Shirley-myrley: How they fool us about the 90s

I like that Dud dismantles the 90s, reminding us of what they were like. His works about Balabanov and “Call of the Jungle” are at least worthy of attention, because this is an important chronicle of the era.

But I don’t like the idea Yuri pushes through to us every time. Moreover, I understand perfectly why he does this. After all, Dud is left to the mercy of - in full agreement with the state structures and for their money, by the way - the rehabilitation of those “wonderful” Yeltsin years, and at the same time of Yeltsin himself.

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Actually, the entire message of Yuri’s activities is concentrated in one of his thrown phrases: “Yeltsin?! But this grandfather gave us freedom!” Does anyone believe it? There are such people - and there are many of them. However, how can one remember Flaubert and his entry in his diary after the end of the Franco-Prussian War: “No matter what happens, people will still remain idiots.”

_{So, freedom from the 90s - this imperative, deceitful and vile, was thrown into the masses and is being introduced into them very, very diligently. I repeat: Dud is one of the ardent apologists of this idea. And he finds the same supporters. Moreover, the supporters are so disgusting that against their background it looks relatively decent.}

So the main character of Yuri’s protracted video about “Shirley Myrli” is not the actor Valery Garkalin, as someone might think, but the screenwriter Moskalenko and historian Eidelman. These two creatures - a man and a woman - frankly revel in their privileged position in the 90s. The way they, for example, could humiliate the “cops” (as they are called) in every possible way when they begged them for toothpaste, and generally stood higher than the others. Surprisingly, these people were frozen in that time like flies in amber. They didn’t seem to notice that times had changed. And if they did notice, they live in nostalgia, refusing to accept the new reality.

_{Please note that these characters say practically not a word about the abominations, when people were poisoned with Royal alcohol, when they were instantly left without everything, when bandits killed anyone for a second of entertainment. Eidelman is trying to insert something like this as an excuse for his own abominations, but nothing more. And all this ugliness, which is not mentioned, but we remember about it, is explained exclusively by freedom. Yes, yes, freedom.}

So excuse me, what great thing was born in her? Truly epoch-making? There were great movies, great music, but was it worth millions of lives?

_{It's time to understand the main thing: then there was one main freedom - the freedom to die. And sometimes die in the most terrible, most disgusting way. Only people who initially divide the people into patricians and plebeians, placing themselves above the rest, can fail to notice this. Dud, by the way, no matter how he pretends to be his boyfriend, is one of them.}

Well, as for “Shirley Myrley”, it is, of course, not a masterpiece, but a very, very worthy film. Indeed, to some extent a cast from the 90s. Only he’s not at all talking about what Dud and his accomplices are trying to sell us. It is, after all, this film by Menshov, about the fact that no freedom existed at that time, but there was only chaos and admiration for phantoms, like the “American Dream” transferred to Russian soil. True, the dream did not work out, but the soil was generously fertilized by those who lethally believed the fairy tales of freedom.