Russian television – Generation P: Edward Crabtree's blog.

TWO TRUE TALES OF ENTRAPMENT

Like metaphors for contemporary Russian life, two survival biopics from several years back are a fixture on Russian TV schedules.

LOST IN ICE.

First hitting Moscow’s screens in 2016 to coincide with America’s Deep Water Horizon, a dramatisation of the 2010 oil spill from an off shore drill, Ledokol (Ice-breaker) is a Russian disaster flick brought to us courtesy of the forty-something director Nikolay Khomeriki (who some cinema buffs will already know for the film 977). And this film, in its home country pulled, in a larger audience than Tom Cruise’s then latest (Jack Reacher 2) on its screening.

Filmed with the aid of a real life atomic icebreaker, the motion picture cost ten million U.S dollars and they shot it over a three and a half month period in such Arctic areas as Murmansk and Khibiny.

Giving overdue recognition to some forgotten naval icons, as well as lifting the lid on the obscure way of life of icebreaker crewmen, the movie takes as its inspiration the ill- fated voyage of the ship Mikhail Somov in 1985. On the way to supplying scientific bases in Antarctica, the ship ended up becalmed in packed ice for a perilous 133 days with 53 crewmembers aboard. `Soviet Research Ship in Antarctic Ice` – was the New York Times headline from June of that year.

In the film, the ship is re-christened Mikhail Gomorov. With its strengthened hull, ice-breaking design, and sheer power, this behemoth is one of the stars of story. The other star – fresh from his role in the sumptuous period drama The Duellist –is Pyotr Petrovich Fydorov.

With his wiry and dark good looks, however, he seems out of place (perhaps even miscast) as the captain of twenty or so bearded beefy, chunky sweater wearing crewmembers.

It is not long into the film before the villain of the piece emerges from the icy depths in the form of a monstrous iceberg. They are unable to negotiate their way round this and soon the crew find themselves becalmed in a sea of ice. Then follows a string of calamities. A rescue helicopter arrives with replacement staff and a new captain. This catches fire in the process of landing and leaves the new arrivals stranded on the ship together with those they were intended to take over from. As ice is somewhat static, much of the film’s drama arises from the crew becoming more and more mutinous towards this unpopular new presence.

Some suspenseful moments do appear, however, in this 12 Certificate movie. The first captain, on an on-foot expedition to get their bearings, plummets down an icy labyrinth. His only way to get help is to rely on a flare, but in the process he also upsets an angry walrus.

This is an almost all male story, and one in which (in contrast to most disaster movies) the fateful events occur from the film’s opening. To provide some human interest the makers have added a mischievous ginger dog to the mix. Two unconvincing female subplots have been shoehorned into the plot too. Back in St Petersburg, one crew member’s wife has to un undergo a caesarean to give birth, while the first captain’s wife is a fearless journalist who gets embroiled in their rescue on board another nuclear ice-breaker.

Eighties details abound: we see electric typewriters, puffball skirts, a reel-to-reel film projector (showing The Diamond Arm) and even a Rubrics Cube (which in fact has a role in the plot). Also giving it all a retro feel is the strings based orchestral score. That said, this is more than a jolly Soviet style film about camaraderie and resilience: when the crew indulge in a spot of communal folk singing, the replacement captain responds by smashing their acoustic guitar.

Whereas this year’s other major disaster movie – Ekipazh, an airplane disaster scenario – was glitzy and sensationalist and set its sights on the present day (and on an international market), Ledokol is all -Russian and grittily realistic and looks back, or be it with some ambivalence.

A telling sequence of the film comes right at the end. The rescued survivors are enjoying the sun with a barbecue on the deck of the ship. One of them holds aloft a copy of Pravda. Thumbing through the pages, they pass a picture of the newly inaugurated Gorbachev before they get to the account of their ordeal. Then they cheer for the captains – both of them. For the first time the stern replacement captain allows himself to smile. The music of Kino sounds. The credits roll.

LOST IN SPACE.

First time (Vremya Pervyh) , a well –publicised adventure was granted an extended run at many cinemas when released in 2017. Dmitry Kiselov, best known for lighter fare such as Black Lightning from fifteen years ago (a sort of new take on Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang), directed the film. It was released to coincide with Cosmonaut day – April 12^th. That day commemorates Gargarin’s birthday but this biopic takes as its subject a feat of almost equal importance: in 1965 the then 31-year-old Alexander Leonev conducted the first Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA).

Race to be the first.

Better known as a `space-walk`, the EVA involved Leonev taking leave his space capsule so that there was nothing between him and the vacuum of space except his spacesuit. This attempt lasted for 12 minutes and 9 seconds (longer, as we shall see, than was planned for). Leonev’s achievement paved the way for the American Moon landings effected five years later.

At that time, however, the Soviet Union were leaping ahead in the `Space race`. They had sent up the first satellite, put dogs into space, then the first man and woman in to orbit and even reached the Moon in the form of the probes Luna, Luna 2 and Lunakhod. This relentless need to stay ahead of the competition is brought out in this film, which opens with the deadline being set for 1965.

The prologue to this dramatic recreation is a childhood dream of Leonev’s: in a vision worthy of Ray Bradbury, we him see running through tall grass at night and releasing a cloud of fireflies which rise up into the starry summer sky. (The adult Leonev is played by Yevgeny Mironov a long-standing actor who made his name in a coming of age drama called `Love` in 1991. For this role he has to play someone about twenty years his junior).

Mishaps.

Things get harder edged after that. The Voshkod 2 mission has been earmarked for the task and the preparation for this it is all rather hurried along. Health and safety is not anyone’s biggest concern: a technician working on the ships design gets electrocuted to death.

That sets the trend for the flight itself: Leonev’s spacesuit becomes inflated on his space walk and so he cannot re-enter the capsule until he lets out some air; then he and his co-pilot, Pavel Belyayev have difficulties sealing the hatch. Following this, the rockets that will return them to Earth malfunction. All of this makes them late for touch down and they land somewhere in the arctic woods of Upper Kama Uplands – and might as well have crashed onto another planet. A nervous helicopter pilot despatched to find them is told to `keep an eye out for a red and white parachute`.

All of this did happen, and although you wonder how much it has been embellished, you still hold your breath, much as we did for Apollo 13 from 1995.

Realism.

Like the previous year’s similar Ledokol, the film tempers its hero worship with period details: the astronaut’s space food is borsch in toothpaste tubes, Mission Control constitutes a downbeat cottage industry in an air craft hangar, and the head of operations is a stressed and unfit man in danger of a heart seizure. Leonev himself comes across as a bit of a chancer. For example, when his comrade breaks his foot following a sky dive, Leonev’s first response is to turn up at his hospital and fix a weight to the man’s suspended leg so that he may continue to exercise.

Visual feast.

The contemporaneous American movies Gravity (2013) and Life (2017)had shown that directors now possess the means to evoke the feel of being suspended above our aquamarine orb as though it were for real. Vremya Pervyh also does not let us down in this respect. The sky diving scenes and the closing sequences in the forest are also spectacular – as befits a 3-D movie.

The film’s message which is along the lines of the old `hang on in there`, and was emotive enough for some of the audience to clap at the end of the initial cinema showing. I was just glad to have learnt a little about some of the unsung feats of the pre-Moon landing space missions.

These reviews were written at the time of the films release and were posted in Moskvaer (now defunkt) and the BKC IH Newsletter.

Lead image: Still from Ledokol – Kinoteatr.ru

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.

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