Translation. Region: Russian Federal
Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –
A pre-premiere screening of Maria Reizen’s film “Impostors” took place. The action takes place in October 1993: against the backdrop of historical events, two lovers try to understand the circumstances of the death of a famous director and save his last film.
Producer Georgiy Lordkipanidze said: “We must remember that we live in a history textbook. It does not end, and God willing, it will not end for a long, long time. It is fascinating and pleasant in its own way. This knowledge makes life much easier when you understand that you live in history, and it continues. This is its lesson – what happened once in one form or another will definitely happen again, will happen again.”
The film “Impostors” is a very transparent statement on this topic. It is about people who find themselves on yet another broken-off ice floe among moving tectonic plates. The relationship of oneself to events, proportion – it seems that this is what the film screams about, if the entry point into it is the story of the main character. And the understanding that everything is repeating itself, and people have not drawn global conclusions, does not save the viewer from his own drama.
The authors rethink Pushkin’s “Boris Godunov” through the “Time of Troubles” – the autumn of 1993. It seems to be the first artistic attempt to live through that period. 30 years is a sufficient period for a film to become historical. With every detail verified, the film is more of a discourse, a metaphor and a philosophical statement. Godunov runs through the film like a dotted line, but such that the main action is perceived precisely through him – as a foundation on which everything is strung.
Pushkin the philosopher
Alexander Sergeyevich wrote Boris Godunov 200 years ago, and it was, as the creators of the film rightly note, the first realistic historical drama filled with psychologism, the author of which violates all the laws that prevailed not only in Russian but also in world dramaturgy – the unity of place, time and action, the unity of genre and style of speech, the subordination of the plot to a love affair.
At that moment, Pushkin becomes a historian and political thinker, gives a philosophical definition of the fate of Russia. And perhaps such a film seems to give the viewer a new Pushkin, which significantly expands the boundaries of the film itself. This intersection with many worlds at once: literature, philosophy, history, is the beginning of a big conversation, which, of course, goes on continuously, but the film brings it to a wider audience. An interesting phenomenon is how cinema becomes a starting point for a big discourse and how, going beyond itself, it can lay claim to eternity.
“It seems to me that the form of this film allows us to hope that it will be seen not only by those who watch it in the coming weeks of distribution or later, when it goes on television platforms. This is a film that you can discover for yourself after some time,” explains Georgy Lordkipanidze. As in Pushkin’s “Boris Godunov”, the plot of “The Impostors” centers on ordinary people. The complicated, year-long relationship of the main characters is a real love drama. They find themselves drawn into a detective story, which is intensified by the events that take place. The turmoil of autumn 1993 erases everything that was, becomes stronger for each of them, but gives life new meaning. This is a personal tragedy and a tragedy for the country.
Multi-layered and precise in every detail
“The Impostors” is a multi-layered film. The viewer can be on one level, or can try to exist on all of them at once, which is certainly better because it provides a deeper immersion. But still, this is a film for everyone – and it is exactly what the person watching it is: well-read, living his own drama, searching or tired.
The film contains many metaphors. The theme of the holy fool refers, for example, to the very essence of foolishness in Rus’, and to films, and to parables. The creators of “The Impostors” ask themselves and the viewer precisely calibrated questions, but great art always implies that the answers must be sought independently.
This carefully assembled picture from the autumn of 1993 is the perfect work of production designer Evgeny Mitta, who accurately recreated the spirit of that time. “In general, this is already considered a historical film by cinematic standards. Quite a lot of time has passed, all this equipment no longer exists in the current media space. And we had to search quite well for some individual parts of the equipment and try to recreate it all,” says Evgeny Mitta.
But it all started with a script written by Sergei Shumakov, the general director and editor-in-chief of the Kultura channel. That is why the story through the eyes of journalists looks as plausible as possible. Sergei Shumakov, in essence, showed the work of those he understands best, especially since he himself worked in television in 1993 and was in the television center building on the night of October 3-4.
“I think the experience of documentary filmmaking helps, because the chronicle was the most difficult thing we did. The entire process of finishing the film took three years, but the chronicle took one and a half of that. Plus, during the preparation process, we worked on the chronicle, because there were documentary filmmakers who were separately from me preparing it for the set. In order to watch it before the motor, the group watched the chronicle – everyone remembered what happened. Some did not remember, but saw it for the first time – those who were younger. In general, the chronicle was probably the most difficult,” says Maria Reizen.
Reincarnations
The cast of “The Pretenders” is so impressive that it’s worth watching the movie just for them: Linda Lapinsh, Sergey Shakurov, Egor Beroev, Vladimir Guskov, Anna Mikhalkova, Mikhail Filippov, Aleksandr Adabashyan and others. It’s especially nice to see Ildar Gainutdinov, who plays the role of False Dmitry.
“As for the role, my hero, it was very multi-staged. If we specifically proceed not from the excerpt, if, let’s say, we take on a full-fledged character, then we could take, for example, a story – how a person is changed by his desire for power, how his dream becomes some kind of nightmare. That is, this is a very, very complex work,” notes Ildar Gainutdinov.
“The Pretenders” is a film that goes beyond itself. It is a serious attempt to understand the autumn of 1993, a large open dialogue with Alexander Pushkin, a history of stories, a film with a very precise inner time and brilliant work of the entire team. A magnificently depicted life of ordinary people who found themselves in the center of a historical breakdown.
The film will be released on June 5th and can be seen in the Moskino chain of cinemas.
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