TODAY’S BEST BET: Revelation 6:8, in Russia Всадник по имени Смерть/And Death is a Horseman (Russia: Mosfilm, 2004)(Doverie, 13:00) -- > Filmmakers concerned about making good movies that don’t “belittle Russia,” as various faux-principled loudmouths having been putting it lately (and very publicly): here’s a good screenplay (by A. Borodiansky and K. Shakhnazarov, the latter directing) about a controversial Russian hero of early 20th c. vintage that depicts another “very troubled time” in recent Russian history (“политическая и социальная обстановки накалены до предела”): take an inexpensive cast, add good historical locations and an obvious concern for period detail, stir a couple-three months and bingo, you get a crackerjack Boris Savinkov-meets-The Possessed feature (sort of based on Savinkov’s Конь бледный/Behold a Pale Horse) which was a Grand Prix nominee at Montreal. So there *is* an alternative to the put-$20 K-on-your-credit card approach, and it doesn’t have to involve imitating bourgeois blockbusters. “Horseman” isn’t a great movie but it is a good one, and one whose theme and principal characters – particularly Savinkov, astutely rendered by the late (and much missed) Andrei Panin, a larger-than-life figure whose unique mixture of cultured author-intelligent, radical politician and outright terrorist is still waiting for the great and sobering bio-pic it seems doomed to inspire – are individuals who each in themselves offers a telling part of the explanation for the disaster of 1917-2.0 and the worst of its consequences. Yes, these people are the answer to How could this happen? Tune in. Pay attention. See why. youtube/watch?v=v83jD-ccNTU
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 06:29:35 +0000
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