How Russian Cinema Exploits Soviet Heritage 0 11

The three main and, in fact, the only box office hits of the New Year holidays – "Cheburashka-2", "Burattino", and "Prostokvashino" confirm that the number of films based on Soviet cinema and animated classics is rapidly growing.

So far, full-length blockbusters have not been made based on "Well, Just You Wait!" and "The Adventures of Leopold the Cat" – and I believe this is solely due to the complete absence of anthropomorphic characters and the principled position of the rights holders, who are waiting for a very lucrative offer. Moreover, considering the producers' love for inserting a romantic storyline into any plot on one hand, and the principled features of Russian legislation on the other, future screenwriters of films based on these cartoons will have to change the gender of the Hare and at least one of the Mice, which could lead to unpredictable consequences, and producers dislike that even more than the absence of sexual attraction between the main characters.

"Undoubtedly, the voluntary withdrawal of Hollywood filmmakers from the Russian market has helped our producers no less than the involuntary withdrawal of European cheesemakers has helped domestic milk and culture masters. But still, the renaissance of domestic cinema was inevitable, even if endless Hollywood franchises were still showing in our cinemas not as semi-legal 'pre-show services', but in full screen, with complete advertising," writes film critic Anton Krylov.

"Hollywood, in this case, as has happened more than once in the last century, simply realized the changed reality first. And the reality is that viewers want to watch and show their children what they themselves loved in childhood. After all, all of America grew up on comics – about Batman and Superman, Spider-Man and Iron Man (by the way, it’s interesting why we traditionally do not translate the names of DC heroes, but translate those of 'Marvel'?), Hulk and other extraordinary personalities.

Just as we all grew up on Cheburashka, Prostokvashino, 'The Bremen Town Musicians', as well as Alice Selezneva, simply Alice, 'The Flying Ship', and other plots that have been remade in recent years.

And the Chinese, by the way, love their historical epics very much, which is why the animated film 'Nezha Conquers the Dragon King', based on traditional legends, became the highest-grossing film in the world.

There is a time to throw stones and a time to gather them. For decades in cinema, and before that – in theater, development has gone in a spiral: the audience's love for fresh and relevant content has been replaced by a desire to see something historical, after which there comes a surge in popularity of new interpretations of classic plots, that is, remakes. Do you know how many times European authors have reworked the story of Romeo and Juliet before William Shakespeare took on the theme? At least eight. Look it up – you’ll be surprised.

Now it seems to us that the Soviet film industry, on which modern Russian cinema parasitizes with varying success, was completely and absolutely original. Uh-huh, right.

The late USSR cannot be imagined without the films of Mark Zakharov – they were quoted and continue to be quoted to this day. "Ordinary Miracle" is a play by Yevgeny Schwartz from 1954 and a film by Erast Garin from 1964. "The Twelve Chairs" is a book from 1928 and a film by Leonid Gaidai from 1971. "That Very Münchhausen" is based on the play by Grigory Gorin "The Most Truthful", which successfully ran at the Soviet Army Theater. The super box office hit "The Elusive Avengers" is a remake of the extremely popular "Red Devils" from 1923.

One can also recall "Office Romance" by Eldar Ryazanov, based on his own play "Colleagues", which had successfully run in various theaters for six years before that, or "Three Plus Two" – a popular play by Sergey Mikhalkov adapted for film. So Soviet directors were by no means averse to remakes, even if the scale of the phenomenon was incomparable to our days.