TODAY’S BEST BET: “Manuscripts don’t burn” Мастер и Маргарита/The Master and Margarita (Drama/satire/fantasy. Russia, 2005)(Kultura, 14:10; Part 1) -- > I used to describe M. Bulgakov’s “Master” to American students as a uniquely Russian two-fer – “the weirdest great novel you’ll ever read and the greatest weird novel you’ll ever read” – and that seemed to encourage numbers of them to give it a real shot. If you’ve never done so (despite all those good intentions) and are not really keeping your powder dry for an attempt any time soon, writer/director Vl. Bortko’s 10-pt. serial version is a pretty good way to do penance – as well as learn a lot of about this country and enjoy your socks off in the process. You *should* read the novel, of course; most consider “Master” one of the seminal works of 20th c. Russian literature, and you know jolly well how important that makes it in this culture. But this faithful-yet-creative screen adaptation is a fine (separate) work of art, and has been recognized as such: the film took a special prize at Biarritz, Bortko won a TEFI for directing and 40 million viewers here watched. The admirable 7.8/10 it rates on KinoPoisk today (7.1 on IMDb) is a good indication of how much Russian viewers did and do appreciate Bortko and his kollektivs effort. Oh, there were (are) many detractors; most of them, however, refer less to what VB did and more to what MB did – and how the former should have better imitated/recreated/interpreted that, sometimes begging audiences to (re)read the novel so their criticism can be properly understood/valued/yatta-yatta-yatta. But that sort of misses the point, doesn’t it? This isn’t a novel; it’s a movie based on one. If you approach it as such, you can’t and won’t be disappointed. Of the star-studded cast I’ll only mention the studded-est: Anna Kovalchuk is an incomparable Margarita and O. Basilashvili is the Woland you’ve always wanted. But there are many more fine turns (A. Bashirov as the cat!) that you’ll remember a long time, trust me. So tune in (or watch online below) and start catching the Bulgakov references this culture abounds with. What other story uniting 1st century Jerusalem, Faust and Moscow of 1935 were you planning on substituting for it?
Posted on: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 08:17:14 +0000
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