Andrey Smirnov with his wife
Dad Dunya Smirnova made another movie with the offensive title “For you and me.” (This is how the popular table toast sounds, which, as you know, ends with the phrase – “… and to hell with them.”) Like almost all past films by 82-year-old Andrei Smirnov, the current one is a set of glossy pictures “from the Soviet era” loosely related to the plot. with voiced instructions about why you need to hate the Soviet Union.
Time of action – autumn 1952. The scene of action is a communal apartment on Pirogovka, a branch of hell on earth. What kind of creatures, suckers, alcoholics and informers do not live there. But the director’s sympathies are on the inhabitants of one room. This is the most beautiful and advanced family of philosophy teacher Pavel Petkevich (Andrey Smolyakov). His wife (Irina Rozanova), daughter (Yulia Snigir), grandson (Denis Davydov) and son-in-law (Alexander Ustyugov) huddle in the same room with him.
As you know, Andrei Smirnov loves to divide all his heroes into two groups. These are the best people and bydlomass. In the penultimate movie “Frenchman”, the director insulted the citizens into dissidents and everyone else. He didn’t hide in the current masterpiece and already indicated in the title that someone is “we are with you”, and someone is “to hell with them”.
With horseradish turned out, for example, a man-metro construction worker, whose salary is actively used by an elite family. The beautiful daughter is married to him, but without much joy. The metro construction worker fundamentally disagrees with the rhetoric of his father-in-law and rereads everything to him. Apparently, in retaliation for this, the intellectuals are slipping the dumbest bed in the whole house, which has red brick posts instead of legs (probably from the Kremlin wall). When a subway builder is impatient to have sex, the bricks fall, the bed with the copulating couple collapses and produces an apocalyptic roar throughout the apartment. Shame, shame. Horror.
Wake up not only smart and talented, but in general all the inhabitants of the communal apartment. And as it is, in underpants, they shake their heads accusingly.
From this enchanting scene, the movie begins. It ends with roughly the same scene. In the finale, the main character is already sleeping with the organ worker who has rendered her a service. The bed doesn’t fall. The conclusion follows: “Survival in this” creepy “country is possible only with love.”
three letter word
As in other films of Smirnov, “For us with you” cannot be considered a fascinating spectacle. There is almost no plot or action. More than half of the film is represented by conversations and boring scenes of supposedly pictures of Russian life.
Most often, the pictures come down to how bad the Russians are and how they offend the Jews. As trams with the inscription “Russian, take a twig, drive a Jew to Palestine” drive around the city, such and such a government threatens to exile all Jews to Birobidzhan, but does not do this solely because it is pissing off American atomic bombs.
A vile scammer (Russian) calls a “Jew” an excellent doctor (Yarmolnik), who tells from the bottom of his heart what is best to take from pressure. The heroine Xenia Rappoport complains to the heroine Yulia Snigir that Jews will not even be allowed to quarrel in any tram, they will immediately call them a three-letter word.
Apparently, by accusing everyone in a row of anti-Semitism, Smirnov atones for the shame of his father Sergei, who, holding a high position in a writers’ organization, launched the persecution of Pasternak. However, why the sins of the father should be attributed to the Russians, showing them as complete idiots, is a question.
– We are not interested in equality, but in leveling. It is important for us that the neighbor has a stew for lunch, like I have.
– We cannot stand only three things: someone else’s mind, beauty and talent, – the smart, beautiful and talented protagonist Pavel Petkevich argues importantly. The pronoun “we” is chosen for the red word: the main character is a Pole.
Catastrophic years
Wrapping up the Pole philosopher was a cunning move. The director (who is also a screenwriter) really wanted to introduce his own old man’s thoughts on the subject of the Russian people into the text. So for half the film, the philosopher endlessly nudges something disgusting, not stopping even on the occasion of the New Year celebration.
At times, philosophical fabrications alternate with predictions in the spirit of Globa:
– I thought and got scared. In our century, all the years of the Serpent for Russia were catastrophic. 1905 – a revolution, 1917 – two more, 1929 – dispossession and famine. 1941 – you know, – says the philosopher and drinks for 1953 to bring a sigh of relief.
The wish comes true immediately. Since you can’t endure all this in any way, you don’t want to, but you will rejoice when, right on New Year’s Eve, a bore is arrested at the denunciation of a neighbor.
The current cinema has already been praised by foreign agent Dmitry Bykov, calling it a masterpiece of the European level and saying that the phrases from “For us and you” will become proverbs. It has long been noticed that Cassandra from the foreign agent is extremely useless. Last time, he praised Renata Litvinova’s mediocre film The North Wind in every way, promising success and fame. There was nothing even close.
But what is true is true, the current spectacle of Smirnov is not for you and me. Once in an interview, Dunya’s dad called himself an officer in the army of his son-in-law Chubais.
“Gaidar and Chubais are the two most outstanding men in recent history,” Andrey Sergeevich declared with a blue eye.
As someone rightly pointed out to him on the Web, the general fled, and the officers continue to fight on his fronts.
But, in fairness, it is worth noting that the current film, although not a masterpiece, is not as unsuccessful as, for example, The Frenchman. At least the Chubais officer made at least some attempt to make the movie not so flat and unambiguous. The metro-builder hero, although languidly and unconvincingly, objects to the invectives of his wife’s father about how badly we live.
The heroines from the elite, on whose side the director’s sympathy is, are also not an angel. They are not burdened with morality, they are given for a favor. They don’t evoke sympathy. Going to stand in the prison queue, the wife does not forget to put on an emerald ring with diamonds. (I recall the wife of the poet Aseev, who, in the absence of the opportunity to walk diamonds, defiantly washed the floors in them, and then looked for the fallen pebbles all over the house).
– Well, come on, report that I’m not such a bitch as you! – Ariadna Petkevich says in her hearts when the commonwealth of the communal apartment reproaches her for not mourning the dead Stalin.
Tricky question
In general (we conclude), we are all brothers of the pig and sister of the bitch, mired in a common sinful sin. But at the same time (according to the author’s brilliant idea), one bitch is still not such a bitch as the other.
Was it worth making a movie for? Probably yes, given that you are Chubais’s father-in-law and it didn’t cost you anything.
Is the movie worth watching? Tricky question.
The strength of Smirnov is that he can create beautiful pictures in the spirit of the photographer Ekaterina Rozhdestvenskaya. The fifties are depicted in an interesting way, with a bunch of nostalgic details and an unforgettable entourage of a communal apartment, on which the recently deceased artist Kabakov made money and a career.
If you turn off the sound, then for a while you can even be nostalgic.
