Immediately after the release of the film by the famous theater director Kirill Serebrennikov, the cinema community was divided into two warring parties. Fans were delighted with the tragicomic performance, opponents, calling the picture "absurd happening", were perplexed by the comedy-inspired delights in the cinematic get-together. Nevertheless, the movie “Depicting a victim” (actors: Yu. Chursin, V. Khaev, M. Basharov, O. Demidova, M. Golub) has 5 nominations for the film award “Golden Eagle” and “Nick”.
Creators
The play of the most sought-after playwrights - the brothers Oleg and Vladimir Presnyakov - K. Serebrennikov has already staged in the theater, however, he is not alone. Of course, the “scripted” character is noticeable in the film, but it is blameless.
Burning theater-goers during the viewing will surely find allusions to Sorokin’s “Queue”, “Hamlet” and “Music Lessons” by Petrushevskaya. Cinema fans will see references to Fassbinder's Bremen Freedom and Aki Kaurismäki's film Hamlet Comes Into Life.
While shooting the film “Depicting a victim”, the author did not ruin, but adapted the stage space by all known cinematic means. Thus, the tape minimizes the action, as is typical of a movie. The style of the film “Depicting a victim” (the actors emphasized this fact in an interview with the media) to some extent determines the occupation of the central character.
Plot
In order to earn a living, a graduate of Valya University (actor Yuri Chursin) gets a strange job at the police station - during investigative experiments, he portrays a victim of a crime. Almost daily, the investigative task force consisting of the original captain (performed by Vitaliy Khaev), lieutenant-cameraman Lyudmila (actress Anna Mikhalkova) and a nearby employee of Seva (actor Alexander Ilyin) takes the accused of crimes to the scene of the crime to restore the full picture of the incident.
Each case brings a separate bit of insanity to the plot of the film: a petite-dog named Karas (Marat Basharov), having killed his girlfriend, tried to dismember her, an intelligent-looking neurasthenic Sysoev (Andrei Fomin) threw his wife out of the window, a hot Caucasian Zakirov (Igor Gasparyan) drowned his beloved in pool, and businessman Verkhushkin (Maxim Konovalov) shot his ex-classmate in a sushi bar. Such charismatic characters were embodied in the film “Depicting a Victim” by actors well known to the domestic audience.
The causative agent of artistic adrenaline
Almost all of the characters listed above are pretty ordinary people, everyone has their own truth, but rather, it’s more about the grave wretchedness of the environment picture demonstrated by the creators.
The main character, living in a cramped Moscow apartment with his mother (actress Marina Golub), neighbors with his uncle Peter (performed by Fedor Dobronravov). Soon, adults are about to converge and live together. At night, Valais has nightmares in which his dead father comes to him and blames his poisoned brother for his sudden death. One fine day, the guy, returning after another inquiry held at the Japanese sushi bar, decides to take revenge on his father’s killer and everyone else, including his mother and pregnant girl Olga (actress Elena Morozova). Such an extravagant story was told in the comedy “Depicting a victim” by actors involved in the work on the project.
Acting Ensemble
One of the signs of strong directing is the feeling that all the actors involved in the film are brilliant, and the acting skill demonstrated has a wonderful aftertaste. Everyone knows that the Russian acting school has not lagged behind the world standards of the film industry. In this film, the duet of Chursin and Hayev looks cooler for moments than Ryan Philip and Jason Statham.
The ex-Vakhtangovets, and now the Moscow Art Theater, actor Yuri Chursin has not yet appeared in all recognized masterpieces, he is known to a wide domestic audience on the television series “Palmist”. The role of the protagonist in "Depicting the victim" was his full-length debut, discovery. The actor is interesting in every manifestation, he is eccentric, smart, ironic.
Vitaliy Khaev is amazingly organic in the image of a police captain. His climax obscene dialogue, affecting all the urgent problems of our society, brought the actor special popularity. This episode makes the viewer feel that this is a truly lively movie.
No less bright
Among the supporting actors, Marat Basharov and Igor Gasparyan stand out (you follow the trajectories of his character - killers from the pool as if hypnotized).
The lyrical and at the same time fundamental image of police lieutenant Lyudochka was delightfully embodied on the screen by Anna Mikhalkova. Her heroine is pompous, compassionate, sympathetic, always finding out on the phone relationships, solving personal issues during work.
About Liya Akhedzhakova, who played an employee of a Japanese restaurant, a special conversation - she is an actress for all times, like Rina Zelenaya, Faina Ranevskaya.