No one could have expected that the debut film of a young unknown director Andrei Malyukov, conceived as a short film, would gather 35.4 million viewers and become a real business card of the Airborne Forces (“Uncle Vasya’s troops” Margelov). Shown on 02/23/1978, the Soviet action movie "In the Special Attention Zone", whose actors will be perceived as real paratroopers, will become a cult in the history of the "winged division" and will cause a rush of admission to the Ryazan Higher Airborne School, a competition in which will be 20 people for a place. Why did this happen?
The plot of the picture
In the action movie there is no abundance of bloody scenes and fierce enemies, but there is an interesting swirling plot that makes you closely monitor the upheavals of the main characters. The real case investigated by the war correspondent Yevgeny Mesyatsev was the basis for the film “In the Special Attention Zone”. Actors, plot, participation of real fighters of the Airborne Forces Training Center in Gaižiūnai (Lithuania) - everything makes the picture fascinating and reliable. The spectators seem to be involved in military exercises, where three reconnaissance groups of the Yuzhny Guards Parachute Regiment are instructed to detect and neutralize the Northern (ZKP) masked command post for the success of the operation to eliminate military facilities.
Airborne reconnaissance groups that are 150 kilometers away from the proposed ZKP will not only have to get to the command post in two days, but also deceive the enemy, creating the illusion of focus on fuel depots and an airfield. The rivals are smart and worthy of each other: the "Severny" manage to capture the groups of Kirikov and Pakhomov, and only the soldiers of Lieutenant Tarasov have a chance to complete the task. There are four of them: the former platoon warrant officer Volentyr and Viktor Tarasov, newly appointed in his place, between whom understanding arises only in the course of events, and two conscripts who pass the most important exam in their life.
The main characters of the film “In the Special Attention Zone”, the actors of which did most of the work without understudies, managed the impossible - not only to complete the task, but also to neutralize the four recidivists who escaped from the quarry and left a bloody trail.
Tarasov and Volentir
In the film “In the Zone of Special Attention”, the actors and roles surprisingly connected with each other. And the point is not only that Boris Galkin, who played Tarasov, leaving for the task on the eve of his wife’s birth, really became a father in 1977 (he had a daughter, Maria), and Mihai Volontir plays an ensign by the name of Volentir. The hit in the image turned out to be so accurate that with this film Boris Galkin begins a series of roles of military personnel, and Volontir is still considered the best ensign of the Airborne Forces.
The role of Tarasov can be considered the absolute success of Boris Galkin, who is a direct descendant of the sister of Mikhail Kutuzov. A graduate of the school. B. Shchukin in 1977 graduated from directing courses, dreaming of his own productions and films. But it was precisely the acting talent shown in this role that brought him the silver medal to them A.P. Dovzhenko and the great love of the audience. His hero managed to convincingly convey how strong the Soviet army was in spirit. Having discovered a corpse and a wounded woman, he makes the only right decision - to get in touch to call the police, realizing that he is losing his coordinates and questions the fulfillment of the combat mission.
The viewer so empathizes with the hero and wishes him success, that the despair of Tarasov, who discovered models on the site of the alleged ZKP, seems to be an injustice of a universal scale. But where one does not cope, the second comes to the rescue, who became during the execution of the task with the lieutenant's right hand - Ensign Volentir.
The Moldavian actor Mihai Volontir, who passed away in 2015, was so fond of the audience thanks to the starring roles in the film “In the Special Attention Zone”, the actors of which became his real friends, and “Gypsy” that Russian doctors made every effort to save the man, never not leaving native Beltsy. A serious illness claimed the life of the best ensign of the Airborne Forces, whose piercing dialogue with the forester cannot be forgotten: "I have grown together with the army, it has my whole life."
Other actors in the film “In the Special Attention Zone”
In the action movie there are almost no female roles: the saleswoman performed by Elena Kuzmina and the granddaughter of the forester (Elena Tsyplakova), but the male characters are represented by a galaxy of magnificent actors. Anatoly Kuznetsov plays Major Moroshkin from the Severny group, opposing the soldiers of Lieutenant Tarasov. Paired with Captain Zuev (Alexander Pyatkov), they very convincingly show a change in the mood of people carrying out the responsible assignment of the regiment commander. The joy of being able to outplay the enemy is suddenly replaced by a surprised disappointment when, contrary to all measures taken, a small group of a young airborne platoon is stronger.
Young soldiers from the platoon of Tarasov were played by novice actors Igor Ivanov and Sergey Volkosh. They did not have a happy affair with the cinema, although Sergei Volkosh, who plays in the Ostrov theater, participated in 54 projects. Perhaps this is also due to the fact that in the film “In the Zone of Special Attention”, the actors are perceived as real paratroopers, for whom duty and task fulfillment are above all.
Vladimir Zamansky, a wonderful actor, a master of close-up, who knows how to convey with his eyes a whole spectrum of human feelings, starred in the role of the commander of the "South" regiment, who until the end believed in his fighters. The image of the forester was also expressive in many respects thanks to the talent of the Honored Artist of the RSFSR Nikolai Kryukov. Having survived the war and fascist captivity, being the master of the episode, he shows an unbroken man who got in the way of repeat offenders.
Interesting facts about the filming process
The film was also aroused great interest in the landing troops thanks to personally General V. Margelov, the progenitor of this kind of troops. He insisted that in the picture reconnaissance groups carry out the task in blue berets, although in reality a bright color can easily give out a fighter to the enemy. The powerful IL-76 aircraft used by the "winged infantry" belonged to Aeroflot. It was impossible not to show them in the film, but the symbolism of belonging had to be painted over in each frame almost manually.
The decoration of the picture was the shooting of hand-to-hand combat, in which the ensign Volentyr confronted four armed criminals. At the site, he was replaced by Tadeusz Kasyanov, the famous martial artist, whose last name was not mentioned in the credits. The role was voiced not by Volontir himself, but by Nikolai Gubenko, People's Artist of the RSFSR.
During the preparation of the film, the film crew shot a lot of documentary material. It was supposed to be used in the directorial version of the picture. But according to the requirements of secrecy, the films were destroyed. The film is considered the first part of the dilogy, but it is a completely completed work of art.
Music in the film
One of the successes of the picture is its musical arrangement. Written in 1970 as the anthem of the paratroopers, the song of Mark Minkov to the verses of Igor Shaferan was performed in the final by Eduard Labkovsky, well known in military units. He gave almost two thousand concerts for soldiers of the Soviet and then Russian army. With this song, he will perform two years later in Afghanistan and other hot spots where the landing troops performed their duty. On Airborne Forces Day in 2015, she will be performed by a new pop star - Stas Pieha:
You need to really love your land guys
To fall from heaven like snow on your head!