How our cinema gets off its knees: the best Russian films of this fall

Screen adaptations

Petrovs in the Flu

They are good people. He is a car mechanic, she works in the library, they have a son - everything seems to be like everyone else. Until they get the flu.

This is the only film on our list that has already been released. But you can and should still watch it: "The Petrovs in the Flu" got into the main competition of the Cannes Film Festival and received a prize for camera work. Kirill Serebryannikov perfectly combines the traditional for our cinema rusreal about the family of a car mechanic and a librarian with incredible fantasy imagery. This is not entirely magical realism, although the picture comes close enough to it, but something that draws into itself without a trace. Petrovs in the Flu is a pleasure to watch, and the film takes advantage of all the possibilities of cinema as a visual medium.

Ivan Denisovich

After Ivan Shukhov returned from German captivity, he was imprisoned - according to the laws of wartime. And now, together with political prisoners and other convicts, he is building a space plant and is trying to keep in himself the hope for the best, not spoiled even by captivity and imprisonment.

Sooner or later, Gleb Panfilov had to come to Solzhenitsyn - and finally this moment came. Ivan Denisovich is an ideal hero for Panfilov's film: despite the external circumstances, he retains humanity, which he carries through the entire plot. Yes, the book itself, by its format, dictates certain moods for the picture, but in any case, "Ivan Denisovich" is the main gift to all fans of this director from the fall of 2021.

Empire V

An ordinary Muscovite Roma is bitten and turned into a vampire. Now he has a new name - Rama, a new life and a new idea of the world, which is not built at all the way an ordinary person sees it. And vampires, it turns out, parasitize not only on the blood of people.

Once every ten years, director Viktor Ginzburg releases one screen version of Viktor Pelevin's novels. And although "Generation P" did not even hit the budget, thus becoming a milestone in the history of Russian cinema, the production of "Empire V" seems logical. If "Generation P" was about advertising and television business, then "Empire V" is about politics and power structures, showing a higher society through an analogy with vampires. This novel is less visual and describes in detail the structure of the vampire society. It will be very interesting to see how Pelevin's text comes to life on the screen.

Fantastic

Milk

Zoya lives in Kirovsk, the city with the most beautiful northern lights. Zoya is not very happy: she cannot have children and is not sure that something will change for the better in her life. However, this is exactly what happens: the northern lights give her a magical ability, thanks to which she can help people.

Karen Hovhannisyan has a very uneven track record: there is “What the girls are silent about”, and “Five brides”, and “Hero”. An almost complete collection of genres, not just science fiction. Until 2021. It is also striking because Milk does not seem like a low-quality craft with recognizable faces: it has an interesting concept, beautiful visuals and a trailer that does not even scare you away. Yekaterina Mavromatis's cute plot and Evgenia Abdel-Fattah's wonderful air chamber together create an interesting spectacle and promise at least a non-trivial viewing experience. Even with all the fears.

Dramas

A business

A big trouble happened in the life of David Guramovich: the mayor, whom he accused of embezzling a large sum, ultimately accuses him of embezzlement and puts him under house arrest. The evil that has happened inspires Guramovich to fight such an obvious injustice, and he is ready to defend his truth, even if all the circumstances are against.

More and more often news about unfair litigation gets into the information field. This is a good basis for the film, which is not often used in Russian cinema. But if anyone should tackle such subjects, it is Alexei German, Jr. with his critical view of society and subtle, cautious (but not cowardly) direction. The author of “Under the Electric Clouds” and “Dovlatov” has never tackled such frankly social problems before, so it’s very interesting what will come of it: a metaphorical story about the struggle for justice in general or the disclosure of real problems in Russian law.

Draw

Fourteen-year-old Vicki is full of secrets. She is a schoolgirl who already has to work to help her family, she goes to dances, is extremely silent and reserved. But most importantly, she has a child …

MSNC continues to produce young and talented directors who mostly work with ideas that are unpredictable, but fit within the framework of a realistic drama. The fact that on television acts as shock content on an ongoing basis, for Lena Lansky becomes a sad story of the survival of not even one young mother, but the entire population of a small Ural town. Knowing the director's filmography, one can expect a film balancing on the brink of incredible mental heaviness - and its light, almost unearthly embodiment. As it was in the "Games under 14+", "Salki" and "Pigtail".

Gerda

Young Lera, aka Gerda, faces the difficult realities of the world every day. Her parents are going through a stormy divorce, she herself has to dance in a club in order to earn money, and collect poll statistics during the day, which is also bleak. Is the world really rotten, or is it just her imagination?

Director Natalia Kudryashova knows how to show banal stories from completely unexpected sides. Her film Pioneers-Heroes viewed the pioneers not as a social unit, but as a kind of community that gave hope for the future, which modern children are completely deprived of. “Gerda” should just consider modern youth, but not in order to understand these strange people with colored bangs and smartphones, but to show their common pain for all. Any film that respects its characters requires at least reciprocal respect, especially when its story is so interesting.

Poultry milk

A teenager with an unusual name Andrian lives somewhere “in the middle of nowhere”. He has problems with peers, problems with friends and problems in the family, from which he wants to run away and hide somewhere. And why not do it in Italy? This dream energizes the boy, but the more he tries to fulfill it, the more ghostly it becomes …

Quite often, films about teenagers in Russia do not actually attract audiences that match the age of the protagonists to cinemas. This is a pity, because in recent years, quite a lot of interesting and non-trivial pictures have appeared that could be of interest to a teenager, and "Bird's Milk" is one such example. Prior to this film, director Yevgeny Maryan staged an insanely beautiful and strong short film "Song for the Living", which, however, did not become a strong programmatic statement of his abilities and capabilities. Bird's Milk has much more chances to become a bright start for the director, especially since he is presented at Kinotavr - just along with Gerda, Draw and other films about young people.

At close range

Pandemic. The whole world in quarantine froze in fear of death. And at this time, the actress Inga lets a migrant from Central Asia who has lost consciousness on the threshold of her house into her house. What for? He will soon find out about it too …

"Close Up" partly repeats the theme of the recently released "Pink Clouds". Only if "Pink Clouds" were filmed at a time when the world had no idea of any pandemic, then "At Close Range" understands and feels the topic very well. And so - yes, two essentially random people, locked up with each other at a time when the world for a while refused to live. Everything is chamber, extremely intimate - and no playful sexuality that would only destroy the quiet atmosphere of the film. A short time of covid horror revived the genre of chamber drama and allowed for a better peer at people. Both in the family and friends, and in the actors - in this film they are restrained, laconic, but very interesting.

Comedy

Family of the Year

The Rakhmatullin family consists of people who do not relate very well to each other, have different beliefs, different views and sometimes even a different ethnic group. However, they are confident that the "Family of the Year" competition can improve their unhappy situation. But first you need to get to the competition … and not quarrel with each other even more.

The family theme continues to feed Russian comedy with promising plots. And we must pay tribute to Ainur Askarov: from the material he took on, it is easy to make both a heavy lead rusreal and a superficial comedy about prolific alcoholics. But the film itself focuses not at all on the difficult social situation of the Rakhmatullin family, but on the need to unite, even if you do not understand each other at all. The idea is not new, but sometimes it is very necessary: especially if it is solved well and friendly towards all the characters.

Family budget

The Frolovs, an ordinary Krasnodar family, gets involved in the mortgage story and, like many ordinary, but not only Krasnodar families, realizes that there is no money to pay. And now everyone - father, mother, daughter, and son - are finding non-standard ways to get out of this situation.

You can scold Zhora Kryzhovnikov for a lot, but one of his achievements cannot be denied - it is thanks to him that films about the real problems of real, living people appeared in Russian cinema, and not full-length absurdistic sketches with the stars of KVN and the Comedy Club. "Family Budget" was staged by Yevgeny Abyzov, who had previously tried to establish himself on the market of domestic comedies with the mediocre sketch show "Light in sight". "Family budget" looks fundamentally different: more natural, naturally, without the exaggerated gloss of camera work … and in some places very funny. As with many gooseberry-type comedies, Family Budget takes the depressing theme of Russian realities and makes it the basis for a humorous adventure. And it cannot be said that it does not work. As you know, everyday misfortunes can be very funny.

Portrait of a Stranger

1974 There is such an ordinary actor Oleg, who plays on the radio in a production about a Soviet spy in America. But one day his play is closed, and his wife puts the would-be actor out of the house …

"Portrait of a Stranger" is a thing unlike any of the films released this year. It is positioned as a melodrama, but its lightness, its sparkling comic, its attraction to absurd humor and non-trivial situation in the spirit of silent comedies about Kistone cops makes it funnier than some of the commercially oriented comedies that did not end up on our list. Moreover, it is unlike other works by Sergei Osipyan - his rhythm is painfully dynamic, almost dancing. But at the same time, he knows pauses and knows how to withstand an emotionally intense and dramatic moment. This is a kind of author's variation on the theme of the era of stagnation - more energetic and cheerful than it is usually customary to remember this time in the cinema. But still quite dramatic and even a little sad.

Youth Films

Out of range

Vanya comes to the village, where he meets his old friends - Masha and Kirill. They decide to give up the Internet for the summer and spend it especially well, because it's not a fact that Vanya will come here someday …

"Out of the Access Zone" is Anna Kurbatova's directorial debut: before, she mainly acted as a screenwriter and producer. According to the trailer, "Out of the Access Zone" does not feel like the work of a novice director: on the contrary, he is characterized by firmness and some harmony of the production. They, however, do not stifle the light creative atmosphere that conveys the sensations of the last summer - a beautiful topic that, alas, is addressed less often than it deserves.

Documentary

“Bondarchuk. Battle "

Large-scale work from one of the largest documentary filmmakers of the 10s, Ilya Belov, who mainly made films about writers (although not only). And even here one cannot do without a writer, because the story about Sergei Fedorovich will go from the point of view of him as the creator of War and Peace and as one of the most inspired singers of the cinematic thaw (the period of Soviet cinema from about 1957 to 1965). It's unusual, it's interesting - and it's a phenomenally captivating storyline. Was this not what all the people who grew up in his beautiful paintings, in particular on "War and Peace", were expecting?

Workarounds

The Moscow outskirts only seem boring, dead and mostly sleeping - in fact, there is an active, just not so noticeable life in them. Bookmarkers wander through forests and courtyards, children rush about in the same place, seizing garages and abandoned buildings, warehouse dogs sleep belly up, and local residents know the history of the area better than other local historians. On the Internet, the aesthetics of residential areas have long been chosen, but in cinema it is expressed mainly in dramas. And "Bypass paths" become a real ode, poem and eulogy to these places, allowing you to find beauty even where, it would seem, there is nothing but garbage and animals. And all this is perfectly filmed: this is the first full-length project of the operator Alexei Kurbatov, but he coped perfectly with the task of conveying the beauty of the decaying regions.

Romantic comedy

Flashmob

Dina is promising, smart and ambitious. She is such a self-confident and punchy girl that it is not difficult for her to trick her into a crowd of mobbers who organize flash mobs in different parts of Moscow. However, there is an unforeseen difficulty: she falls in love with one of the main mobbers, and this threatens her work.

Autumn is not the best time for rom-coms in the cinema, but does your soul always require something touching and romantic? Well, one can argue about the touchingness of "Flashmob": it is dynamic, active and does not manipulate the subtle mood of the viewer. However, he really does not care about romance: however, not the most ordinary romance that viewers have seen many times. No, the energy of the "Flashmob" allows you to find new approaches to the old love story of a hunter and a victim. As a bonus - a set of non-trivial jokes.

Historical films

Learning fruits

1944 The village of Mikhailovskoye is occupied by the Germans, and in it the professor of literature Maria Schiller tells both the peasants and the soldiers of the Wehrmacht about the great poet Pushkin. However, the conflict between the belligerents escalates when an order comes from Berlin to remove all historical values from the village …

Igor Ugolnikov worked quite a lot with historical material, in particular on films about the Second World War, but mainly as a screenwriter. For example, he wrote scripts for the film and TV series "Battalion", as well as "Podolsk Cadets" in 2020. "Learned Fruits" is his first directorial work in the historical genre, and it is incredibly interesting what he will get from such a non-standard plot. Sooner or later, one of the directors would inevitably try to unite Pushkin and World War II, and it's good that this is not happening in a joke (and now popular) hit story, but in the context of respect for Russian culture. Even if it is through a German Slavicist.

Pilot

1941 g. Nikolai Komlev survived in an air battle, miraculously landed in the middle of the forest and now has to do the impossible: wounded to break through the forest, avoiding the Nazi special squad, and finally get home …

Survival films perfectly coexist with the historical genre, and how many of these were about the heroes of the Second World War - and not count. Nevertheless, the classic plot does not mean secondary, especially since the real biography of Nikolai Komlev gives many reasons for thrilling twists and turns. The fact that the film was released by Central Partnership is a little annoying, but, on the other hand, none of Renat Davletyarov's paintings ever made it to BadComedian's cutting table, so there is hope. Moreover, the demand for ordinary heroism of ordinary soldiers is still there and is unlikely to pass in the future.

Cartoons

Koschey. Start

You probably imagined Koshchei as an ancient withered grandfather, sitting on gold somewhere in a dark castle … No! He's bright, young, rides a bike, and he's not evil at all. Well, if only just a little. Just enough to stop the monster ready to swallow the Divnozemsky principality.

Although several major Russian animation festivals take place in the fall, this is traditionally a difficult time for theatrical distribution. Usually some prequels, sequels and spin-offs of existing franchises are released during this period. But "Koschey. The Beginning "is a little different from this kind of films: being formally a prequel to the" Fairy Patrol "series, it tells an independent story, almost unrelated to canon, which you can watch without even knowing about the existence of the original source. It shows relatively good results for the Russian level of 3D animation and certainly does not look like an extended TV special - no, it is enticing, high quality and bright. The plot is designed primarily for children, but does not treat its audience condescendingly and dismissively. This is more than is usually required from commercial Russian animation.

Horror

Ice demon

Ten years ago, a misfortune happened in Ksyusha's family: his father disappeared from the house. Now he was found - far in the mountains, frozen and in a coma, but alive. They bring him home, and bad things begin to happen at home, and Ksyusha's mother, who has managed to remarry in ten years, is behaving more and more strangely …

October is traditionally a good season for horrors, including Russian ones. Horror films about the dangers of the mountains come out consistently every year, but "Ice Demon" is notable for the fact that it does not tell about climbers or lost tourists. The deadly breath of the mountains bursts into the life of a family that is not connected with the mountains and does not plan to get involved, and this rhymes well with the theme of the return of the past - the very one that should be dead and well buried. Like many other films on the list, "Ice Demon" is a directorial debut, but judging by the upcoming premieres, Ivan Kapitonov plans to occupy the horror genre permanently and for a long time. Why not?

# I want a game

A small provincial town has a sudden boom in teenage deaths. And teenage girl Dana is trying to make sense of this story. Her investigation leads to a mysterious group in which teenagers must complete tasks given by their curators, and if they do not complete them, they may lose their lives …

It's strange enough to address the Blue Whale theme in 2021, but filmmaking isn't fast, and it shouldn't come as a surprise that the film came out after the scandal had long since faded. Moreover, "Blue Whale" gives a lot of space for genre experiments: satirical comedy, spy thriller … and, of course, a horror movie. This is the first visit of the director Anna Zaitseva to the territory of the genre, and it will be interesting how exactly the author, who was previously engaged in the study of female psychology and female sexuality, will interpret this topic.

Syndrome

People are dying in St. Petersburg again, but this time a wave of suicides is sweeping through the city. True, not simple: there is a legend that before death the unfortunate saw the Man in white. Because of him, Karina's parents died, and the father of young Yegor simply disappeared without a trace. And now young people are uniting to find answers to their concerns.

St. Petersburg is a beautiful city that has been inspiring directors for horror films for decades. Mysterious and slasher films, horror or art movies with a frightening atmosphere: St. Petersburg in horror films is a separate topic for this article. The Man in White is not some local folklore character, but he is archetypally simple and may well be inspired by the gloomy gray courtyards of the city. Moreover, it is not the first time for Vyacheslav Rudenko to shoot gloomy and frightening pictures with an incessant alarming feeling of the wrongness of what is happening. Such were the "Faceless" and "Loud pool", so, probably, the "Syndrome" will turn out.