It - of tsars and monsters
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | It - of tsars and monsters |
| Original title | Оно |
| Country of production | Soviet Union |
| original language | Russian |
| Publishing year | 1990 |
| length | 130 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Sergei Michailowitsch Ovcharow |
| script | Sergei Ovcharow, after Mikhail Yevgrafowitsch Saltykow-Shchedrin |
| music | Sergei Kuryochin |
| camera | Valery Fedosov |
| occupation | |
| |
Es - Of Tsars and Monsters (OT Оно ) is a Soviet feature film released in 1989 by director Sergei Mikhailovich Ovcharow based on the book 1870 - History of a City by Mikhail Yevgrafowitsch Saltykov-Shchedrin , which deals with the history of Russia from the Middle Ages in a satirical and parable-like manner up to Mikhail Gorbachev deals.
background
The basic tone of the satirical film is melancholy-ironic to absurd. Russian history is told like a parable based on the history of a small village under changing city commanders ; the film pretends to consist of authentic recordings and documentary recordings by the chronicler of a village that no longer exists.
Director Ovtscharow makes use of unusual stylistic devices, in that most of the film is in the form of a black and white (often colored in sepia tones ) silent film with an offer by the village chronicler; only now and then are original sounds played by the characters involved.
action
The main events in the history of Russia, on which the film focuses, are the emergence of tsarism in the distant past, the reign of Catherine the Great , the October Revolution and the reign of four Soviet rulers:
- Josef Stalin , who secretly fills the denominator's mailbox himself at night . The Second World War is depicted as a great village fire.
- Nikita Khrushchev , portrayed by two different actors, before the de-Stalinization and after. Before the de-Stalinization, it is still the same city commandant who previously portrayed Stalin, who has now simply shaved off his mustache and bought a characteristic light-colored raincoat. This commandant finally suffers a heart attack and is the new Commandant warts guy replaced the (Khrushchev in 1960 as the UN - General Assembly ) taps his shoe on the table to call a village meeting to order, and the village to an overproduction of mustard drives.
- Leonid Brezhnev , who is portrayed as an inoperable robot in constant need of repair .
- and Mikhail Gorbachev.
Only the arrival of Gorbachev, dismayed by the prevailing chaotic conditions, who is portrayed in the film by the city commander Traurigmann , ends the absurd anarchy that has apparently ruled the village since the beginning of the story.
Finally, the successor of the city commandant Traurigmann completely clears up the untenable conditions by tearing down all the houses in the village and beginning to pay lip service in the open air, in a completely destroyed no- man's-land, which has often been uttered in the history of the village and which in the banal slogan that appears again and again throughout the film: “If you want to sleep, then sleep. If you want to eat, then eat! ”Were summarized. The apparently hopeful departure of the village community is thwarted when a UFO appears from space, which is identified by the offer counter as the "It" of the film title, on whose appearance the entire village history moved fatefully from the beginning, and the villagers with all remains of the village destroyed by means of a laser beam.
Reviews
“The anarchic handling of the power structures is carried over to the formal design, with the city's history being developed in the current film-historical narrative forms. A complex film, the turbulent social and media criticism of which breaks up well-known visual worlds and models, turns it over and increases it to absurd comedy [...] "
“ Slapstick tsars are in charge, Lenin preaches chaos, Mayor Stalin denounces residents. While the reformer Khrushchev is working on five-year plans, Brezhnev is haunted by the scenes. Gorbachev brings the system down. A settlement with the Soviet Union, which was in decline in 1989. "
“A projection of the characters from the novel by Saltykov-Shchedrin ( 1870 - History of a City ) onto Russian and Soviet history. This creates a kind of collage about the history of a fictional city and its city fathers, which combines elements of travesty , guignol , crude eroticism and grotesque physicality. "
“Sergei Ovtscharow [...] produced a crazy burlesque , a desperate general accounting with the history of his people, which only became possible at the historical turning point of perestroika . [...] 'ES': the system, the relationship to power. In the microcosm of the town, in the provincial narrowness, IT becomes: as that which separates people in order to bind them to the center. [...] IT loves rape. The film reacts to this with a stylization somewhere between puppet theater and history primer: a revue that is as crude as in reality. Only the tone is completely different, an evil laugh at senseless torments and sacrifices that one could hardly afford in reality. "
Release history
It - From Tsars and Monsters was released in 1989 in the Soviet Union. In Germany, the film was shown for the first time on February 11, 1990 at the 1990 Berlin International Film Festival .
It had its German television premiere on March 4, 1991 at 11 p.m. on First German Television . Since then, running it primarily in the night program of the third party .
Awards
In 1991 Svetlana Kryuchkova received a Nika for her role in It .
Web links
- It - From Czar and monsters in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ It - Of Tsars and Monsters. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 25, 2017 .
- ↑ It - From Tsars and Monsters on Cinema.de
- ↑ Film information on It - Of Tsars and Monsters
- ↑ Martin Ahrends : Comedy and horror. In: Die Zeit , February 22, 1991.