The prototype had an excellent childhood: the filmmakers were so bored that they invented horror stories for it (Oleg Chugunov in the role of a loud-voiced pioneer). Photo: Frame from the film.
The soloist of Popov’s choir, Seryozha Paramonov, was an absolutely happy Soviet child. Everything was going well for him. He sang when he wanted, he did well in school, he traveled a lot, he got straight A’s effortlessly. The family is complete, heaven is at peace, the country is my country, I don’t want to live. He was literally beaming with good spirits, although due to his occupation he was completely deprived of ice cream and soft drinks. And the noisy incident of repeating the crocodile Gena song for an encore during the recording of “Song-72” occurred because everyone’s heart melted at the sight of the cheerful miracle child.
It was absolutely impossible to allow something like this to happen. The currently cultivated image of the USSR as a dark kingdom of communal alcoholics will not let go of envious boys and girls surrounded by sweet pastries. And they have pain, and they have tic, and they have asthma, and they have bronchitis, thaw, lack of food, devastation, scarcity. And to them, passers-by, on this bad day it is not clear why you are so happy. Either you’re lying, or you’re an idiot, or both.
Director Semenova, who had everything bad in the world, is especially angry. He grew up in a total hell of inveterate drunks, sadistic classmates and vile people envious of his fabulous and inimitable talent. He had wooden toys, evil karma, a lack of vitamins and a queue at the communal bathroom for 19 snouts, which he filmed in great detail at the beginning of the movie “Glee.” But she overcame, achieved, hated her past as a slave and, despite him and everyone, took the surname Rainer. It is true that the Moskovsky Komsomolets interviewer did not remember her last name and called her Werner, but what else can you expect from members of the Moscow Komsomol?
Screenwriter Fominykh also survived the years of barbed wire, school despotism, unmotivated bans and unpleasant little things, but she excelled as a publicist in Paris and felt the writing itch in Brussels. Apparently she had a hard time in that Brussels, since she wrote about the novices of the Russian church and the bitter life of models under the title “Beautiful to death.” Out of ardent feelings for his homeland, he took the surname Desombre.
It was clear what Semenova-Rainer and Fominykh-Desombre came up with about the Soviet past, but the habit of conscientiously observing any nonsense required a feat – 12 episodes of all this. About the children’s radio and television choir under the name Popov, hidden here under the pseudonym Grachev, and its pearl Seryozha under the name Yura Solovyov.
The consciousness of Rainer and Desombres has not yet gone beyond the framework of archaic classicism with revealing surnames. The positive characters are called Grachev, Soloviev, Penkin and Vetrov: they are birds of the sky that live in the upper layers of the atmosphere and sing-sing-sing (plus the chorus girl Sorokina, who croaks and joins them). The villains are called Pasyuk (rat in Ukrainian) and Saranchuk (and this is clear). The party fox is named after Kapoklipikova; It is not a beast known to science, but it is very terrifying, like everything that actress Aug plays. It is not difficult to guess what to expect from these people. Long and delicious abomination, dull terror, obstacles, threats and traps for free talent, in the background of which a wonderful voice dissonantly transmits how joyful it is to walk through open spaces.
The hero’s mother works in a bakery, bakes rolls and takes turns spending the night with random acquaintances in a department store (Seryozha Paramonov’s mother taught English at a financial institute, and his father was also nearby). Repeaters beat you, Kapoklipikova presses you, higher powers brutally oppress you, the queue for the bathroom does not fit, forcing you to accumulate within yourself. To make matters worse, on the eve of the concert, Yura gets drunk on harmful soda, whiskey and cola by an envious bastard from a nomenklatura family. With a black eye, a hangover, a cold and a lack of self-confidence, the boy from the dungeon comes out on stage to fake happiness. Of course, nothing goes well for him, but everyone pretends he’s fine and asks him to sing for an encore.
Rainer’s creative method became evident in the series “The Red Queen”: take a successful and prosperous Soviet biography, shed tears over it, smear it with tar, throw it in the trash and give it to the First Channel, which is eager for endless whining female (their rule is: if possible, a story of 8 episodes is extended into 12, then it is better to immediately extend it to 25). Supermodel Regina Kolesnikova was an excellent student, Komsomol member, athlete, beauty, gold medalist, daughter of an officer and emblem of the country, who did not fit into any doors or standards of ruined destinies. And they came up with an alcoholic father who tried to rape his daughter while drunk and was murdered by her mother with an iron for it, with prison and loss of rights. The same operation was carried out with the miracle Seryozha, who became the unfortunate Yura on the screen, and the Soviet Union, hidden under the mask of a kind of rabid Mordor with plague-ridden inhabitants.
“CHORUS”, 16+
2019
(aired September 2024).
Dir. Aleñá Rainer.
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