MOSCOW, March 10 , Pavel Surkov. A historical event is fixed in people's memory when art addresses it. Ilya Kazankov’s new film “Call Sign Passenger” is dedicated to how the war in Donbass began. This is history, but it is very recent and far from over. The film is released on March 14.
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One of the main strengths of the film is the script. They took as a basis the novel “Murder of Cities” by Alexander Prokhanov, an important and fundamental book for the writer. Therefore, with the motivation of the characters, the logic and realism of the events, everything is in order here. But advocates of modern Hollywood screenwriting, based on the “hero’s arc” and the “obligatory closure of all storylines,” will have their cheekbones creased when watching: “Call Sign Passenger” is made in the best traditions of classic Russian cinema, where everything on the screen happens not because “that’s the way it is.” necessary,” but because “it’s right.” And the fact that many seemingly necessary plot twists are invited to be thought out by the viewer is another important feature of the film: it deliberately enters into a dialogue with us, forcing us to think, experience and sort through our memory of what we just saw.
Writer Nikolai Ryabinin (Anton Shagin) comes to Donbass in the spring of 2015. His brother volunteered there and went missing. For Nikolai, finding him is of fundamental importance (they will explain to us why very quickly). A young man without any military experience will have to go to the battalion where his brother served and try to find out at least something about his fate. The urban «hothouse» writer will have to face all the harshness of front-line life. Here they address each other not by their names, but by their call signs; there is no time for empty talk and no desire to build illusory hopes. There is a task here that must be completed, at any cost. But at the same time preserve your soul and human integrity.
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This is exactly how the second main character of the film, a battalion commander with the call sign Kurok (Vitaly Kishchenko), appears before us — absolutely whole. In a key episode — a telephone conversation with a Ukrainian commander, who turned out to be his classmate and friend from a military school — he formulates the main ideological message of the film: “They banned us from the Russian language, trampled, distorted… You are in hatred, and we are in love. And in anger. But the truth is with us.»
Nikolai will also encounter those who are “from there” on the other side. Those others who should be called enemies, but who were once among friends and compatriots, are also very different. We see a whole series of portraits with completely different motivations: here is an obsessed fascist with a swastika tattoo, and a conscript soldier simply following orders, and a well-endowed commander, confident that he is fighting side by side with NATO and Europe. And the most terrible character is a nameless thug with a shepherd dog trained to kill people. He just likes to kill, a maniac with a legal weapon. Actually, he will play one of the key roles in the entire plot. Like another anti-hero, the traitor Zhila (Sergei Gorobchenko) is a mercenary who fights exclusively for money, whose determination and courage directly depend on the fee for a burned tank or a downed plane.
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You can’t help but believe in each of these heroes. This even applies to minor characters played by famous actors: the driver plying “to the ribbon and back” (Vladimir Steklov); the father of the main character, who himself is ready to go look for his son, despite his age (Alexander Mikhailov); another commander — the one-armed Mars (Alexey Shevchenkov), there are rumors about him that he is “bewitched” and the bullet does not take him; the kindly giant Homer (Alexey Dmitriev), who touchingly cares for his colleagues and children, also drawn into the meat grinder of war.
And another hero of this film is a miracle — or rather, a whole series of miracles that seem to protect Nicholas. Behind his main task — to find his missing brother — other, global goals suddenly emerge. A young writer who finds himself in a war must tell us about it, it cannot be otherwise.
That is why this story is so important for Alexander Prokhanov: “All the characters are myself, one way or another. Here is the image of an old writer who went through all these endless wars, but is now stopped by his weakness and cannot go to this war — this is me «. Since I really cannot go myself, I send my young, deep self and my children there: both my sons were in Donbass. And Ryabinin is young — I am young. I, too, went on a journey at one time, my first book was called “I’m going on my journey,” and this path of knowledge continues to this day. Like the path of my hero — from Moscow elite gatherings, parties — there, into the pitch-black Donbass war…»
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It is no less important for other creators of the film. “When the special military operation began, I really wanted to help my country, no matter how pretentious it may sound. But how can I be useful? I didn’t serve in the army, I don’t know how to hold a machine gun, that is, I’m useless there. But I know how to make a movie. And I began to look for material on this topic, for support, for explanation, because there were a lot of questions from society: why did it start, and why, what is all this for? And in search of material I came across a book by Alexander Andreevich Prokhanov “Murder of Cities.” I read it and understood: here it is, there is salt here!..” notes the film’s producer Maxim Korolev.
And this integrity, passed on from the creators to the heroes of the film, is, of course, visible to the viewer. Now we have a movie about Donbass that leaves a heavy but deep aftertaste. And most importantly, it gives an understanding of what happened, reveals the essence of the events.