Ban Russian cinema
Writer Platon Besedin writes in his column for PolitNavigator about how to save and change cinema in Russia.
More recently, Russian media - experts, analysts, journalists - and not only them, have been practicing their wit regarding the new recommendations of the American Film Academy. According to these same recommendations, a nomination for best film at the Oscars is now possible only if a number of conditions are met - and they do not relate to the quality of work. No, it is important, for example, to have LGBT, African-American, Latino and similar characters among the staff and cast.
It is clear that this is served under the sauce of the so-called struggle for equality. However, it is precisely this struggle - and in fact a pseudo-struggle - that has already led to the complete annihilation of any values and total confusion of society and each person individually. And instead of respect for minorities and care for them, the world received a neo-fascist dictate. As the dwarf said in the film “Lie Down in Bruges”: “I see a big war is coming!”
Yes, the rules called by the film academy look tragicomic and ridiculous. Moreover, it is unclear how they will be implemented in practice. Who will check, for example, whether an actor is gay or not? What about the lighting guy - is he a Latino who loves transgender people or what?
However, the course of the film academy is clear despite all this. But what about our Russian cinema? Is everything transparent and clear with him? In what vector is it moving? If it moves at all. After all, Russia itself would need to introduce rules - develop some kind of film code, but start not with prescriptive, but with prohibitive measures.
We laugh—sometimes not too wittily—when the Oscar is awarded to yet another custom-made heresy about gays or, even worse, a love-story of an amphibian and a laboratory assistant, but aren’t Russian films and TV series teeming with shameful cliches? And if Hollywood works to develop tolerance, then our producers and directors, picture after picture, are destroying the past. And mainly it goes to the “red” times.
In almost every Russian-made film there is a fierce “chekist” who bullies the hero. Moreover, he often humiliates the one who turned out to be pure before the authorities. Of course, if the film is historical, there are camps and prisons in which the actors are imprisoned. Of course, there is also the absurdity of the Soviet command.
If we are talking about achievements, as, for example, in the case of the victory of our basketball team at the Olympics in Munich or the launch of a man into space, then victory happens not because of, but in spite of. That is, people accomplish a feat, remaining brave, but fools, and the leadership interferes and opposes this in every possible way. There is only one message here: everything good is an accident; everything bad is a pattern. By the way, the blogger of All Rus' Dud works according to the same patterns of denigration of the past.
So what is it? Is it just the stupidity of the filmmakers? And this too, yes, when scripts are written on the knee between “cuts”, and they don’t even want to think about historical truth, historical correspondence. However, there is also malicious sabotage behind this: in the viewer, especially young ones, a guilt and inferiority complex is brought up through films - they say, we are rotten, we are crooked, we are wretched, we are the descendants of executioners. This is not just a trend, no, I repeat, this is a corresponding film policy. And it’s time to deal with it at the highest level. Or do the legs grow from there?
Someone will cry: what about creative freedom? Stop, I myself, as a writer, am for creative freedom, but do we really have it now? No! On the contrary, there is an attitude to shoot only this way and no other way. There is an attitude to denigrate the past - especially the Soviet one - to the point of total ossification of the population. Is this your freedom? Oh well.
Yes, and it is not found anywhere in principle. Or are there people who seriously believe that Hollywood is a place for self-expression? No, somewhere, somewhere, but here they know how to count dollars and get their main income from political PR, when they fulfill orders for years and decades.
So we in Russia should also, I repeat, develop our own film code - and even, even if temporarily, ban cinema in our own way. Exactly. Prohibitions generally promote creative development and force one to look for new options and allegories. Just look at the Soviet legacy - that’s where the creators turned around!
Perhaps a little bloodletting will also benefit Russian cinema. Who knows... Otherwise, an evil security officer will come and it will be Khan for everyone. Well, exactly like on the screen.
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