Television – Generation P: Edward Crabtree's blog.

SHADOWY, TWISTY AND MUST-SEE.

Russian television goes Scandinoir – and it works.

Caught between the pincers of the pandemic on the one hand and the war with Ukraine on the other, the television psycho-thriller Cold Shores (Holodniye Berega) and its second season of July 2022 Cold Shores Return (Holdniye Berega: Vozrasheniye) first reached the Russian viewing public on October 14^th three years ago in the form of 8 fifty minute episodes.

Coming from the unexpected source of Star Media, purveyors of heartwarming family melodramas, this small screen classic is what I would show to someone should I want to provide them with an example of Russian television at its best.

It says a lot that the user reviews of this show have been positive, even if some of the local critics have been a bit guarded. The biggest caveat I can make to add to the endorsement which follows is that this glitzy whodunnit does owe a great debt to certain crime dramas that have been coming out of Denmark and Sweden for the last decade.

Monster in a gated city.

Set in the closed off plutonium enriched city of Ozerk, the show was in fact filmed in Rybinsk in the Yaroslavl region.

The core premise – even with all of its misdirection – could not be simpler. In the winter months, a serial strangler of women is menacing the city. The perpetrator targets women with a particular look and removes their wedding rings and sometimes disfigures them.

A rookie police investigator and Daddy’s Girl (whose father is a top brass in the force himself) comes to be charged with overseeing this perplexing case. Her name is Alina Novinsky.

Ekaterina Vilkova is Alena Nevisnky [E.Kinorium.com]

You will get no spoilers from me and just reiterating the plot details could not do justice to the impact it has anyway. Suffice it to say that Alina’s friends and family are all sucked into the case which follows. She falls for one of the suspects who has lost his wife. This new lover later meets a carbon copy of this missing spouse leaves and then Alina for this new woman. Meanwhile, her father becomes disabled and retires and her colleague’s wife is slaughtered by the killer…and so on. Throughout it all a string of near watertight suspects needs to be discarded as so many false leads.

Select line up.

Ekaterina Vilkova, the 38-year-old actress from Nizhny Novgorod, made her name as the Dreamboat Girlfriend in the frothy Boy’s Own fantasy adventure Black Lightning (Chornaya Molniya, 2009). Ten years on Vilkova seems to have gained gravitas, being more striking than pretty and with an ability to suggest shifts of emotion with almost imperceptible alterations to her face.

The brooding 49-year-old from Krasnoyarsk, Kirill Safonov, takes the part of Alina’s new love interest whereas the Ukrainian born 34-year-old Alexander Gorbatov is his would-be paramour. The distinctive craggy looks of one Igor Kriphunov (best known as a permanent fixture in Svyatoslav Podgaevsky’s horror movie cycle) also appear.

One of my favourite actors, Alexander Yatso shows up for the sequel and he more or less reprises the role he portrayed in Akademia – a criminal psychologist.

A special call out should go to the man who played Alina’s father – Sergei Puskepalis. I remember this chunky actor for his role as the severe and stony-faced military officer in the disaster film Ledokol (Ice Breaker) from 2016. Alas, in an off -screen disaster this talented screen presence passed away in September of this year following a road accident in his home town of Yaroslavl.

R.I.P Sergei Puskepalis, 15th April 1966 -20th September 2022 [People’s. RU]

Son of the strangler.

Cold Shores: The Return catches up with the same cluster of characters three years on. Now, however, another depraved maniac is leaving a trail of female corpses in the snow in what appears to be a copycat of the previous case. Nevinsky has moved on to being a psychologist but her association (and notoriety) in connection with the earlier case brings her back into the fold of police investigation.

D.V.D cover of *Cold Shores: The Return*. [Kinopoisk.RU]

This time she has to contend with the cynical prying eyes of a popular blogger. She has a demanding teenage son who composes electronic dance music and has fallen out of love with her returned husband… and much else besides. Again, the narrative teases us with an identity parade of credible culprits. Then an ingenious rationale is given for the least expected one being the actual criminal.

Deluxe.

It might seem that the Cold Shores franchise (if we can already call it that) represents a standard issue post -Scandinoir Whodunit thriller in a market already saturated with this subgenre. Yet from the opening montage of the misty ice encrusted roads and bridges of Rybinsk-cum-Ozersk and the corresponding ruminating score by Vladimir Mayevsky and Mikhail Khimakov, the viewer senses something superlative is on the way.

The tale, told via the point of view of a number of characters, has enough of a measured pacing so as to allow the script to breathe and the characters to unfold. Attention has been paid to detail. For example, one of the investigators has the stimming habit of opening and closing a cigarette lighter. All this and the eerie mood music, the borderline exotic location and the spaghetti junction of twists and cliff hangers leads us to overlook any contrivances of the plot.

Just another crime thriller? [Kinopoisk.RU]

The U.S.P here is domestic melodrama (of the kind that Star Media does so well) spliced with a psychological thriller: a Dostoevsky tale told in a Hitchcockian style and set in an up-to-the -minute world of ever vibrating mobile phones.

Scandinavian or not?

The producers of Cold Shores have taken copious notes from the Scandinavian noir rulebook. One: get a lead who is a glamorous but relatable young woman. Two: plonk her in an overlooked but photogenic city. Three: surround her with a cast of tried and trusted character actors. Three: pile on the revelations and unmasking. Then throughout it all assume that the audience possesses some intelligence. It works, for sure.

Where they have differed from this template is also the very way this show can be marked out as Russian. It lies in the lack of any kind of sociopolitical slant. Unlike Trom (Denmark/Faroe Islands, 2022)or The Bridge (Denmark/Sweden, 2011) and, in particular, Henning Mankell’s Wallander (Sweden, 2005 – 2010)there can be seen no tilt at overarching corporate power – and this in a drama set in city notable for its secretive involvement in nuclear weapons production! Instead we get a family melodrama – complete with aspirational interiors – glorified as a suspenser.

Unlike so much of contemporary Russian small screen fare though, Cold Shores does not fall back on sidearm and shoot out porn to keep up the interest. Also the bleakness of its world view is much redeemed by the sense throughout that all the flawed characters really need each other.

`SHERLOCK IN RUSSIA`: HOLMES FINDS HIS HEART IN SAINT PETERSBURG.

IN THIS AMBITIOUS BUT PREDICTABLE DARK FANTASY SERIES THE WORLD’S BEST KNOWN SLEUTH IS ON THE TRAIL OF THE RIPPER IN RUSSIA’S CULTURAL CAPITAL. BUT, WAIT…ARE THOSE TEARS?

Embrace the chaos, Mr Holmes!

One thing that enlivened a dull pandemic was the fact that some people were doling out free face masks in some metro stations in Moscow. These promotionals were swish black items featuring the legend Sherlock v Rossi – Sherlock in Russia.

Sherlock in Russia AKA Sherlock: the Russian Chronicles represents the latest uncalled for addition to the overstretched Sherlock Holmes smorgasbord. This 18+ period-mystery-action show reached Russia on October 6th this year as part of the Moscow International Film Festival. Then it would infect a wider audience through being offered as a weekly subscription by START Video Service. The series was shown every Thursday in 52 minute long episodes until December 3rd.

Millenial iconoclasm.
It has been open season on the august occupant of 221b Baker Street since the turn of the millenium if not before. The Soviet Union, despite seeming to be steadfast in opposition to Western imperialism and so on, did at least distinguish itself with its fidelity to the Arthur Conan-Doyle scripture. The television series filmed by Lenfilm and running from 1979 to 1986 called The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is viewed by many afiocandos of the cult fiction to be among the Gold Standards.

The post-communist Russian Federation, however, has come out fighting with its own sacriligeous pop culture variants on the Sherlock mythos to match those of Britian and America.

Thus seven years back one Igor Petrenko embodied Sherlock Holmes in a television drama called just that (produced by Rossiya1 and Central Partnership). He seemed more like a poet than a detective the reviewer Kim Newman said of his portrayal (Wikipedia).

This fare, however, still held onto the apron strings of the traditional canon; Sherlock Holmes in Russia all but dispenses with it. In that regard, the clearest precedent for this would seem to be Guy Ritchie’s 2009 shameless make-over of the cerebral icon as the sort of youthful, dapper action hero that could be played by Robert Downey Junior (Sherlock Holmes, Warner Bros, 2009).

Illustrious names.
A 55 year old conceptual artist from Sverdlosk comprises one of the culprits for this show. A member of the infamous Blue Noses Art Group no less, Alexander Shaburov also penned a series entitled The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes between 1991 and 1992.
Then the prolific fifty year-old screen writer Oleg Malovichko – who worked on this year’s breakthrough film Sputnik among many other prominent releases – transmuted these sketches into something watcheable.

Then a bankable star to don the dear-stalker and hold the pipe was the only other thing that was needed. Step forward the 38 year-old Svetly born Maxim Matvyeev – who appeared in Stilyagi in 2008 and played Vronsky in a TV adaptation of Anna Karenina three years ago .

Artifice.
Despite being filmed on location in Saint Petersburg, the scenes exude an overall contrived appearance with a crepescular ochre-burnt orange shade to everything. The iconography reminded me of the look of Viktor Frankenstein, the British film from 2015.

Matvyeev’s Holmes could not be further from the classic late middle-aged sexually ambigous representation of him. This actor is a screen idol type in the Danila Kozlovsky mould. He plays him with a trimmed beard and a floppy fringe and demonstrating cuddly emotions. He even blows on his magnifying glass as though it were a smoking gun.

Other nods to our brave new world include jerky camera shots and, at one early point, a cretinous glitch in the matrix in the form of a snatch of music from Britney Spears’s Toxic ! (We can be grateful that the otherwise more appropriate sepulchural soundtrack is by Ryan Otter for most of the proceedings).

On the hunt for a legend.
The breakneck paced action opens in rain-soaked back alleys of East London. Somebody (who at least has the decency to wear a mask) is trawling the alleways with knife crime on his mind. He is closing in on a quarry, when:
Hello, Mr Ripper, allow me to introduce myself.... comes the opening line of You Know Who. Telegenic fisticuffs then ensue. Watson comes to the rescue but this results in him being put into a coma.
Distraught at his companion’s fate, Holmes nevertheless takes a steam train bound for Russia. He has deduced that the serial killer is from that land on account of the make of knife that he uses. Furthermore, the killer has been leaving taunting messages for Holmes written in blood on street walls.

New friends and enemies.
Holmes arrives in Saint Petersburg and takes up lodgings in Pekarskaya Street (this is a pun on Baker street – a pekarniya being a bakery in Russian). He mails missives back to London to update those at home and his letters are read out to the unconscious Watson as a kind of therapy (this narrative device is borrowed in part from The Hound of the Baskervilles).
His host consists of a hired medical assistant in the form of the hardboiled Doctor Kartsev (the 52 year old Muscovite Vladimir Mishukov) with whom he faces a rocky partnership.

The trope of Interference From Those in Authority is fulfilled by the Chief of Police Znamensky. This buffonish character regards Dostoevsky (who Holmes is well versed in) as over-rated and considers the work of the Ripper to be the handiwork of an ecaped gorilla. He regards the migrants deductive approach – presented here as a sort of savant’s mental tick over which Holmes has no control – as a lot of new fangled nonsense.
It is whilst on a fact-finding tour of the Saint Petersburg slums – bring a knife and a prayer Kartsev advises him -that he encounters the plot’s crucial love interest: Sophie, played by the inevitable Irina Starshenbaum.

Irina Starshenbaum provides the love interest [mirf.ru]

Russian self-reflection.

In a manner rare for a Russian product Sherlock in Russia does try to say something about Russian identity in relation to the rest of the world. It is the illiberal and very much autocratic Russia of Alexander the Third’s reign that Holmes steps into.( Some might draw paralells with today’s Russia).
As soon as Holmes emerges from the station at Saint Petersburg he treads on a cow pat. Later we learn that Kartsev harbours a particular suspicion of the British. His memory of his uncle being shot by by a British sniper in the Crimean war has seen to that.

Holmes, who has an improbable level of Russian fluency, has to learn some Russian idiomatic phrases. I'll smash myself into a pancake, for example is a promise to work very hard.
Znamensky, meanwhile does seem to embody a certain type of Russian provincial ignorance. He has to be told not to let his colleagues wash away the evidence from the scene of a crime, for example.

So…this Russia is a bit rustic, holds old grudges,is full of quaint phrases and inept in its handling of investigative policing. Later in the series Holmes will even utter the words: I don't understand Russia. It's terrible.

Holmes in love.
Matvyeev’s Holmes outstrips Downey Junior’s in being teary-eyed, soulful and in opening up to the ladies. This Holmes has a full on hetersosexual relationship, which may well be a first. He also suffers visionary flashbacks in the manner of the re-imagined Nikolai Gogol in the cinema-cum TV series Gogol, which may have been the model for this series.

That said, there is one traditional aspect of this drama and it is something which has lent a rare 18+ certificate and prevents it from going out on mainstream terrestrial Russian television. This is the dwelling on the gentleman sleuth’s addiction to cocaine. I doubt this fact will placate the international Sherlock Holmes community though.

Judging from the First Episode this series may be cheesy, but it is not bereft of intelligence. For me the most menmorable character was Doctor Kartsev. He was more Holmes than Holmes was in many ways.

The lead image: deneri.net.

SHERLOCK IN RUSSIA – First Episode with English subtitles:

THE GLITTER VORTEX: the seductive diversion of the Russian Box.

How can I discuss television as a medium without sounding like a pseudo- Herbert Marcuse type figure sounding off about `psychoterror` and `constructed realities` and so on? The problem is that television is both superseded and powerful. The millenials are all on Tumbegrinder and Twitface anyway.

And yet – and yet we live in a television moulded world: both Trump and Johnson began as television stars before being voted in as leaders of their nations. Likewise, the Russian political establishment – from the Great Leaders New Year message onwards -owes much to broadcasting.

As much as I would like to sneer, I am a member of the televison generation myself. The first full novel that I read, aged about eight, was a novelisation of The Tomorrow People – a children’s science fiction show. Later, the arts programme The South Bank Show would introduce me to authors that I would later read and music shows like The Tube to the popular music which was out there. All of this has shaped what I am.

Bread and circuses.

It seems fitting that the Ostankino radio tower provides one of the most conspicuous sights in all of Moscow. This illuminated edifice, the tallest of its kind in Europe, represents the capital as much as Red Square does.

Television constitutes the most popular medium of the Russian Federation. No licence is needed for it, and should you not have one in your flat there is one in your local cafe or bar – a one-eyed monster with a cathode ray gun aimed at your head.

Russia boasts 3300 channels with Channel One, Russia 1 and NTV1 being sent out all across the nation. The government owns, or has a controlling interest in, many of these stations as does Bank Rosiya, Gazprom, the Russian Orthodox Church, the military and the Moscow City Administration (CIA World Factbook).

An independent channel exists too. Dozhd (`Rain`) – `The Optimistic channel` – has of late been slapped by a police raid and subsequent tax audit (Moscow Times, 1/8/19) – all of which has nothing at all to do with the fact that their journalists covered the rallies for free elections that took place last year.

I have spoken to many middle-class Russians who deny ever watching television. They must be untypical because a poll conducted by the Levada centre between 26th and 27th May last year found that 79% of Russians take in serials or films on television every week as opposed to 28% who read some literary fiction.In fact, 55% claimed to only read one book a year and the same proportion of people never attend museums or theatres. Those who never turn up to concerts make up 64% of the population. (Moscow Times, 1/6/19). However, the same polling station discovered that a 25% drop in trust in the TV news over the last ten years. (Moscow Times, 1/8/19).

BBC Russia was pushed off the airways in 2007.Dubbed Western shows that can be found here, however, include Poirot, the IT Crowd,The Simpsons and American Dad. Otherwise Russia is content to produce their own variants of Western hits with a car show called First Gear, with a ballsy female presenter and a talent show called The Voice.

Televisor Ga-ga.

Russian television transmissions feel sleek and sophisticated but also brusque. There are no continuity announcers and commercials flash up without interlude or warning. Speech is quickfire and shouty and the colours are all gaudy purples and yellows.

Contemporary crime drama forms the most prominent type of show. These appear all more or less interchangeable: parades of tough guys and lots of armaments. The more cerebral detective end of this can sometimes spawn promising results as we have seen with Freud’s Method, I See, I know and Akademia.One that seems to be on back to back on Channel five these days is Slyed (`Tracks`), an uptown version of Akademia.

At the other end of the spectrum we have the endless sherbert fountain of Russian pop. RU TV functions as the Russian MTV and it stretches the vacuousness of the genre to snapping point. A manic cult of the nubile young woman is much in evidence with many a scantily clad doll warbling in some hot beachy locale, to the strains of milk -and-water pop/hip-hop dance fusion, posing betwern a Lamborghini and a yacht. The talented Georgian crooner Valerie Meladzhe might liven things up by appearing in a blatant S and M themed video to go with his much polished ballads.

Диск277. Концертный зал CROCUS CITY HALL. 8-я Русская музыкальная премия телеканала RU.TV 2018. На снимке: певица, телеведущая Ольга Бузова

[kp.ru]

Over on the Mooz channel we ge some live music. Here the more established acts – Oilka, Sveta and Via Gra –cavort through their routines before the massed ranks. Here, at least, is a cheery crowd with no pretentions other than to indulge in some healthy fun.

Tears and laughter.

In Russia, `melodrama` is a distinct genre. It resembles a soap opera condensed down into one or two episodes. The protagonist will be a young woman beset by tragedies from which she emerges at length with the help of a wise old granny, a sassy female friend and and unexpected male suitor. The laboured plots play out in a paralell universe where there are few real money concerns, well resourced hospitals, jobs galore and everyone lives in swish apartments.

They are done rather well and their emotional punch draws one in. Many of them have been made available to the Anglophone world by Star Media who have put them on Youtube with subtitles. (I have linked one of my chersished ones below – Dark Labyrinths of the Past, a borderline psychological thriller).

Russian television comedy strikes me as quite broad. Much of it consists of boisterous skits on modern Russian life, but there is also the comedy of recognition via various stand up shows.

Shysest Kadrov (`Six Cadres`) – with its quickfire assembly line of satirical sketches – seems less ubiquitous than it was a few years ago. Pappini Dochi – Dad’s Daughter’s, on the other hand, seems to play on a perpetual loop. (This tale of a divorced and failed relationship counsellor struggling to raise a clutch of young women is one of the few Russian shows to have been replicated abroad – the German’s have their own tribute to it).

Subrealities.

There are lower rungs of the broadcasting hell yet. If you wish to elicit an agonised grimace from an educated Russian – just say the words Dom 2.

This reality show has, since 2004, been inviting us to gawk at leather trousered aspirants as they mumble inconsequential words to their bottle blonde inmates as they try to build a house which they then have to compete to live in.

Let us not forget the commercials (not that we could!) Should television be believed, Russia is a nation of dyspeptics. Viewers are peppered with a string of adverts offering solutions to stomach complaints complete with graphic images of colons and bladders.

Advertising alcohol has been disallowed so breweries have carried on by touting zero per cent alcohol beer – though their usual brew carries the same name and is as well known. (This same kind of pointless censoriousness extends to pop videos where, for example, should someone be puffing on a fag or holding a drink, this will be pixellated out!)

Saving graces?

In some areas Russian television does shine. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson ( 1979-1986) is well established as a classic adaptation of the Conan-Doyle canon. Less well known gems on the same lines include Kapatin Nemo (1975), inspired by the Captain Nemo tales of Jules Verne, which boasts a sumptuous score and an atmosphere which transcends the period-piece special effects. Moreover, the 1987 rendering of Isaac Asimov’s The End of Eternity (Konets Vechnosti) is well worth a watch.

A promotional poster for the TV series `Kapatin Nemo`[vovmar.livejournal.com]

Not all of these minor breakthroughs belong to the Soviet period either. Chernobyl Zona Otchuzhdeniya -Chernobyl: Danger Zone (TNT/TV3 -2011 -2014) is another television drama that may well be remembered in years to come.

As though making up for lost time, travel shows in Russia are approached with marked gusto. Mir Naiznankoo – World Inside Out -is overseen by a young male Russian everyman, a Dmitry Something, who hurls himself into exotic encounters with abandon,whether it is tucking into fried insects with the Thais or or gutting large fruits with African ladies. It is all quite apart from the cautious and ironic distance that his British counterparts would project.

The Russian small screen can deliver other positive messages too. A recent TV serial Tolya Robot (2019) had a man born with no arms and legs as its inspirational hero. Wedding and Divorces, from the same year, included a gay man as one of its players as well as portrayed his rejection by mainstream Russian society.

Even the easy-to-revile world of pop is can be a welcome space for those on the outskirts of Russian society. Rap music, for example, provides a voice for young men from Muslim backgrounds.

Rose tinted spectacle.

There is one adjective to describe Russian television : brash. It is also diabolical. A new opium of the people is what it all boils down to and should you try to use it as a guide to the Russian life of today you will be wasting your time. Just to give one example: I dwell in a downmarket, but not untypical Moscow apartment. I have yet to see a domestic interior even close to anything like my own in any Russian television drama.

And how does it compare to the old silver screen? During the quarantine period the Ruskoye Kino TV 1000 channel gifted us with some films had seen first at the cinema: Rassvet, Baba Yaga: Terror of the Dark Forest and – a particular favourite – Selfie. These seemed diminished when taken out of the dark and loud cavern of the cinema – and spliced with those stomach complaint commercials.

DARK LABYRINTHS OF THE PAST:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS4K4WOc44M

Lead image:votpusk.ru

FACE CONTROL: The TV series VIZHU – SNAYU/I SEE – I KNOW.

An upbeat mystery investigation adventure enlivened by an intriguing premise.

Crime seems to be the default genre option in Russian television drama and is as easy to find as a take-away coffee vendor on a Moscow high street.

Most of these constitute belt and braces hokum of the cops-and-robbers variety, replete with much cynical violence in the form of fisticuffs and shootouts.

However, when the Ukrainian (but Russian language) show The Sniffer first wafted onto our screens several years ago even the Western critics were a bit impressed by what could be done with this tired old subgenre.

Pretenders.

The Gazprom owned television company NTV has spawned a plethora of crime yarns and many of them cannot really be differentiated. Some, though, seem to be attempting to riff on The Sniffer.

One of these is Schubert (2017) and the recent Genius (Genniy) from last year.

The former features a protagonist with enhanced hearing abilities which result in him being put to work by the military.

The word `cheesy` seems to have been invented for this drama as the tortured young man, hot lover in tow, battles with moustache twirling Central Asian villains. I could only manage one episode.

Genius – in which a mathematical prodigy uses his algebraic prowess for an insurance company – was, however, easier on my grey cells but bent the wand too far in being somewhat dry.

Vizhu – Snayu or I See – I know, also courtesy of NTV, steers a mid-course between these two extremes. It was first aired in June 2016 and is a 16 + rated series made up of 46 minute long episodes. It was made by Kinostudio Medved from an idea by Viktor Soghomonyan (who was behind Posolstvo/ Embassy from 2018).

Superheroine.

The star is Anna Slyu (Slyusareva) a thrice married 39-year-old who made her name in the Daywatch/ Nightwatch franchise (2004/2006).

As Zhanna Vladimirovna she works as a police lieutenant who has been gifted with face reading abilities since childhood. She is now ` an expert in physiognomy and neuropsychology`. That is to say she can gather from observing a person’s facial features not only their character but their marital status and number of children and so on. (Zhanna’s face gazing activities form a large part of the architecture of the drama. They are realised through close-ups of Zhanna’s grey-eyed stare and of people’s faces complete with echoing voices and swishing sound effects).

Following her foiling of a terrorist attack on a supermarket, the general of a police unit introduces her to Mayor Kataev as a new part of the team. They are told to work together despite his dismissal of her talent a a `pseudo-science`.

Kataev – played by Sergei Gorobchenko (Provodnik, 2018) seems your standard self-assured no-nonsense lawman but he comes to respect his kookier new companion.

Alongside him is the inevitable tough-guy-with-a- heart – Petrov (Nikolai Kovbas (Temporary Difficulties, 2018), and Tvorizhkov, the ambitious rookie cop (Anton Khabarov, a veteran of the small screen) and the uniformed General who is heard in a shout most of the time, but is for once rather thin.

Such a team also requires a keyboard whizz. This vacancy is filled by Valeriy Pankov (Queen of Spades: Through the Looking Glass, 2019). He plays him, not as the usual geek, but more a stylish hipster. Yet we learn that he has a murky past with some mobster involvements.

Puzzling cases.

The team face cases involving mass poisonings, a weird cult that stages ritual murders, a strangler menacing the theatrical community and suchlike. Just as these cases seem to be cut and dried, Zhanna will add some plot thickening extra detail as gleaned from her facial recognition probings.

Throughout this she has a nemesis. Danilov a ruthless business tycoon, given to dining on balconies that have stunning views over the river Moskva, also possesses Zhanna’s face reading powers but uses them for his personal advancement.

Like a Moriarty figure, he appears to be behind various cloak-and-dagger operations aimed at creaming off the spoils of the criminal activities that the police squad are out to quash. (He is evoked to hiss inducing perfection by Sergei Shnyrev from What Men Talk About, 2010).

Not just bang – bang.

Despite being billed as `crime action`, I See – I know is based more on intrigue.The fast- paced script, by Leonid Korvin, creates a plot that resembles the opening up of an endless matrioshka doll. Each story is convoluted and takes up around two episodes. They conclude with Zhanna drawing philosophical conclusions to herself in her room full of her sketches of faces.

The open plan office the cops share allows for plenty of merry banter and there is space for human interest sub plots too.The hacker is besotted with Zhanna but is forever being rejected, in a polite way, by her. Zhanna lives with her sister and shares chocolate cake eating contests with her. Kataev, meanwhile has ongoing issues with his estranged daughter. Petrov tends to become too involved in his work: when a young member of his family is present at a shooting he becomes obsessive in his pursuit of the perpetrator.

Inspired theme.

The humdrum Moscow setting is enlivened a bit through stylish fragmented screen shots between scenes. They also borrow from the ubiquitous Sherlock in showing on-screen the names of mobile callers as they make a mobile call.

However, what adds much to the identity of the series must be the score composed by fifty year old Alexei Lukyanov. He has produced scores for many shows in this genre and here he serves up a manic waltz which foregrounds the twisty and quirky ethos of the entire drama. Likewise, his incidental music – set on `spine-tingle` mode – elevates the series above the realm of the ordinary.

Individual.

Female leads are not uncommon in contemporary Russia’s post-feminist culture. They are, however more of a novelty in the detective genre and Slyu, with her aristocratic looks and cool demeanour, does a lot to stamp some individuality onto what is a fairly standard format.

Offering a refreshing alternative to the `machismo` of many other similar shows and with a Spy-Fi premise that is more `real world` than The Sniffer, I see – I know packs a lot of charm. Alas, it only made one series of 24 episodes. There was so much more to build on here.

Here’s the first series:

Main image: Kino.Mail.ru

See also my reviews of Freud’s Method and Akademia. Also of Rassvet, which featured Anna Slyu.

KILLER SERIAL.

Moscow’s addition to the C.S.I crime subgenre is predictable but with a charm of its own.
Eleven year old Moscow based television drama company Epic Media have gifted us with a number of their shows free of charge and with English subtitles on YouTube.
This treasure trove includes Flint (a sort of Russian update on Rambo: First Blood), Sky Court (an afterlife based fantasy parable), Department (serpentine infighting within a crime busting agency) and, from 2015, Akademia, a crime investigation drama.
There exist three of the series each consisting of twenty 45 minute episodes and it is a rare pleasure to be able to gorge on these in translation and without interruptions from someone peddling Old Granny’s Smetana.

Well-worn path.
Directed by Vyacheslav Lavrov (of the freakish Zen Drive of 2006) Akademia introduces a glamorous cast of up-and-coming faces. Galina Sumina (who appeared in the virtual reality thriller Censor of 2017), the old television hand Alexander Yatso (starring in Angelina at the moment) and Alexander Konstantinov (from the film 2010 Vroslaya doch ili Test Na) are but some of them.
To label Akademia a `C.S.I Moscow` would be to condemn it with too much haste, and yet it does adopt the template from a certain influential and iconic production. Of equal significance though is the precedent of Freud’s Method which the programme mirrors to a notable extent.

Sunny Moscow.
Contemporary Moscow is where the action takes place and we are reminded of this fact by repetitive outside shots of the capital in summery weather. The cast, donned in casual chic, are all model material and their office space and laboratory is up-to-date and spic and span. In short, this is Russia’s biggest city as you do not often see it.

Friends.
Anastasia Zorina (Sumina), a member of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation becomes involved in a complex homicide case in which she needs to call upon the services of a pathologist from the Moscow Institute – Cyril Lemke (Maxim Bitokov).
Their teamwork pays dividends so they endeavour to strike out alone and set up their own investigative group – the academy.
Their first acquisition to their new team consists of a spunky dreadlock haired hacker called Oksa (Elisavete Lotova). She is in trouble with the law for having hacked into military defence sites but her brilliant skills are just the job so they offer her some respite from the threat of jail if she works for them.
Next they enlist a rather cocksure biologist (Konstantinov). Then they further swell their ranks with a teenage chemistry boffin. All they need next is a psychology master and this arrives in the person of Doctor Rotkin (Yatso).
Another component of the mix is the traditional tough guy cop who comes with a gun (the rest of the team are not shooters, and this is part of their charm). Then, just as with Freud’s Method Zorina has to report to the elder of the tribe in the form of an uniformed and portly official.
Last, but by no means least the team employ an older security guard. He shows his Soviet origins by the reading of hard copy newspapers and the ability to conjure up historical facts which prove of use to investigations (`Nineteen fifty seven – that was the year of the International Youth Festival in Moscow`).
The scriptwriters then build a soap opera-like story arc around this extended family.
Backstories.

Maxim Bitokov as Cyril and Galina Sumina as Zorina [tv.vtomske.ru]

Zorina – who is so damned photogenic that she could suck a bag of lemons and still remain a beauty – gets ensnared in an on/off affair with a flashy lawyer but it is also apparent that there is some sexual tension between her and her pathologist associate Lemke.
Lemke, a suave metro sexual who wears pink shirts as though they are a uniform and disapproves of boxing,tries to ensure that his young son receives a good upbringing in spite of the boy’s capricious and flighty mother.
Oksa, the one time` hactivist`, still has the Sword of Damocles of a looming court case hanging over her. Zorina’s lawyer friend does his best to aid her, as does the biologist Ed Pirozhnov, who has eyes for her.
The young chemist, meanwhile has gone and fallen for Zorina’s younger sister and is also brooding over his impending conscription.
Doctor Rotkin is more of a dark horse. We only learn that he has a taste for classic rock, single malts and motorcycles and aims to write a book.

Deductions.
The untitled episodes all begin with the chance discovery of a gruesome corpse before the titles come up over a portentous score courtesy of Igor Krestovsky.
A forensic examination ensues in which cunning narratives revolve around scientific explanations: the holding up of a hair or piece of cloth by tweezers is often a pivotal moment in the story.
The skeleton of an African athlete from the nineteen fifties is discovered holed up in the wall of an office building,the mother of a gangster enacts revenge on the policemen who framed her son, a medic uses a secret nerve agent to assassinate foes,a female doctor experiments on drug addicted down-and outs in order to find a cure for her own drug dependent son. The answers are never on Ninety Third Street.
All the while Zorina is also embroiled in trying to find her missing policeman father. This search culminates in a rather overwrought conspiracy scenario which rocks the foundations of the academy, and closes Season Three.

Cracks.
Notwithstanding its overall professionalism, Akademia can appear lame at times.
The script is shared around the large cast like in one of those school plays where all the players must have a line to say. The in-car sequences, with their projected backdrops, take us back to the seventies, whereas the C.G I explosions are all too contemporary but unconvincing. So too are the latex corpses.
Then we have some obtrusive departures from verisimiltude. The pathology lab (which houses fresh dead bodies) gets treated like a living room with people barging in without prior permission. The chemical investigations sometimes present us with test tubes containing brightly coloured effervescing liquids in the manner of Doctor Jekyll.
One episode is brought to a close by the security man saving the day by shooting dead an errant villain, without anyone being concerned by the legal and moral implications of this act.

Pelmeni for the eyes.

Akademia seems more restrained and cerebral than C.S.I Miami, its rocky antecedent. This may be no bad thing, but then when you place this show alongside Freud’s Method it does fall a little short.
The latter feels grittier. For example their Moscow is sometimes wintry and ice-laden and they tackle issues such as immigration and drug abuse in a more head-on sort of way. Moreover, Freud’s Method offers some solid character acting, in particular from Ivan Okhlobstyn, against which the cast of Akademia look a little like automatons.
Akademia resembles a comforting bowl of supermarket pelmeni. It would not do you much good if taken too often. You might even find yourself entertaining the crazy notion that all is for the best in Putin’s Russia. Still, here we have a bit of pleasant well made, quality Russian television drama.

Episode 1 of series 1 of AKADEMIA.

The main picture is courtey of video.sibnet.ru

`Freud’s Method`: A Russian small screen sleuth.

This standard cop thriller hardly breaks any new ground, but does at least ooze a Muscovite ambience.

A `universal palliative equal to tea, aspirins and the wireless`, said George Orwell of the British and their detective stories. In Russia the situation seems little different.

From Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment (1866) through to the Soviet era where Vil Lipatov introduced us to Captain Prokhorov, a Perry Mason for the Brezhnev period, and the T.V classic The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson (1979 – 1986), whose Vasily Ivanov was honoured with an M.B.E for his portrayal of Holmes, and which surprised Holmes fans worldwide with its devotion to the legend, Russians have clasped mysteries to their breasts.Then we even have a rock band named Agata Kristie! In the Russian language the name for a detective novel is simply `detektiv` – no need for any other elaboration.

The mean streets of Moscow.

Whilst the Russian/Ukrainian success story The Sniffer, with its high production values, may yet do for the Slavic input to the crime genre that Wallander did for Scandinavian noir, Freud’s Method (Metod Freyda) – not to be confused with Sreda’s more recent The Method (a riff on Dexter) -is a more modest and domestic affair. The creation of Star Media (better known for their sunny `melodramas`) and running since 2012, Freud’s Method occurs against the backdrop of an identifiable Moscow and its premise is altogether less absurd than the better known product.

Mikhail Vaynberg was behind the clapboard for the first Season with Vladimir Dyachenko and Aleksei Krasovsky tapping out the scripts. From 2014 a second series – Freud’s Method 2 –was born and a fresh newcomer – Ivan Stakhnakov took over directing duties and a whole team of writers worked on the stories. Both had 12 episodes of 50 minutes in length.

Enigmatic lead.

The anti-hero sleuth at the core of it all is one Roman Freydin (Ivan Okhlobstyn). A former professional poker player and globe-trotter turned psychologist, Freydin now finds himself employed as a `special consultant` to the Prosecutor’s Office. The eponymous `method` represents his ability to use mind games the better to draw out suspects into self-confession.

In many ways a Holmesian figure – aloof, seeming to lack feeling, arrogant and sometimes supercilious, there are nevertheless hints that he is lonely man. Moreover, Okhlobstyn, himself 52, plays the detective as a youthful dandy in yellow sweaters and socks, and one not above having liaisons with his suspects. Nevertheless,his speech is often provocative: upon encountering the corpses of a murdered young married couple he comments: `They’ll not be squabbling in slippers`. Otherwise he tends towards Wildean aphorisms: `Happy lovers always tell lies,unhappy lovers always tell the truth`, For instance, or `A woman’s secret is like a baby. It needs to stay inside for some time`. We also learn that Freydin has picked up some quasi-special powers during his sojourns abroad. From shamans he has mastered the art of mimicking his own death and it appears that he was the mystery saviour who saved his own boss from a helicopter accident in the Himalayas.

The merry band.

The cops Freydin works with function as a kind of surrogate family to him as they seek to crack unusual homicide cases on the icy boulevards of Moscow. We encounter an elegant and no-nonsense investigator played by the prolific actress Natalia Antonova (for whom Freydin nurses a forever unrequited longing). Then we have the dour jobbing plainclothes policeman (Aleksei Grishkin) whose unobtrusiveness contrasts with the persona of Freydin. It is inevitable that we also need two perky young male and female officers too who function as eye-candies and who drive a soap opera – type `will they/won’t they?` romantic suspense sub-plot. In the first season these consist of Pavel Priluchniy and Elena Nikoleava and in the second Roman Polyanski and the striking Olga Dibsteva. Presiding over them all is Artur Vaha playing the sort of stout, uniformed paterfamilias so beloved of Russian dramas.

Some episodes do tackle some specific issues, and not such comfortable ones to a Russian television audience. One story in Season one (Series 4) concerns the murder of an immigrant by a vengeful father who believes that he has raped her daughter…and yet we discover that the truth is rather more tangled than that. With its closing message that Illegal Immigrants Have Rights Too, this is one gold nugget of an episode. (I have linked this below).

Still escapism.

For all this murky social realism, however, there is a comedic element to it all. This is true in particular of Season 2 where the pace speeds up. (There is, for example a running gag where Freydin is forever being pestered by unsolicited phone calls from pizza deliverers). In fact the lives of our crime busters might be seen to be quite enviable: all breezy philosophising in the staff room, then gadding about the city with time for flirting and dating, all the while managing to look chic. Many an episode closes over a contemplative glass of cognac. So, like many a western crime drama, Freud’s Method fosters an impression that it offers a slice of modern life but wraps it all up in comforting stylishness.

Beguiled.

Seldom a watcher of equivalent detective shows in the West, I came to Freud’s Method at first in seek of a Russian language learning aid. To the show itself I needed to be won over, but won over I was. The involvement of the talented Mr Okhlobstyn sets up a stumbling block. Alas, this former Orthodox priest has gained notoriety on account of his quasi-fascistic standpoints on nationalism and minority sexualities. This troubles me, but the character he plays does not reflect the real life actor, far from it in fact. The franchise seems to have its heart in the right forward-looking place and does so, furthermore, whilst exuding the somehow cosy spirit of Moscow.

Episode from Season 1 (English subtitles).

The Orwell quotation comes from `The Detective Story, 1943 ` Seeing things As They Are’, Pengiun Modern Classics, 2016

Nikki Gogol: Superstar.

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 30^th 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.

English subtitled trailer here.

C.S.I Kiev: Is `The Sniffer` a gateway to Russian language mass culture?

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?