In 2013, at the Kinotavr festival, directors Natalya Merkulova and Aleksey Chupov presented their debut creation - the painting Intimate Places. The film, shot in the spirit of a European arthouse, touched upon problems that no one had spoken frankly about before its creators in Russia. The directors demonstrated all the forms of sexual frustration, which overnight can comprehend a person in a world ruled by hypocritical morality and the cult of self-restraint. The psychological and social background of the movie "Intimate Places", actors who brilliantly revealed the images of their heroes, extraordinary plot twists put her on the winner's podium. The film was recognized as the highlight of the year 2014 and was honored with passionate discussions, stormy applause and sharp criticism, as, however, all the well-executed provocative projects.
Story lines
The picture of Merkulova and Chupov is woven from the stories of middle-class citizens - successful, financially secure, but deeply unhappy. At a certain stage in their life, they fell into the trap of their intimate problems and became entangled in the wilds of their own complexes.
In the movie "Intimate Places", the actors embodied heroes with "cockroaches" in their heads of truly grandiose proportions. The successful straight man Sergey was surprised to find a homosexual beginning within himself, inflamed with a passion for his wifeâs admirer. He has no idea what to do with the surprise that brought him life in his fourth decade, so he tracks down the object of his desire.
And the exemplary family man Alexei is afraid to cheat on his wife. To avoid the detrimental influence of beautiful women, he decides to look only at ladies with impressive dimensions from the social lower classes and is surprised to notice that they lead him into sheer delight. With a new hobby, a man introduces Boris, a frank stupor of his psychoanalyst. The doctor, however, is also not without sin. The object of his passion became confused. And Boris does not need intimacy from them.
In the midst of this quiet madness, there is a polygamous photo-artist, a big devotee, Ivan and Lyudmila Petrovna, a lady of Balzac age with indefatigable sexual appetites and a passionate desire to introduce a ban on eroticism in the country.
Laugh or cry?
Actors of the film "Intimate Places" revealed to the audience the innermost secrets of their heroes, which can cause sympathy, disgust, and nervous laughs. The genre of films is difficult to determine. It has everything: genuine drama, and unobtrusive comedy, and eroticism, and itâs absolutely not nice, rather asexual. After all, this is not about passion, but about problems that destroy the personality.
For this reason, viewers perceived the film ambiguously. Watching the intimate conflicts of the heroes, some laughed non-stop, others sincerely empathized with the heroes and sighed with relief: on the screen, reality is worse and uglier than in life. Still others reproached the picture for terrifying immorality, an abundance of obscene language and not the most aesthetic presentation of nudity, which made the picture far from traditional erotica.
How was the casting?
In view of the last feature of the film production, the directors had a lot of difficulties during the casting. Many promising applicants for roles refused to participate in the project, perceiving it as a âdubious exposureâ. Then no one could have imagined that the directors would receive the prize âFor the Best Debutâ at the Kinotavr festival, the main prize of the East of the West program in Karlovy Vary, and the film itself would be awarded the diploma of the Guild of Film Critics and Film Critics.
However, some eminent actors immediately felt the powerful potential of a provocative project. So, the famous actress Olesya Sudzilovskaya, who played Svetlana, the wife of photographer Ivan, was delighted with the script. In one of her interviews, the actress admitted that she would willingly star in a shocking picture for free, she was so impressed with the plan of Merkulova and Chupov. I had to fight for the role of Svetlana Sudzilovskaya: she went to endless trials and waited for an answer from the directors.
Unexpected decisions
During the casting for participation in the film âIntimate Placesâ, the actors and roles were carefully selected, and for some heroes, no suitable candidate was found by the start of the shooting. So, latent homosexual Sergey had to play as a result of Chupov himself. He was not a professional actor, but decided on a risky experiment.
And for the role of moral guardian of Lyudmila Petrovna, the directors found the actress only six months after the start of the casting. She was brilliantly performed by Julia Aug, which Merkulova and Chupov initially could not even imagine in such an eccentric image. From the point of view of the directors, her pleasant Russian face would look great in productions of village life, but not in experimental projects. As it turned out, they were wrong. Julia was awarded the prize for Best Actress.
Yuri Kolokolnikov in the image of a fighter for the freedom of sexual morals
The main character of the film was embodied in himself by the charismatic actor Yuri Kolokolnikov. The future magnar tennov Stear from the cult series âGame of Thronesâ played the role of a shocking photographer Ivan, whose creative activity is reduced to shooting the genitals, and his position in life is to absolute sexual freedom.
The man was created for happiness, believes the hero of Kolokolnikov. And if so, then why not take everything from life? In the house of Ivan there are two wives, forced to put up with the polygamy of the photographer, and he wanders from one to the other, and, in the meantime, sleeps with sitters. Why should he limit himself, the fighter for the freedom of morals does not understand, he sends the psychoanalyst Boris (Timur Badalbeyli) on a long journey, striving to impose on his patients, and at the same time on himself, a social framework.
In the film "Intimate Places", the actors showed a purely world outlook conflict between people, extremely relevant in modern society. Ivan's position is an open revolt against Puritan morality, but those around him are hardly able to accept the life principles of the scandalous photographer. His person and creative research are criticized. Ivan's photo exhibition, showing close-ups of causal places, is eager to ban the moral committee.
The guardian of morality Lyudmila Petrovna performed by Julia Aug
Lyudmila Petrovna is an ardent fighter for purity and chastity in society. Donât feed her bread - let me cut light eroticism from world cinema masterpieces.
And the exhibition of Ivan completely throws the burly lady into shock, because her content obviously echoes the concept of âpornographyâ. Moreover, against dissected corpses on the TV screen, Lyudmila Petrovna does not mind, and the naked nature becomes a real stumbling block for a woman. Indeed, behind the calm, inexpressive expression of her face, which throughout the film was acted on by talented actress Julia Aug, obsessive erotic fantasies wander.
Coming home from work, she first grabs the vibrator. The real tragedy for Lyudmila Petrovna is only the dead batteries. In order to avoid annoying misunderstandings, she buys them in such quantities as if in the near future the world will suffer a nuclear war and stores will disappear from the face of the earth.
What could the directors not think about before the premiere of the film?
Such an antipode of the hero Kolokolnikov included Merkulov and Chupov in the film "Intimate Places." Actors and roles caused a reaction that the directors themselves did not expect. The colorful image of Lyudmila Petrovna, denouncing hypocrisy, hypocrisy and total loneliness, became a real protest against the experimental ideas of some members of the Russian State Duma.
Her somewhat caricatured figure initially seemed to the producers of the film project Bakur Bakuradze and Yulia Mishkinene "greetings" from the Soviet Union, despite the fact that Merkulova and Chupov found several moral committees in modern Russia. And Aug herself noted in an interview that when she was preparing for this role, she recalled women from the Komsomol regional committee who had come to her school in the distant past to educate young people in the field of political information. During the filming, neither the producers, nor the directors, nor the actors could imagine that Lyudmila Petrovna would become the subject of heated discussions. After all, radical morals for morality suddenly appeared in the country.
Olesya Sudzilovskaya and Dinara Yankovskaya: a conflict of heroines
However, when watching the movie "Intimate Places", the actors will inspire the viewer not only to think about moral and political issues, but also to the intense expectation of dramatic plot twists.
The wives of Ivan Svetlana and Sayan performed by Olesya Sudzilovskaya and Dinara Yankovskaya respectively, exuding a bloodthirsty hostility to each other, can cause at least bewilderment.
Almost medieval orders were established in the photographerâs house. The inconspicuous Sayana plays the role of a slaughtered servant, somewhat reminiscent of the modern Cinderella, which the stately red-haired Svetlana, like an evil princess from Disney tales, subtracts for every speck of dust in the house. The heroine of Sudzilovskaya also has duties, undoubtedly more significant. Svetlana is Ivanâs personal PR agent, but despite her status, she spends her nights alone, listening to the monotonous creaking of the bed from the next room. Both women are unhappy in their own way. But their humiliation reaches its climax when Ivan ceases to be limited only to the bodies of his spouses, and the heroes cannot escape an emotional explosion after such a turn.
Sudzilovskaya and Yankovskaya managed to create both tension and drama. The denouement of this storyline is devoid of mediocre motives, as well as the overall composition of the film directing of Russian directors.
The true drama in the movie "Intimate Places": actors and photos
No less strange love triangle appears before the audience when the characters of Aleksey Chupov, Ekaterina Shcheglova and Pavel Artemyev appear on the stage. Their story is the only one in the movie does not cause the audience to laugh. And the heroine E. Shcheglova Eva is able to make tears of especially sensitive moviegoers weep.
Her husband Sergey calls on the TV screen the inhabitants of the country to increase the birth rate, and he, being a latent homosexual, refuses the joy of motherhood to his charming fragile wife.
Countless forced abortions are behind her. And in a secluded corner of the house, a young woman keeps a notebook in which she is desperately trying to preserve the memory of her unborn children by pasting photographs from ultrasound examinations to the pages. Under them, Eve signs the names that she so wanted to give them.
Everything will change when the young circus magician crosses the threshold of the house of spouses, the role of which was performed by the former soloist of the Korni band Pavel Artemyev. After all, both spouses will fall in love with a charming guy. And then the real tragedy begins.
And when will the audience laugh in vain?
But not only the drama is played by the actors in the movie. "Intimate places" - a film that allows plenty to laugh. The story of Alexei and Olga, played by Nikita Tarasov and Ksenia Katymalova, is riddled with comicism from beginning to end.
Like all characters in the movie, spouses suffer from their own particular problems: the wife from the inattention of the husband, and the husband from his own sexual impotence in bed. Alexei, who deliberately switched from beautiful girls to large saleswomen, now can not look away from the vast Albina. Will he decide on treason and how his relationship with his wife will turn out, the viewer will know when he will watch the movie to the end.
Nikita Tarasov managed to create an eccentric and a little ridiculous image of a family man confused in his problems. This role brought the actor true success - immediately after the premiere of the film "Intimate Places" he was invited to the historical production of "The Battle of Sevastopol."
"Intimate places": actors and reviews
The actors of the picture Merkulova and Chupov received the highest praise from both critics and spectators. The latter in their reviews have repeatedly noted how efficiently, almost impeccably, the actors performed their roles in the film "Intimate Places". And the opinion of the audience means a lot to the directors. Many, of course, liked the extraordinary design and subtle humor. However, a significant part of moviegoers reproached the film with deliberate rudeness, inconsistency and depression.
A special praise was given to Julia Aug and Yuri Kolokolnikov, who created vivid, colorful images. Ekaterina Shcheglova, whose heroine Eva captivated them with her sad look and charming appearance, was able to penetrate the hearts of the audience. In their reviews, moviegoers also mentioned Olesya Sudzilovskaya, who fit perfectly into the frankly arthouse ribbon. It is worth noting that for participating in the actress she received the prize "For Best Actress in a Supporting Role".
In general, the Russian film "Intimate Places" (the actors who starred in it, music, witty dialogue, an unusual style of shooting) caused an emotional reaction among the general public. The film was not recognized as a masterpiece, but the directors-debutants themselves clearly have a powerful potential and, perhaps, in the future they will please the Russian public with quality non-trivial projects more than once.