FSB, CIA and we
“Sleepers” - canned agents of foreign special services or terrorists (cells of terrorists). On a secret signal, they "wake up" and begin to act. It is at this moment, as it turns out in the course of the picture, during the exacerbation of the situation in the Middle East, in Moscow, a number of events take place that, at first glance, are not related to each other. This is the suicide of a high-ranking official of the Foreign Ministry, the penetration of militants into the territory of the country to prepare a major terrorist act, a statement by a human rights activist known for scandals about corruption in state security bodies, followed by a scandal, etc.Colonel Rodionov, who returned to the capital after 15 years of business trips to the Middle East, is the main one in the group, which should identify the connection between these events, expose those who are behind some kind of multi-way operation to disrupt a major energy supply contract with China and political damage. This is in short the main storyline of the film.
In the context of this confrontation, two main characters of the film clash - FSB officer Andrei Rodionov (actor Igor Petrenko) and journalist Ivan Zhuravlev (Dmitry Ulyanov). In essence, two ideologies and two different worldviews clash in a tough battle.
One "for a penny" faithfully serves the interests of the people, the other, a person completely secured, demands from the state "freedom" and "democracy." One is a statesman, a conservative. The other is an uncompromising liberal, whose belief that the desired democratic "values" can only be behind the "knoll" naturally led him to the camp of Russia's enemies, to work as a CIA resident in Moscow and flee the country. To Ukraine, note, runs away! .. Probably, this is an incurable Russian misfortune, that the native liberal serves, as a rule, Western interests, and the western - his own national, using the Russian one.
The intrigue in the key of “Who is the main spy?” Remains until the end of the film, keeps the viewer in suspense.
... The first comments began to arrive at different sites after two episodes. And three days after the display of all eight episodes (two for the evening), the number of comments by Sunday, only by my calculations, reached several thousand, and publications - at least three tens of thousands. How many of them in general, it is impossible to count.
Why focus on comments? It's simple: today, the “voice” of the network-centric “people” can strongly influence the public opinion of any country. Or that the Network gives out for vox populi, but from it not less influential. (By the way, there is an episode in the film where the FSB reveals a troll factory dug in Moscow, created by one of the officials who betrayed their homeland.)
In advance it was possible to assume that with such a plot, even with the highest merits of the film, harsh criticism would follow from the part of the liberal-oriented public.
And the indignation was caused not by the facts of treachery, but - just think about it! - patriotism. Just some kind of liberal looking-glass!
Here is one of many examples of this kind. (The style and grammar of the originals are kept hereinafter.)
““ Crimea ”already sucks. Here are the “Sleepers” on the First — about noble KGB agents, corrupt journalists, mean human rights activists, omnipresent American spies — a real masterpiece of socialist realism. Modern artistic interpretation of the net "CIA against the USSR." “This is an attempt by Russian propaganda channels to diversify the ways this propaganda hits the Russian audience.” “I suspect that the series will be shot soon (if not, I give the idea), which will enlighten you about the fact that the Khazars, the Pechenegs, the Tatar-Mongols, and other Swedes were nothing more than American puppets who were waking up and activated by a call from Langley ... " “Very harmful movie. It’s not enough for us to have hysterical talk shows, where our citizens are divided into “ours” and not ours, so films also pour water on the same mill ... ”
Well-known film director Fyodor Bondarchuk, who produced the film The Sleepers, said about such stormy reviews: “Compared to the most rabid Orthodox mystics or hurray-patriots, they are just children from the church choir compared with the liberal intelligentsia, who want to burn and send to hell of all creators of the series. " In F. Bondarchuk, who played in the film a supporting role - a stupid and vain deputy prime minister, but played in such a way that it became no less noticeable than more full-fledged roles, apparently, there were grounds for such a statement.
But, I think, the great interest in the film, its ambiguous assessments are caused, first of all, by the fact that it is extremely relevant for Russia, it again raises the question: who are you, the masters of culture?
And, no doubt, the topic aroused interest: the FSB against the CIA. In Soviet times, the struggle of the KGB and Western intelligence services was reflected in the works of literature and cinema, caused a wide resonance in society, positive, I will add. Then the opposition of the Russian and American intelligence services was taken out of public view, and even of art - even more so. But it seemed to happen as if by itself, as democracy developed in our country, which, according to the version of Yeltsin’s liberals “spill,” does not need to protect the special services (the American, by all appearances, very much even needs it). However, as far as I know, there was also a very specific reason.
During the Russian “independence” from the “fraternal” union republics through the efforts of the liberal-oriented part of the society of KabeBe or the “bloody hebna” (as they say), and then the successor of the State Security Committee - the FSB, willy-nilly — have become associated with “illegal repression”, the GULAG, "Stalinist regime", "totalitarianism", etc. Moreover, the negative assessments of the Soviet past were artificially transferred to the present reality.
Things reached the point that literary and art workers no longer take up the topic of the work of Russian special services because of fear of being defamed as opponents of democracy and advocates of the dictatorship in which, I recall, the USSR reached its greatest development. Russian liberals, apparently, never learn to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Last Sunday, a publication appeared under the characteristic title “Repentance of the director Yury Bykov” on the website of the ICRU (during the USSR - “Moskovsky Komsomolets”) - about the director of the film “The Sleepers”, who, it must be assumed sincerely, repents of his deed and says: “ I want to ask for forgiveness ... Hundreds of honest people suffered from the regime and the arbitrariness of the authorities, which I tried to defend in this series. The desire to contribute to the Orange Revolution in the country, based on patriotism, is a laudable goal, but completely archaic. People still have to protest and demand justice, otherwise there will be no change, and I betrayed the entire progressive generation that wanted to change something in this country. ” And the note: “This is an open letter of Yuri Bykov ...”.
Earlier, critic Yuri Bogomolov commented on the situation: “Dozhd TV channel published an interview in which Yuri Bykov bluntly explains to Pavel Lobkov why he agreed to shoot Sleepers ... The founder of Dozhd, Natalya Sindeeva, referring to this interview, mentions the book written on behalf of an SS officer, who in the course of the narrative gradually turns from an ordinary person into an executioner ... ”. A strong comparison, you see, is just as humiliating: who we are - all those who liked the movie.
Bykov is no longer taken into account. In his interview, by the way, this phrase also sounds: “I’m not a very liberal man ...”. At the same time, he wrote on his VKontakte page: “I’ll have to go into the shadows for a long time and not even to forget my crimes, but in order not to irritate the world around me and moreover not to confuse people who really want to believe that something is possible to change. " Is it unknown to the director that not a single revolution has led people to universal happiness? What can only your enemy want to live in times of social change? But the question is still different: why did Y. Bykov suddenly make such a frank political somersault? And suddenly? ..
Probably, the following “comment” will be able to bring some clarity to the situation: “... I’m not talking about Zvyagintsev at all — I’m still looking for a movie that hates my native country more ... it gets a bonus ... more precisely, I got it ...
The position of the director, apparently broken by the criticism of the very well-fed intellectuals, which he talks about in the film ...
And he hoped it would be different? Why now apologize to the "turned away best minds of Russia?" I did not think that he was so weak. ... And he betrayed everything - his thoughts, ideas of the film, and the actors who went to him, and the audience, who understood and believed him. For me, my favorite director Bykov does not exist anymore. ”
But not everything is as bad in our house as it may seem. A few comments to confirm: “... the words about the Motherland, loyalty and devotion, should be heard everywhere and constantly. So that there were no ballet broadcasts around the clock, on television. So that the country accidentally waking up, somewhere in 7 hours from Moscow, did not recognize that again, some kind of revolution, and again some dissent - decide for all the people from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok. More such films. And in the capitals, also to show three times a day ”; “State ideology appears, appears. And work is being done on the ground and from above, so that there are as few people as possible who love money more than their homeland. But there were more such heroes of Petrenko, Maryanov, the same Dedushko and a number of others. Heroes are needed. Surely! ”; “... the process of patriotic education begins again, restoring the collapsed and finding a new one is so good. There are, of course, still mistakes, flaws, and this process is not of one day, not one-time, but there are shifts ”; “An interesting movie. As another, but rare attempt to raise the topic of powerless opposition to liberal activism. ”
And one more thing - this is the one directly related to the film: “A strange feeling after watching a movie. The authors, it seems, wanted to show what our glorious and patriotic nowadays in the person of Petrenko’s hero are the descendants of “Iron Felix”, but they also did not want to offend the external and internal enemies. Therefore, so many snot and attempts to cause pity and sympathy around the terrorists - the bombers and murderers. " And here I want to say: as there is no person without flaws, it does not happen without flaws and films.
But in the "Sleeping" really great artists play. I consider it necessary to call them all: Igor Petrenko (Andrei Rodionov), Natalya Rogozhkina (Kira), Dmitry Ulyanov (Ivan Zhuravlev), Fyodor Bondarchuk (Ignatiev), Yury Belyaev (Nefedov), Paulina Andreeva (Oksana Troitskaya), Alexander Rapoport (Paul Bradfield) ), Oleg Morozov (Jack Holyfield), Grant Kagramanyan (Gazaryan), Karina Razumovskaya (Lena), Yuri Bykov (Slava), Semen Shkalikov (Denis Boyarinov), Nikita Pavlenko (Anton), Elena Podkaminskaya (Polina). It feels like they worked as a team. And if Igor Petrenko, Yuri Belyaev, Alexander Rapoport long ago deserved public recognition, then Natalia Rogozhkina, Karina Razumovskaya, Paulina Andreeva and Grant Kagramanyan became the discovery for me (and not only). At the same time, everybody deserves kind words.
They laid out to the maximum, while the script did not require from them complex characters and high creative flight: from my point of view, the images are written out schematically, flatly, statically.
The dynamics is achieved due to the rapid change of fragments - a technique often used in modern Hollywood films for “spy” themes.
The plot is also no different creative finds. In general, it is straightforward, and each time after its rotation, we can assume that it will follow. Could not avoid technical overlays. As a military man in the past, when I was watching a movie trailer, I was struck by the frame where Colonel Rodionov prepared for shooting, but the index finger of his left hand was holding the pistol on the slide frame. If he opens fire, the bolt carrier will be sharply thrown back along with a finger ... And a finger is a kap. Pistol hold wrong.
There are other punctures. General Nefedov, in particular, speaks of some kind of “Ukrainian scenario” in 2013, referring to the network-centric war launched there by the West. But it really happened only at the beginning of 2014.
And then, for some reason, the video of the militants ’attack on our embassy in some Middle Eastern country (allegedly Libya) by the FSB operatives, primarily Rodionov, is only carefully studied during the counter-terrorist operation in Moscow. While Rodionov was supposed to memorize all the “pictures” of the attack much earlier, since it was then that the case with important state documents disappeared, and in this fact there was a trace to the organizer of the crime. Rodionov, judging by everything, headed the special department of the Russian embassy, working under diplomatic cover, as was his opponent - a CIA resident at the American embassy in Moscow, a clever and cunning pro.
Or such a detail. The indicated number of plastids, as a result of which the Chinese delegation was destroyed in the center of Moscow, is clearly not enough for such an explosion force. The phone, the call to which the explosion was initiated, is attached to the explosives somewhat strangely. It is also not clear how the dress suspected of preparing the terrorist act Kira (the wife of a traitor journalist Ivan Zhuravlev) turned out to be traces of plastids, if neither she nor her husband had touched explosives. By the way, the captain Boyarinov, accused of collaborating with the CIA, was detained without any investigation, only on the basis of indirect suspicion. And even the all-knowing Muller from “Seventeen Moments of Spring”, before arresting Stirlitz, finds time to collect dirt on him a few days before the fall of Berlin.
In general, this series is long. And the shortcomings, albeit mostly small, reduce, however, the intensity of the impact on the sophisticated viewer, and most importantly - reduce the credibility of the film.
It is also strange that after the Moscow terrorist attack and the resident journalist who organized it, and the colonel dismissed from the FSB (apparently already former) Rodionov are sent to Kiev: one as in a state hostile to Russia where you can hide from the FSB, the other as a Russian agent -legal. What a great “bone” is given, therefore, by the filmmakers of the Kiev regime for accusing Moscow of “aggression” and confirming its “interference in internal affairs”. It is a pity that the filmmakers did not have a professional consultant. However, this is the trouble of all our films on the topic of the defense and defenders of the Motherland.
Scriptwriter Sergey Minaev defined the tape as a political thriller. The film was called a spy thriller and a detective story. But, it seems, this is the real kinopublistika.
And if we agree with this definition, then a number of questions about artistic failures, overlays, and other shortcomings are removed and the relevance of the plot comes to the fore. Well, and with this the filmmakers are all right.
By the way, this idea may well be confirmed by various “comments”, for example, like this: “... we watched and watched the dumbest films of Hollywood ... where victory always remains on the side of a brave soldier of the US Army, with tears in his eyes striped flag at the end of the motion picture. For some reason, this does not make us laugh and is practically not annoying. But modern Russian special services in the service of the Motherland and the people are all ... "the mythology about the service of the Motherland" ... And isn’t it about this particular film, one of the first of its kind? Who does not like it, download and see the doc more often. films about the NATO military operation with the touching title "The Merciful Angel" against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, with the bombardment of Belgrade and the continuing genocide of the Serbs; films about the democratic liberation of Libya with the tearing apart of Muammar Gaddafi and how exactly these videos were watched by H. Clinton with interest and gusto; watch films about the democratic liberation of Iraq; and also remember that now our Russian men, incl. of the modern special services of the Russian Federation on the distant frontiers in Syria are leading a deadly battle with ISIS (banned organization in the Russian Federation - ed.), which is also a product of the United States. And think about - what are their plans for us? ”.
It seems to me that this text, which is overwhelmed with emotions, gives the answer to another topical question: why did the liberals meet with hostility, in general, a very decent and patriotic film. Even if it is without the usual "happy ending", then this is our movie!
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