“The Hunt for Beria” is a series whose actors are well known to the Russian audience. It was shot back in 2008 (it was released in the spring of 2009). This was a continuation of the "Alexander Garden". What kind of film is it, what is it about and what served as the basis for this story, we learn from this article.
Story line
The story told in this film begins that day when Lieutenant Colonel Alexei Kazarin brings a package of mail to Comrade Stalin’s summer house in Moscow. On the same day (it coincided) the head of state was hit. Quite by chance, the officer heard Beria talk with the leader’s guards. Lavrenty Pavlovich categorically forbade them to call the Kremlin doctors. But after a stroke, Joseph Vissarionovich needed urgent help. Kruglov - the commandant of this dacha - violates the order and sends for a doctor whom Stalin trusted. But this does not give anything: the people of Colonel Garayev (Beria’s assistant) take this doctor’s life that evening.
Kazarin understands that since he became an involuntary witness to this conversation, he needs to quickly leave here, because otherwise his life is literally hanging by a thread. Unfortunately, he is unable to secretly leave. Since Beria never had the habit of leaving witnesses to her crimes alive, a real hunt begins for the lieutenant colonel and his life turns into hell.
That was the beginning of the series "The Hunt for Beria." The actors who appeared in the first series helped the audience to feel the atmosphere of that time and become interested in the continuation.
Fiction or reality?
The methods that the people of Lavrenty Pavlovich are accustomed to acting are very simple and very scary because of this. These are threats, murders, intrigues ...
Vladlen and Maya Koltsovs and Alexei Kazarin risk their lives in order to save their loved ones from the threat looming over them. They are little by little trying to collect as much evidence as possible of Beria's guilt.
At the same time, another thread is written out in the plot. The fate of Vasily Stalin (the son of the leader) has not yet been finally decided. He is arrested and there is an absolutely real threat to his life. Friends are doing their best to save him. At the last moment, the young man refuses their help and does not escape from prison.
It should be noted that the film "The Hunt for Beria", whose actors from the very beginning plunged the audience into the horror that was happening then, was shot based on real events. Of course, artistic fiction was also present. No way without him. But the result was a movie that kept the tension up to the last series, despite the fact that everyone already knows what happened to the bloody manipulator of millions of lives.
Mismatches
It is impossible to say with certainty that all those who watched the series rated it a solid five. If you approach in all seriousness, it is clear that such a movie can not claim to exact observance of historicism. And here, however, as in many other paintings, there are cinematic mistakes.
Perhaps the strongest impression was a frame with double-headed eagles in the design of the stairs. This can be seen in the third series at about the fourth minute and forty-sixth or forty-seventh second.
If you listen carefully to the speech of the characters, you can find quite a lot of speech turns characteristic of our time. Those people who lived in the forties and fifties did not know these turns, or they did not carry in themselves the meaning that they are filled with now.
For especially meticulous viewers, the fact of mistakes with the cast will be interesting: the role of a serving pharmacy that tells about Unclean Kazarin and the role of a nurse carrying Shapilin’s gurney went to the same actress.
Table lamps with plastic lampshades in the west appeared around the mid-sixties, and “came” to the USSR ten years later. A special pleasure for meticulous viewers is a “bug” with two antennae, made in the form of a speaker. Its diameter is approximately four centimeters. But at that historical time, there were no power sources that could provide at least some kind of long-term autonomous power to a similar device.
And yet, despite so many discrepancies, “The Hunt for Beria” is a series whose actors tried to immerse the audience as much as possible in the events of that time, I want to watch. Watch and not pay attention to such trifles. After all, this is our story, this is our life.
Central characters and actors
The main character of this story, Lavrenty Beria was played by the famous actor Vladislav Grishechkin, known to millions of Russians. At first, it is very unusual to see him, so recognizable by his broad smile and cunning in his eyes, in the role of such a stern person, a historical person. As soon as you hear his name, I remember the series “Soldiers”. But it turns out that Grishechkin is absolutely not such a joker and a womanizer who the viewers are used to seeing him in “Soldiers”. He devoted many years to theatrical works, playing even Woland, and, very peculiarly and atypically, endowed him with intelligence, sexuality and aristocratic boredom.
He began acting in 1989, but real fame came only in 2005. Now there are several dozens of works in his movie room, and Grishechkin is not going to stop.
Dmitry Zhulin played Lieutenant Colonel Alexei Kazarin. It was this role that brought him fame and popularity. And this despite the fact that earlier he had several interesting projects. This actor has brilliant data, but, unfortunately, he has not been removed for several years. In the spring of 2009, immediately after the filming in the series in question, Zhulin left for the monastery and became a novice.
Glafira Tarhanova was approved for the role of Maya Koltsova . This fragile girl with unusually beautiful eyes and a chic scythe became known after the release of the series “Gromovs”. Then there were many other works.
At the beginning of her creative career, she sought only to work in the theater, refusing attractive "cinema" offers. But then the movie nevertheless entered her life. The role of the actress is an elegant lyrical heroine, and the main movie genre in which she works is melodrama. This spring, it became known that Glafira was pregnant with her fourth child. She and her husband, actor Alexei Faddeev, hope that after their three sons they will have a long-awaited daughter.
Here he is - "The Hunt for Beria," the series. The actors that we mentioned made their contribution by subtly understanding the image of their character and diligent immersion in that era.
And others...
Anna Sergeyevna Tatishcheva-Kazarin was played by the truly Vakhtang actress Marina Esipenko. If someone doesn’t know very well who they are talking about, you just need to remember the series “My Favorite Witch,” and immediately everything falls into place. The phrase of her heroine - the powerful, but very modern Baba Yaga Margarita Nikolaevna - "Nadenka! You married a mortal! ” probably even schoolchildren know. She is always sonorous, aristocratically noble, musically gifted. It is impossible to determine its role. It seems that Esipenko can play everything. She understands her profession quite deeply and takes it seriously.
There is no need to talk much about the next actress. You just need to say that she was the very Denise de Florigny in "Sky Swallows". Now it’s clear that we are talking about Ie Ninidze. In this series, she played Nino Teimurazovna Gegechkori, the wife of Lavrenty Beria. This was the second time she was entrusted with such a role. Before that, she played Nino in the film "Repentance." The actress not only starred so far, but also makes her own concert programs, where she shows the public her magnificent vocal abilities.
So, "The Hunt for Beria" - the series. Actors (it would be more correct to say actresses), which are now mentioned, decorated the film with their presence. This refers not only to their appearance, but also how elegantly they gave the screen life to their characters. And not everyone succeeds.
Who else I want to mention is Yulia Pozhidaeva. Her heroine Vera Chugunova was not the central character, but attracted attention to herself. The actress began to be recognized a little more than ten years ago, when the series with her participation “Doomed to become a star”, “Ondine”, “Engagement ring” began to appear on Russian television channels.
She works a lot, because she not only acts in films, but also participates in large-scale television projects. And yet, having cut a free evening, Julia draws. But not with pencils or paints, but with theatrical makeup. Pozhidaeva, unlike other actors, always watches films and TV shows in which she starred because she loves to analyze her work in order to prevent any mistakes in the future.
This is how “The Hunt for Beria,” the series. The actors and their roles in it will be remembered for a long time by the audience, because everyone sitting at the screen will try to find something for themselves in the film, something that is close and understandable to him.