the opening ceremony of the Russian Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014.
T.A.T.u consist of the Muscovites Yulia Olegovna Volkova, now aged thirty three (and married with a child) and Katina Elena Sergeevna, who is one year older. Ivan Shaplov, who had a background in television, managed them.
Beginning with Ya slosha s’ooma (I’ve Lost My Mind) in 2000, they released a series of dance floor standards, pop ballads, cover versions and even mash ups with the like of Rammstein, the German heavy rock band. They strutted their stuff in the Eurovision song contest of 2003, and came third place.
Synth-pop with attitude.
t.A.T.u could be seen as a product of the ferment of Nineties Russia, which brought forth techno bands like Virus, but also song based dance acts like Mirage. They combined something of both of these styles but injected it with a dose of teenage defiance. In so doing, they made the Spice Girls of a few years earlier look tame in comparison. Moreover, their mock-lesbian pose, with corresponding graphic videos made them notorious.
In fact, the romantic thread which runs through their lyrics had been inspired by the Swedish film called Show Me Love (1998) by Lukas Moodyson. This is about a schoolgirl tryst in the small town of Omolo. Their trademark white shirt and short check skirt look, meanwhile, owed something to the erotic end of Japanese Manga comics.
Their sound, a distinctive mix of Euro-pop and techno, was helped along by the Durham born British pop visionary Trevor Horn, who produced many of their compositions.
t.A.T.u forever created controversy, and sometimes without meaning to. They appeared on stage brandishing Kalashnikovs, they were accused of sneering at the disabled with their song Lyudi Invalidi, mimed sexual acts live, supported gay rights, and wore t-shirts that featured ant-Iraq war slogans.
Their fans came from the same age group as the girls. Their appeal lay in the music and the image more than anything else. t.A.T.useemed like ordinary Russian young women: a bit talented, attractive without being too glamorous, half Westernised and with ambitions for something more. Furthermore, by singing in both English and Russian they kept hold of their national identities. Their debut album 200 Po Vstrechnoi /200KM in the WrongLane (2001) was the first ever to win the platinum award in two languages. t.A.T.u encouraged kids in China and Turkey and elsewhere to try and learn some Russian.
The Venue: Mumiy Troll bar in Moscow.
Mumy Troll, an uneasy mix of cabaret bar and restaurant, can be found just below street level on Tverskaya Street in an area of plush hotels. The place has a dress code and the lead singer of the band after which it is named intends to set up an international chain of such places.
Julia Volkova live, March 2016.
Voices called out `Julia! Julia!’ as though she was a friend that they had passed in the street and she beamed as someone handed her a huge bouquet of pink roses. I had come expecting to see an ice queen; instead what I got was a good-time girl….
This, I had also thought, was not going to be my scene but I found myself happy to lay down the thousand rouble entrance fee at the door to see Julia Volkova play live. It would not do to miss a chance to witness the return of an iconic half of Russia’s best known pop sensation.
Since the t.A.Tu days Julia has fallen out with Lena, reconciled with her and then fallen out again, married and divorced and given birth twice, and received surgery for throat cancer. Furthermore, if you type her name into a search engine the word `homophobia` will pop up. She found herself in the middle of a row about gay men after letting slip, on a Ukrainian chat show, that she would not like her son to be a homosexual..
Donned in smart casual gear, there were more women than men and many could not have clear memories of the early noughties. They gathered round the oval bar in the centre of the club to order pricey German beers or even cocktails. Some of them were Friday night regulars who would pass the evening chomping on their pommes frites and chicken kievs gazing at it all as if it were on television.
The faithful, however, congregated around the platform and waited while a loop of soft rock from Mumiy Troll played on in the background. The lights then flickered as stage smoke appeared.
There was no other build up. Looking over at the stage door we stole a glimpse of Julia, hemmed in by bouncers with sweatshirts bearing the legend `No Stress`.
The drummer lumbered on stage first, and looked like one of the bouncers, and he was followed by a silken haired maestro of a violinist, a t-shirted guitarist and a man with strap-on keyboards.
Then at last Julia made her entrance: she was a black kitten in fishnets, with wild spiked hair and lobster coloured skin. She was accompanied by two backing singers in black and white uniforms like air stewardesses.
This odd ensemble set about a rendition of `Friend or Foe` and, as though they had been waiting for this very number, the gathering sang along as they held their smart-phones aloft hoping to capture Julia as she boxed the air to the peppy beat.
This set the trend. Julia’s more contemporary pieces, such as the Berlin cabaret like `Woman All the Way down` did not get an airing and instead we were treated to a bit of a t.A.Tu retrospective with such classics as `Nas Nye Dogonyat`, `Loves Me Not` and `Ya Soshla s Ooma`
There also ensued some sort of monologue spoken over an instrumental backing, the usual teary ballad and a token rap interlude. The chunky rap artist –whose contrast with the diminutive frame of Julia could not have been greater –only drew a polite but cool reception.
The hour and a half long set was filmed and what defined it was Julia’s ebullient demeanour. At one point she even addressed onlookers peering in from the windows overlooking Tverskaya Street.
Then the sound. Rocked up by pounding drums and reinforced by extra singers it became pure pop-rock-dance fun, and was quite apart from the plastic industrial clatter of some of t.A.T.u’s recordings.
I have been to more worthy gigs and to ones cooler and more up-to-the-minute. This one, with its feeling of being a friend’s reunion, is one of the few where I haven’t been waiting for it to end so that I could replenish my drink.
Lena Katina live, March 2018.
Some of the nondescript thirty-somethings who came stamping into this from the early March frost that night may have been regular clientele come to sample the lobster. Even so, the crowd struggled to reach three digit figures. They then had to sip their spectacular cocktails for about an hour before the five-piece band, including two backing singers, appeared on the stage. Then, at last, the spangled and henna haired form of Lena Katina sauntered on, to polite applause.
Her two and a half hour show was episodic. The first section consisted of a string of short and sweet pop ditties, with a female violinist making a guest appearance for one of the slower numbers. Most of these songs went in one of my ears and out of the other although `Never Forget` is a good solid ballad, worthy of t.A.T.u. For me, however, the stand out piece had to be `Silent Hills`, a stirring rumination on marital breakdown with some intelligent lyrics.
The band then fled the stage to allow two Townies to come on with a mixer desk for a drum `n` bass interlude. (At least there was no rapper!)
Then the predictable last section was one which doubled the number of spectators standing near the stage: it was t.A.T.u revival time, and this seemed what many of them had come to see. The band rattled through the classics which they were authorised to do – and these included `Pol chas` `Ya soshia S’uma` and the barnstorming `All About Us` all of which sounded pretty much like the t.A.T.u originals. The band then left without an encore but not before they had rolled down a screen and Lena sang a ballad about her t.A.Tu days accompanied by shots of Yulia and herself in New York in the Nineties.
If t.A.T.u could be considered to be a `rock-pop` act then Lena Katina, with her sound grasp of melody and `sincere` persona, represents the pop part of the equation. The more `rock and roll` one, however, is Julia Volkova whose act was a bit more transgressive in its sexyness and I rather preferred her for that.
The main image (of Julia Volkova) belongs to Mumiy Troll bar, Moscow.
The review of Julia Vokova first appeared in Moskvaer (see related links page).
Supernovas in the science fiction galaxy, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, a St Petersburg writing duo, were feted in their time and their novels have been treated to numerous cinema adaptations, from the somewhat weighty `Stalker` (1979) to the more popcorn friendly `Inhabited Island` (2008).
As much as some of their visions – such as the autocratic regime in `Hard to be a God` (1964) – contain metaphorical critiques of their own government, the Strugatsky brothers have not really been viewed as dissident writers as such. That may be about to change. As a part of an S.F Masterworks series, which has been re-issuing classics of the genre since 1999, Andrew Bromfield introduced the Anglophone world to `The Doomed City` last year.
The brothers, following many years of secret gestation, completed this novel in 1972. However it only saw print, courtesy of `Neva press` between 1988 and 1989. This delay owes to the fact that the novel comprised – as Dmitry Glukhovsky (`Metro`2033 and 2034`) says in his indispensable Foreword -`…an allusion to the Soviet Union…so transparent that there was a reason to fear not only for the Strugatskys but also for the censors who allowed the book to see print` (p-xi).
Human zoo.
I am required by law to describe this whopping 453-page dystopia as `Kafkaesque` and indeed it is. The protagonist, Andrei Voronin is a conventional young man from Fifties period Soviet Russia. Somehow he has found himself in the world of The Experiment. In this a group of humans, some volunteers and others conscripts, are put together in a nameless City with no known location or time. Their artificial sun is switched on and off and their living space `was clearly divided into two equal halves. Looking to the west there was a boundless, blue green void – not sea and not even sky…To the east…was an unbounded expanse of solid yellow…Infinite Void to the west and infinite Solidity to the east`. (Pages 266-267).
The inhabitants undergo what seem to be meaningless trials but there are wraithlike Mentors who seem to appear out of nowhere to dispense gnomic wisdom, and to remind Voronin that `The Experiment is the Experiment`.
The Experiment means The Experiment.
The plot appears quite formless but follows the episodic career of Voronin. First he works as a garbage collector, then an investigator, then as a newspaper editor and after that a counsellor – job rotation being a feature of the Experiment. Then, however, there is a fascistic uprising in which he lands on top of the heap. Later he leads an expedition outside the city to see if the rumours of gathering anti-city forces are true.
Throughout this, and all told with the Strugatsky’s trademark attention to detail, we see riotous kitchen parties, an invasion of baboons, and the City bedevilled by a sinister unidentified Red Building which manifests itself in different parts of the City, swallowing up its citizens.
Most of all the novel concerns itself with people. This feels like a man’s world where there is a lot of camaraderie between men as they jostle and scheme and dream amongst themselves and much of the writing consisting of intense dialogue. In fact a philosophical Jew, Izya Katzman, functions as the nearest thing the novel to a hero.
Worth it in the end.
Boris Strugatsky himself, in an Afterword, refers to the novel’s ` stubborn reluctance to glorify or acclaim anything` (p-461). Indeed, this is not comfort reading!
It was with a sense of duty that I turned the pages. Sometimes I leant in closer with a sense of intrigue. I chuckled once or twice at the slapstick humour and my pulse quickened here and there at the adventures and I knew that the creepy Red Building and the presence of Katzman would continue to haunt me. I was pleased to finish the last page and put the book to one side though.
As a science fiction `The Doomed City` falls flat. The cosmography is too meagre and the science background too thin for this to be a world that one can escape into. (Compare and contrast it with Philip Jose Farmer’s `Riverworld Saga` from 1971 to 1983. This dealt with a somewhat similar premise but constructed a much more credible alternate world in so doing).
As a novel about hypereality, however `The Doomed City` resonates more than ever, and not just in the Russian Federation. Also its in influence on many contemporary Russian writers, such as Dmitry Bykov, is clear to see.
Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris: The Doomed City (Translated by Andrew Bromfield) (Great Britian: Gollancz, 2017) All quotations are from this text.
There has been a welcome trickle of cinematic chillers issuing from Russia of late. We had the great Diggeri (Diggers) screening in 2016. Also the 35 year old Svyatoslav Podgaevsky has carved a niche for himself as a horror flick practitioner with Pikova Dama (Queen of Spades) from 2015, and, from last year Nevesta (The Bride) plus Ruslka: Ozero Mortvykh (Mermaid: Lake of the Dead) from this year At more of a pinch there is also the Gogol franchise starting with, Gogol:Nachalno (Gogol: The Beginning) which hit the Russian cinemas last year.
[Image: starfilm.ru]Konvert (The Envelope), another addition to Russia’s late foray into the horror genre, is an understated mini-gem. This was screened from November 30th 2017 but – and this tells you a lot –had a run of only a week in most cinemas and seemed to get tucked away into late showings to make room for more popular fare like Dude Who Shrunk My Car? 3
The up and coming 37 year old Vladmir Markov held the clapper-board, the yarn was spun by Ilya Kulikov (who wrote the `Chernobyl Zone of Exclusion` TV series) and it introduces a 30 year old newcomer to the screen: the lean and dark Igor Lizengevitch.
At 78 minutes long `Konvert` is a compact tale with a handful of people for the cast and with all the action taking place in central Moscow over 24 hours. There are very few jump scares and almost no gory bits, (hence it being a 16 Certificate film). Indeed, this is a spooky and poetic drama with a European feel about it. Good use is made of sumptuous cruising shots of day and night Moscow from the wheel of a car and from above. The moody ambient score by Sergiei Stern then enhances this.
Igor is a young chauffeur for an architectural bureau. A letter arrives which seems to be sent to the wrong address. The secretary – an alluring young woman – gives him the task of ensuring that it ends up in the right hands. (You get the impression that Igor only agrees to this assignment to get in her favour and expect a love interest to develop, but it typifies the economy of this film that we never see her again).
In his efforts to deliver the mysterious envelope to the right apartment – through shadowy doorways and dusty alleyways –Igor enters the `twilight zone` where urban reality and phantoms commingle. Realising that the envelope is cursed he attempts to off load it onto other people but it keeps on ending up in his hands. Then a policewoman becomes his ally and joins him on his quest as they pursue a spectral girl, the victim of a car crash, and are lead to a cemetery….
Like Nevesta, and many a ghost story, this concerns the laying to rest of old injustices. The comparison between old Russia and the steel and glass modernity of Moscow is brought out well.
Less derivative than Pikova Dama, less melodramatic than Nevesti but not as much fun as Diggeri, Konvert is ideal fare for an icy mid-winter. Like Igor, you will have to do some searching to find it however!
[Image: estudiobackstage.com]The reason why the Ukraine is the maker of the most talked about Russian language T.V show owes to the fact that, whatever else may be happening between those countries, Russia continues to harbour a voracious appetite for Ukrainian television.
That Nyukhach – The Sniffer –is being consumed in 60 countries – including the Balkans and Israel and now France has bought it, and Japan have now rolled out their own copycat version, must signify something.
Nyukhach is a detective series created by Film U.A Television and dreamt up and penned by the Ukrainian Artyom Litvinenko. The two main stars comprise Kirril Karo, an Estonian, plus the Russian Ivan Oganesyan. This show, which has been on air in Russia since December 2013, is now available on You tube, Amazon Prime and Netflix. Western observers are already comparing Nyukhach in favourable terms to the likes of the U.K’s Sherlock and The Mentalist from the U.S.A.
Elite Squad.
The eponymous protagonist, the gaunt 43-year-old Karo, is known to the press as `the dogman` on account of his special power. His enhanced olfactory sensitivities enable him to retrace the history of objects, rooms and people which he smells (an activity imagined on the screen in terms of vaporous CGI after-images). This, coupled with the encyclopaedic knowledge of the origins of scents, has turned him into a misanthropic recluse. The power also provides him with clear advantages in criminal investigations and it just so happens that a schoolboy friend heads a police unit called the Special Bureau of Investigations, which deals with off beat cases. This friend, the Sniffer’s only one, is the all; purpose womanising tough guy. Soon the Sniffer is dragged with reluctance into adventures, such as a case where a former military general, who served in Afghanistan, who spices up his retirement by hiring casual labourers on his estate and then hunting them down in a nearby forest.
Individual episodes feature stand alone tales – and they appear to take place in Russia judging by police insignia and so on –but there is a wider story arc involving love interests, family issues and a medical conspiracy.
Popular television.
This drama cannot not stand alongside the faux realism of the Scandinavian school of noir crime thriller. Nyukhach functions on a more escapist level. There can be a fair bit of dry humour arising between the strained relationship between the hero, who is a gun-shy amateur, and his police buddy who nurtures a kick-ass impatience with the Sniffer’s delicate sensibilities.
The visual design feels septic and futuristic (the Sniffer often retires to his own den which is a hi-tech luxury flat with an ensuite laboratory to analyse scents). Whilst the show does raise some issues in an oblique way – bullying in the army, corruption and class division –this is not the daily reality that most residents of Kiev or Moscow would recognise.
The characterisation in the script and performances is notably ham fisted. The Sniffer himself is the Solitary Brainbox whereas his sidekick embodies the Bondian Action Hero. Then we are treated to the Nagging Ex-Wife, the Difficult Teenager, the Long Suffering Hard-nosed Boss and, courtesy of the Lithuanian actress Agne Gruditye, the Beautiful Female Professional who Demands Respect. It is here that the derivative nature of the programme is laid most bare.
Western Sniffiness.
Outside of Eastern Europe Nyukhach has been received with begrudging acknowledgement. See, for example, Chris Riendeau’s treatment of it in The Tusk (13/07/2017) where he concludes with the conceit that Putin scripted the show! Marvel too at the remark of a satisfied viewer – quoted in U.A Film News: `I have to stop and pinch myself that I’m watching a Ukrainian T.V show` -!
However, this unoriginal Ukrainian success story might just help to wear down the prejudice in the West against Russian language television shows and films. After seeing this some viewers may well give other such products their time.` Freud’s Method`, anyone?
The reading of Russian comics began for me with Prikloocheniya Scooby Doo (Adventures ofScooby Doo) Russian language versions of which have been on sale in selected kiosks for many years, being both produced and written here in Russia.
As a fun entry into the Russian language these seemed just the job. They were not quite War and Peace level yet not too basic either, and. having grown up with the hound and his ghost busting pals I could enjoy them on the level of a second childhood..
Soon, however, the repetitiveness of their plots –(`Oo menya bi vsye poloochilos yesli bi nye eti protivnye dyetki! `) began to grate on me, as did the strange stares I came to be getting from people as I poured through them in the cafes. It was time to move on to graphic novels.
Bubble comics.
Bubble comics, since having been founded by the media scribe Artyem Gabrelyanov, has printed rivals to Manga and Marvel comics for the past seven years from an office in the Beloruskaya area of Moscow.
They offer around six non-franchised titles which are brought out monthly in twenty page chapters and then collected into books.
Some Bubble comics titles include: Besoboi (demon fighting hocus pocus), Major Grom (St Petersburg detective yarn), Meteora (intergalactic adventure) and Enoch (time travel carryings on). There is even an English language version of their Exilibrium fantasy.
To me, finding Krasnaya Furiya, however, was like coming across an old and long lost friend at a party of strangers.
Krasnaya Furiya.
Started in 2012 Krasnaya Furiya (Red Fury) concerns the exploits of a Russian female action heroine, without any special powers (Older readers might be reminded of a more real world version of the British Tank Girl character from the late Eighties).
The story arc commences with `B Poiska Graalya` (The Search for the Grail`).
In this we meet Nika Chaikina, an athletic, glamorous redheaded master thief. With the aid of Johnny (a mysterious guide who speaks to her via a microphone in her ear) she has broken into a prestigious museum in Mainland China. Her intention is to make off with some precious artefacts but a mysterious intruder sets off the alarm and soon guards pursue her….
After being captured by angry Chinese officials, Nika meets the intruder again and it appears that he is a man of influence. Indeed, he demands her release. She is needed elsewhere, he explains.
MAKS.
This man is a team leader from MAKS (Meshdurodnovo Agentsva Kontrolnaya – International Agents of Control): a secret elite corps that acts with the purpose of preventing world wars from breaking out. Miss Chaikina then finds herself enlisted on a mission to prevent the Holy Grail, a series of historical artefacts (the most important one being Hitler’s diaries) from getting into the hands of a neo-Nazi cell.
There have been seven stories in the Krasnaya Furiya series. I have not read them all yet but so far my favourite has to be `Nichevo Lichnovo, Prosto Biznes` (Nothing Personal, Only business). This forms the third story and Book five in the series and is a standalone story told in four chapters. The author is Atryom Gabrelyanov the founder of Bubble and the artists are Edward Petrovich and Nina Vakooeva.
In this crepuscular and cynical story Agent Delta and Nikita are re-united as she infiltrates a dubious arms dealer in Amsterdam that attempts to remote launch a missile to the West from Taepodong, the Repubic of North Korea. They foil the diabolical plan, but are they really the victors?
Spy-Fi.
The sub-genre that Krasanaya Furiya emobodies constitutes that blend of espionage adventure and techno-thriller pioneered by Ian Fleming: or Spy-Fi. For myself who grew up with the likes of The Man From U.N.C.L.E on the TV, and whose guilty pleasure reading consists of Colin Forbes novels, this is well within my comfort zone!
Furthermore, the series treats this genre with respect, rather than undermining it with a tongue-in-cheek approach in the manner of the British screen Franchise Kingsman.
Realism and idealism.
The characters are hired thugs who often seem surly and sarcastic. However, when it matters, the credo `One for all, and all for one` rules their actions. A stroke of realism adds to the interest too: Nika is vulnerable enough to shed tears on occasion and Joshua her love interest gets killed as the first book closes.
Most of all, in this time of worsening relations between East and West, the central premise of international co-operation to prevent a world war is a thread of gold running through it.
Bubble Comics products can be found at a shop called `Chook & Geek`which is on Bolshoye Paveleski Ulitsa.
