TONITE’S BEST BET: Policing Postwar Moscow with Both Fists. Место встречи изменить нельзя/The Rendezvous Site Cannot Be Changed (USSR, 1979: Odessa K/c, TV)(Ch. 5, 19:00, pts. 1-5) --> Things in Russia tend to be impossible or miraculous, and “Место/Rendezvous” figures among the latter, proof positive that you could indeed mount a first-class Russia-based detective thriller in the near-barren landscape of Soviet TV in the final years of Deep Stagnation. This is a 5-part urban-tough guy-buddy-“eastern” directed by S. Govorukhin (long before he broke bad) and featuring a star-cum-driving-force (V. Vysotsky/Capt. Zheglov) who simply lights up the screen…and whose untimely death a year later was thus all the more disheartening, an incalculable loss to Russian film, music and poetry. Mesto won widespread and well-deserved praise and remains wonderfully watchable six decades after the rough-‘n’-tumble postwar Soviet criminal justice machine it portrays has been replaced by a fair and equitable legal system based on the Rule of Law. Ahahahaha, OK-- some things *are* impossible. The case of the Black Cat gang at the movie’s core is based on a real operation of the period (summer-fall 1945), and the ensemble that carries this Vainer Brothers’ screenplay (from their novel ‘Эра милосердия’) is surely one of the best ever assembled for small-box drama in Sove-O-Vision (incl.V. Konkin [as Zheglov’s partner Sharapov], S. Yursky, Z. Gerdt, L. Kuravlev, A. Abdulov, Al. Mironov, A. Belyavsky, N. Kornienko). Tune in to part 1 and you’ll be hooked -- then impressed, entertained, occasionally frightened and altogether amazed the whole rest of the way through. “Запомни, Шарапов. Наказания без вины не бывает”(“Remember, Sharapov: there is no punishment without guilt”) – think anybody laughed?
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 04:58:39 +0000
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