The film "The History of Asya Klyachina" is a melodrama by Andrei Konchalovsky, which was shot in 1967. At the same time, the picture was long unknown to the audience, it was banned due to censorship reasons. Everyone could see her only two decades later. This tape tells about the love of a proud and gentle girl to a bad driver. The tape was shot in one of the villages of the Gorky region, it is interesting that most of the roles were played by the residents of the village of Kadnitsy.
Plot
The painting "The History of Asya Klyachina" tells about the fate of the main character, who works as a cook on a collective farm.
At the very beginning of the picture, the townsman Chirkunov comes to her, who has long been in love with her. He is played by Gennady Egorychev. He makes an offer to the girl, but she is indifferent to him. She does not love him, but wants to be with the driver Stepan.
Moreover, Asya (actress Iya Savvina) expects a child from Stepan. At the same time, the driver is completely indifferent to her. He is a classic rural slob. Despite this, Asya decides to give birth.
History of creation
The full name of the film is: "The story of Asya Klyachina, who loved and did not get married, because she was proud."
The script for the picture was originally written by Yuri Klepikov. Konchalovsky enthusiastically took up this work, but refused to invite recognizable artists to shoot. Moreover, he went to shoot the film "The History of Asya Klyachina" in the Russian outback.
In addition to Iya Savvina, who played the main role in the film, only one more actress with the appropriate education is shot in it - this is Lyubov Sokolova, who plays Mishanka’s mother. One of the directors Alexander Surin starred in the role of Stepan. All other roles were played by non-professionals, mainly, they were residents of the village in which they shot the movie.
The feature of the film "The story of Asya Klyachina, who loved but did not get married" was the use of semi-documentary filming. These are episodes in which villagers talk about their lives. For example, about how they fought at the front or ended up in Stalin's camps. These monologues were shot on two or three cameras with synchronous sound recording, so they look very naturalistic.
The first screening of the film from the series "The History of Asya Klyachina" took place in 1967. The tape was then called "Asino Happiness." A limited number of people saw her, as it was decided not to allow the film to be rented. The tape remained on the shelf. Only in 1987, the full-fledged premiere of this masterpiece took place, the picture had to be partially restored. In 1989, director Konchalovsky was awarded the Nika Prize. A year later, the group of creators of this film was awarded the State Prize. Among them was Konchalovsky, Klepikov, Rerberg.
Continuation
In 1994, a peculiar continuation of the "History of Asya Klyachina" was released. This is the parable-tale "Ryaba Kurochka", the main role was played by Inna Churikova.
According to the director, this tape shows the events that happened with the heroes, after a quarter of a century. The film was again attended by many of those who starred in 1967, but Iya Savvina, the leading actor, refused to participate in the project. She stated that she considered the picture offensive to the people.
In the film "Ryaba Kurochka", the life of the Russian countryside is shown in the most phantasmagoric manner. Asya is presented as an eccentric woman who grew up on socialist ideals. After drinking moonshine, she constantly begins to communicate with her chicken, which becomes the main character of this film. When a chicken lays a golden egg, serious passions boil around.
If Asya’s economy is falling apart, literally breathing, then another hero’s farmer is flourishing, whose sawmill becomes the mainstay of successful capitalism in a dying Russian village. The vibrant life is boiling there, people work from dawn to dawn, trying to earn money. Asya is attracted to the farmer, but they have too different views on the surrounding world and life around, so this couple is not destined to be together.
Iya Savvina
Iya Savvina is the most famous actress who starred in "The History of Asya Klyachina." She is a native of Voronezh, was born in 1936.
She first proved herself as an actress on the theatrical stage of Moscow State University when she studied at the Faculty of Journalism. Iya got one of the main roles in the play "Such Love", which made a splash in 1957. She made her film debut three years later in Joseph Heifitz’s melodrama “A Lady with a Dog,” immediately receiving the main role. After that, she repeatedly took part in the film adaptation of Chekhov's works.
In 1990, Iya Savvina became a people's artist of the USSR. The audience remembers her well as the deputy director of Lilia Vladimirovna Anikeeva in the satirical tragicomedy Eldar Ryazanov's "Garage".
In 2011, she died at the age of 75.
Film director
For Andrei Konchalovsky, this was one of his debut work in his career. Before "The History of Asya Klyachina," he shot only the novel "The Boy and the Dove" along with Yevgeny Ostashenko and the drama "The First Teacher."
In his creative biography there is a lot of film adaptation of Russian classics. In particular, these are the films "The Noble Nest" according to Turgenev and "Uncle Vanya" according to Chekhov.
In 2014 and 2016, Konchalovsky twice received the Silver Lion Venice Film Festival award for the drama White Nights of Postman Alexei Tryapitsyn and the military film Paradise.
Work on the picture and reviews of critics
Talking about working on this picture, Konchalovsky himself admitted in 1999 that he wanted to tell from the movie screen about the quiet and unpretentious course of life around. At that time, he had a lot and often discussed with Andrei Tarkovsky about the principles of constructing the plot of the work. It seemed to him that it was possible to fix human life in the form of a chronicle, only then to mount all this, removing uninteresting moments.
The director emphasized that the impact on the viewer turned out to be so strong because the simple life turned out to be too difficult, amazed with its poverty and pain.
Many critics called "The History of Asya Klyachina" one of his best directorial works, defining it as a documentary melodrama. This was the first time in the history of Soviet post-war cinema, when a real village life was shown, without embellishment. Particularly striking is the brilliant play of Savvina and the monologues of the collective farmers who went through the war and the camps.