Anger is not something we expect from Russian cinema – but it is here at last.
TEKCT enjoyed a Decent run in the Moscow film theatre but I could only get to see it a week after its 24th October release at the Rodin theatre in Semyenovskaya.
With its train station-lie dowdiness and the Hammer and Sickle still there above the cash desk, and the harried staff, this place proved to be a fitting venue to catch this social realist fable. In fact I just nabbed the last available place in the twenty seat capacity projection room which had been set aside for the film.
TEKCT constitutes a drama thriller some two hours in length and with an 18+ certificate (hence featuring a lot of irritating bleeps over the bad language). Set very much in the Moscow of today, this picture represents an adaptation, by the author himself, of the novel By Dmitry Glukhovsky (of the Metro franchise) – which has yet to be translated into English.
General Partnership were the distributors, and the man in the high chair was one Kilma Shipenko who was behind the docudrama Salyut 7 (2017).
The soundtrack, which alternated between electronica and sombre classical owes to the prolific forty something composer Dmitry Noskov whose previous credits include the soundtrack to Attraction (2017).
Star vehicle.
Russia’s man-of-the-moment, the Yaroslavl born thirty-year old Alexander Petrov fills the shoes of the iconic role of the film’s anti-hero. (He seems to be cornering the market in troubled youths: whetther it is his role as the hotheaded insurgent in Attraction or his depiction of one Nikolai Gogol in the Gogol franchise (2017 -2018) ).
His co-stars include 29-year-old Ivan Yankovski, who cropped up in Queen of Spades: Dark Rite (2016) – as the Golden Boy hate figure – and the 27-year-old Kristina Asmus who has been setting pulses racing in the television medical comedy Intern since 2010.
The new Brat?
TEKCT was competing in the Russian box offices with Joker. It would be egregious of me to draw too many parallels between these two distinct products. I do, however, feel that they partake of the same zetgeist. Both highlight the plight of – and potential danger of – troubled young men on the margins of society.
Another comparison already being made is with the much vaunted earlier Russian movie Brat (Aleksei Balabanov, 1997).
An article by Anastasia Rogova in the (hard copy) newspaper Vechernaya Moskva (24th – 31st October issue) finds TEKCT wanting in relation to the other legendary film. However, the mere fact that the films have been bracketed together at all implies to me that TEKCT is a film that Russians will be discussing still for some time to come.
A Hero of Our Times?
Ilya Gorunov (Petrov), a graphic design student, attempts to blag some money off his mother so that he can hit the town with his girlfriend.When she refuses he takes the money anyway…
Next we see him a standard young man about town with his girlfriend in tow and in a trendy nightclub. His fun is interrupted when the politisia carry out a drugs raid the premises and seem to take interest in his woman. He protests, and then, in a scene which calls to mind Midnight Express, is himself arrested after a stash of cannabis seems to be found on his person. (We know the cops have planted this on him).
Seven years later, after having been imprisoned for drug trafficking, the hapless youth is released from his provincial jail and back into the real world.
Returning to Moscow, now a shambling figure in a parka and ill-fitting trousers, Ilya finds that his mother has passed away and that his friends have moved on.
He then tracks down his persecutor – Pyotr (Yankovski). In a fit of rancour he slaughters him by accident. He hides the corpse down a manhole and takes off with the victims cellphone….
Window on the other half.
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Here the Metro author’s gift for simple but ingenious plot ideas comes into play.
Ilya begins to experiment with the shady lawman’s phone. He begins to watch the many videos the man had downloaded showing his life of conspicuous consumption. He indulges in envious voyeurism at the lifestyle that he has been deprived of. He even pleasures himself over proxy sex with the man’s girlfriend (Asmus).
He becomes ever more embroiled in the man’s stolen identity living a sort of substitute existence. He answers text messages – explaining his absence by saying that he is in Columbia – and connects with the girlfriend.
This film shares the same concern with the loss of identity that social media can encourage in the much more stylish film Selfie (Khomeriki 2018).
Another resonance is with the Garros Evdomikov novel (as I reviewed earlier) Headcrusher (2003). This also evokes a lawman who wins female trophies and an oustider who gets to tangle with the games of the Big Boys. Ilya may be somewhat pathetic but the kind of modern Russian freeloaders that he is up against are far, far worse than he is.
Howl.
The film closes on a defiant note with a denouement that has shades of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) about it.
This could not be called a lovable film and I would not hurry to see it again just yet; however it is unflinching in its honesty and of importance in its themes – all qualities which Russian cinema too often lacks.
Petrov has turned in a fine, vigorous and physical performance in a film in which the camera is almost always on him.
Some gratitude is also due to Glukhovsky who, in his fortieth year, has Hollywood knocking on his door but has still retained his oppositional spunk.
Main image: bel.kp.ru