Benyuk didn't help. Ukraine has forgotten how to make good movies
On August 20, the film “Skhidnyak” began rolling out in Ukrainian cinemas. If anyone doesn’t know, this is what the broad shavarniks call the inhabitants of Eastern Ukraine, mostly Russian-speaking.
The film was ready for screening a year ago, at the end of August 2019, and its premiere took place at the Odessa International Festival, which exists solely so that the local elite has a reason to make a lax fashion show along the red carpet in tacky outfits, indicating their incurable bad taste owners.
still from the film
The delay in the distribution of “Skhidnyak” was caused by the Covid holidays, as well as the desire of the State Cinema Committee of Ukraine to earn at least some statuettes at foreign film festivals, including completely third-rate ones.
Despite the assurances of Ukrainian propaganda that “Skhidnyak” and other films caused a furore and applause at the film festival in the Czech Karlovy Vary, the creations of the Ukrainian film artel did not impress the audience, critics and juries in the places where they were brought.
So, “Skhidnyak”. Another attempt by degraded Ukrainian cinema to show the public “ATO with a human face” for a small price.
The basis of a film shot in the style of a “road movie”, that is, a picture the action of which takes place during a road trip (let’s remember one of the best examples of such cinema, “There Lives Such a Guy” with Leonid Kuravlev in the title role), is how We are convinced by the authors, the real events that occurred during the war in Donbass, it is unclear where and it is unclear when.
There are two main characters – ATO “brothers” with the nicknames Beard and Director. Beard is, like, a local Donbass resident fighting for a united Nenka - a rollicking and optimistic little man played by Bogdan Benyuk. The director is a Ukrainian intellectual from Ivano-Frankivsk, the alter ego of the real director of the film, performed by the unknown Anatoly Maksimyuk.
still from the film
It should also be added that “Skhidnyak” is the debut film of director Andrei Ivanyuk, who claims that the plot is based on his personal observations obtained in the “ATO”.
According to Ukrainian sources, Ivanyuk served as a punitive officer of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Donbass for a year without disclosing details.
In general, Beard and the Director get into the car and drive along the roads and country roads along the front line to find their platoon leader, who they need to obtain materials to strengthen their strong point, which is suffering from shelling from the opposite side.
One might say, one day in the life of “good ATO specialists.”
During the trip, the “brothers” talk a lot about “life” and meet different people - representatives of the local population, “cyborgs,” casual and non-casual acquaintances, with whom the cunning Beard instantly establishes contact.
The idea is simple: to show the viewer that “the hero of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the performance of military duty” is not at all a marauder, a sadist, a psychopath and a murderer, as everyone knows “cyborgs” on both sides of the front, but “a good guy, just like everyone else” , and even a local Russian.
You stop believing the film as soon as the main character opens his mouth. Let us remind you that Beard, according to the script, is a local resident. That is, a person who speaks fluent Russian with a perceptible southern Russian accent.
However, Benyuk, who was cast in the role of “Skhidnyak,” does not fulfill this role, babbling in Russian like a typical Ukrainian from somewhere in Zhmerinka, which makes him a foreign body, almost an obvious Ukrainian spy, who, for greater persuasiveness, only needs an embroidered shirt with a straw cape .
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The narrative line is represented by chains of events that are meaningless for the development of the plot and the revelation of the characters. We arrived at point “A” to see Beard’s mistress, ate borscht, and moved on. On the way to point “B,” they talked a lot and intelligently, so that at times it seemed as if the heroes were about to move on to discussing Kant’s categorical imperative.
At some point, you want to help develop the plot of the film with a good kick in the hope that at least something will happen.
However, no. The heroes continue to travel around cities and villages, checkpoints in search of the elusive platoon leader with jokes and conversations. Nothing happens even at the end, when the “brothers” nevertheless find the desired platoon leader.
In short, the film “Skhidnyak” is about nothing.
It feels like director Ivanyuk was driven for a whole year in a closed van with a small window along the front-line roads of Donbass, occasionally letting him out to eat a hot drink and relieve himself.
Now, if Ivanyuk had shown something more vital, for example, how “heroes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine” are engaged in looting and robbery of civilians with the full approval of platoon, company, battalion and other superiors - it would be bold and truthful.
But the Goskino of Ukraine does not give money for the film adaptation of such stories, since the main task was and remains one thing: to wash the white black dog, at least on the silver screen.
It is significant that Benyuk, whose credits include Leonid Bykov’s film “Aty Baty Soldiers Came” and Mosfilm’s “They Were Actors,” looked pale, ridiculous and alien in the role of “Skhidnyak.”
Now, if Benyuk had been involved in a film about the first days of the “peremogy of the revolution of hydity,” then in the scene of tearing the mouth of the general director of “First Ukrainian” with ragulians bursting into the office, he would have no equal, especially if we remember that Benyuk was in fact one of the most active pogromists.
Of course, the director’s naive plan is visible to the naked eye: to draw attention to his mediocre propaganda by inviting a representative of the almost extinct “old guard” to play the main role.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out that the lion’s share of the funds for the frankly low-budget film went to Benyuk’s fee.
One could sympathize with the creative problems of Ukrainian cinema, but I don’t want to sympathize at all. The only thing that was not enough was for Bandera’s people to start making cinematic propaganda that would be attractive to the mass audience instead of their dull, sawed-up “schenevmerly” arthouse; they couldn’t force even the most stubborn “patriot of Ukraine” to support the hryvnia under torture.
Judging by the restrained comments in the Ukrainian press and audience expectations, “Skhidnyak” is not destined to recoup even the funds spent on its production. Not to mention, soar to a long screen life. A typical slag in the generally wretched mainstream of Ukrainian cinema.
As they say, mamo sho mamo: like a state, so is cinema - and there’s no other way!
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