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Reviews
Interstellar (2014)
Too long, inconsistent plot, ambiguous theme
I saw this film not on screen and I think it was right. The film's plot doesn't justify 169 minutes experience of sitting in darkness of movie theater.
For Science Fiction story with such a space-time scale, its' necessary to have more "superhuman", "unworldly" approach to theme. I don't like so much "2001: A Space Odyssey" with its too "unworldly" plot, but it was really on the path of the genre's tradition and norms.
Main stream Sci-fi from the beginning has dealt with human being as part of long-term development of the civilization, with the intellectual dominance in it and its limitations (including its conflict with human nature). Such films as "Forbidden Planet", "Roller Ball" and even "The Terminator" belong to this stream.
Another stream was such that deals with future world or futuristic technology as convenient gadget to develop rather traditional plot of other genre in a new setting."Alien", "Star Wars" and even "Blade Runner" are in this stream.
Probably only a genius like Andrei Tarkovsky could take the third course in this genre. He made "philosophical" Sci-Fi, not so "unworldly" but with emotional warmth, suffering of human being in this world, on the Earth, in "Solaris" and "Stalker". But he didn't like this genre at all.
If a filmmaker or a writer want to tell a "human story" in Sci-fi,then it's better to do so joining the second stream. The third one is not the choice of "worldly" hit maker.
I think the plot of "Interstellar" can be much shorter to develop the family story. No such strange situation of "World's end" is needed to do so. Today we already know the facts of global warming, possible exhaustion of fossil resources, ecological instability, and the wrong course of our civilization in general. So it would be simple to state the crisis and to start the story of emigration or exploration from the very start(as,for example, in "Stalker" and "Blade Runner").
The film's plot was meaninglessly made prolonged and complicated by adding pseudo-scientific terms and gadgets, like 5th dimension, black hole and wormhole. If you cut all of them, the plot will still work for family story of an astronaut, only by using "cold sleep" technology.
In general, sentimental story with "time travel" fit better to "fantasy" than Sci-fi. And there are such films as "Somewhere in Time" and "Portrait of Jennie", both of which were FAR BETTER MADE than "Interstellar" , telling stories with very clear theme.
Sluga (1989)
The director's best achievement
I fully agree with the another reviewer in that this is one of the best Russian film during Perestroika period.
I've seen this film only 7 years ago, in London, for my personal study of Russian cinema. I watched it again today with better image and sound,and noticed that "Sluga"has exceptional high technical and aesthetic quality for films made in last few years of USSR.
I've seen almost all the films created by the screenwriter A.Mindaze and the director V.Abdrashitov, but no other film was so consistent and went so far as "Sluga" did. Apparently the story of this film implicates human relationship and mentality of "Soviet" people. But the material(story)has been transcended into something deeper and universal thanks to the elaborated and beautifully composed plot and its very accurate realization on the screen. For the last period of Soviet cinema, it's amazing that they could keep such a distance from this socially motivated material and worked without any surplus pathos or too keen sensitivity.
The film is even beautiful in spite of the seemingly banal and ordinary details. Everywhere we can see Abdrashitov's masterful skill as a director. As a whole plot is rather complicated but easily understandable that is the achievement of A.Mindaze as a screenwriter. In addition, Denis Evstegneev's camera, V.Dashikevich's music, acting of O.Borisov and Yu.Belyaev is also in its best. We know that in the art of cinema such an coincidence happens very, very rarely and ones who have such luck in succession, are even less.
Trudno byt bogom (2013)
Formless, like mud
I must first admit that this film is quite unique as a piece of "fiction film" not pretending to be an "experimental"or an "underground" film. That is, this film is intended to be a work of art in the frame of film industry with viewers who pay more than the cost of everyday lunch(maybe,plus breakfast and dinner). For what moviegoers will pay in that case? For an entertainment or a work of art, but in any case, they are used to see "fiction" or "narrative" within the limit of this category of cinema( including "Apocalypse Now", "Stalker" and such more radical"art-house"films as Pasolini's "Salo"). I mean that these films have clear plot and/or drama. Both elements are part of tradition of 100 years film art.
Frankly speaking,I think very, very few films of this category(feature length "fiction film") have ever been made in such an arrogant manner as "Trudno byt bogom". Here the director A.German seems to have been totally sunk into his own world, like an old painter depicted in Balzak's short story. I know such an enthusiasm is necessary for an artist, but even then the artist should keep in mind many other things ; the size of canvas(format),the norms of society where the work will be shown (even if it is intended to be some kind of provocation), artistic tradition which will serve the background for the piece when being interpreted, etc.
I see here something like formless visual narrative. Though I haven't read the original novel, but judging from the other screen version by P. Fleischmann(1989), German used only the narrative framework and some pivotal episodes from the novel for "painting" on the screen a moving picture of Hell.
As a result the film of German lacks both drama and plot. 3 hours of a "fiction film" needs them. Film art can't exist outside its tradition, if author doesn't want "underground" or "experiment".No other filmmakers have dared to break this tradition.3 hours of "Andrei Rublev", "Barry Lyndon" and "Kagemusha"is calculated, accentuated and built into "forms" (plot and drama) within Time. Visual aspect of these films don't conflict with plot and drama. It is called cinematurgy that lacks in this film.