During the presentation of the new FILM.UA project, mini-series "Inseparable", which premiered on "Inter" April 27 at 20.30, director Vitaly Vorobyov and producer Victor Mirsky continued to mention two important things in order to understand this film. The first one - a film is about love and only love, everything else is just a background. The second one – it should not be taken as a documentary film.
Both mentions fully comply not only with the logic of the story, but the logic of the whole process of the film - as well as the creative process in general. Let's say your author still has some difficulties with the artistic component of the plot creation. Let me explain: being a journalist in the first place and not perceiving any kind of fiction, I’m extremely friendly to real-time and specific facts.
In particular, I used to write fiction on military issues and my understanding didn’t let me take on historical fiction. My convictions didn’t allow me to come up with events in "a certain town N”. But if you remember the actual location or real terrain, other brakes switch on – cause the events I’ve described probably never happened, as well as mentioned characters and even their prototypes never lived there.
In short, there is always a risk of being accused of a direct lie, in the distortion of the facts. Even now, with a lot of experience and a fairly mature age, I can not quite overcome these complexes. Of course, from the same position I evaluate similar work of other creative people.
Is this right? - Especially when it comes to the tragedy that is fresh in the memories of millions, not only Ukrainians, but also, without exaggeration, other inhabitants of the planet Earth. The Chernobyl accident was the second after the Afghan war, powerful blow on the basics of communist morality and accelerated, albeit at the cost of human lives, the collapse of the Soviet Union. Therefore inflicted wounds are too fresh even for those born after 1986. I mean that millions of viewers - especially in Ukraine can and probably will say if have not already said: "It’s a lie! It wasn’t like that! That did not happen!". As a result it will lead to a quite natural, from the point of view of formal logic, conclusion: "They speculate on Chernobyl again!".
There is a great temptation to agree with this statement, joining a large group of like-minded people. But in this case I propose to get rid of double standards, recognizing all films as speculative and market-driven, as well as books and music about the tragedy, such as "Titanic", created over a hundred years. Yes, including our favorite Oscar-winning "Titanic" with Leonardo DiCaprio, the leader of ticket sales of all time, which was reshoot last year in 3D.
Comparison is commensurable and even relevant. A month ago, during a round table in the House of Cinema, where we were trying to figure out what is a historical film, film critic Igor Grabovich exacerbated this problem. If the action takes place in a specific historical period, due to certain factual matters, basically - tragic and controversial, but the plot and characters are fictional, is it a historical film or just a costumed history? In such case, this historical film is a documentary.
But no one, not even a professional historian, is not ready to declare: a feature film about the past in the set of the said time is a fake and has no right to exist.
It’ll be right to mention its predecessors in the context of the new film. You should start with the film by Constantin Lopushansky "Letters from a Dead Man" - it was released in 1986, coinciding not only with the activation of "perestroika", but with the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Although the film was not created as a response to the disaster, the story of an unplanned explosion on an American nuclear plant, mass casualties, empty town, evacuation and bureaucratic silence and survival sounded exactly on the Chernobyl wave.
Then there was the Ukrainian film "Collapse" by Mikhail Belikov. Shot already at the peak of restructuring processes and is close to a social and documentary film, although there are elements of melodrama, two newlyweds after the Chernobyl accident. In different ways one can treat the emergence of computer games on this topic and American horror films, for example last year's "Chernobyl Diaries". There was "Aurora" by Oksana Bayrak, but as for me, it’s not a very good movie. There were more films from "Innocent Saturday" by Alexander Mendadze to the "Nuclear waste" by Miroslav Slaboshpytsky.
It is significant that Chernobyl is divided mainly into two types of movies - horror and drama with the dominant elements of melodrama. It is also significant that the "Inseparable" on the fact of its own release prove that the same story can be told in different ways. Searching and discovering other meanings.
What is Chernobyl? The irresponsibility of officials, the inability of the system to handle, closedness, heroism and sacrifices of ordinary people - is also one of them. Also, looters, cowards, incompetent commanders, helpless doctors – isn’t it a story of the war, the same conditions? It were war projects that have recently become FILM.UA’s fish, so themes and moods in "Inseparable" can be guessed. Although other awarded at international festivals and successfully sold FILM.UA’s war projects can be claimed. Actually, it pops up: that "filmmakers" don’t show war, but only played in a kind of war...
Meanwhile, official obstruction in terms of the so-called distortion of real events on the same level don’t affect not only all the movies inspired by the tragedy of war, or "Titanic". Masterpieces of world cinema, or just successful films still are such projects as "Spartacus" by Stanley Kubrick, "Braveheart" by Mel Gibson, "Crusaders" by Alexander Ford, "Gladiator" by Ridley Scott, "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" by Ken Loach, "Queen Margot" by Patrice Chereau, "The Hurt Locker" by Kathryn Bigelow etc. Although in "Spartacus" there are not only a lot of historical and factual inaccuracies, but also sufficiently convex love line of gladiator Spartacus and prostitute Valerie. Not to mention, when we return to "Titanic", a passionate love of Jack and Rose on the board of "Titanic", which, as we know before the start of the film, will sink.
So, if to take film "Inseparable" from this point of view, as a love story against the background of a great tragedy, everything will straighten out. That’s why Chernobyl and Pripyat for the authors is just a background, extreme conditions, which can and should be imposed on human relationships and model their development.
On the screen we can see two layers: documentary and realistic, artistic and emotional. Realism of the story is provided with not only recreated era, namely - 1986. As explained by the authors of the project, Kiev, Chernobyl NPP and Pripyat at that time were reconstructed not only by the present Soviet artifacts that are sure to remain in the majority of ordinary families, but also by using modern computer graphics. By shifting us to a time machine in the recent past, and submerging in reality, the filmmakers filled the recreated reality with artistic content. Namely, told a story of love, loyalty and loneliness on the background of global man-made disaster. At the same time trying to maintain a balance between drama and melodrama.
Thus, Kiev schoolgirl Alia (Maria Poezhaeva) together with her older sister on the eve of the Chernobyl accident appears to be in Pripyat, where her dad is. Without understanding the situation, losing his father and trying to understand where her sister is, Alia stays in Pripyat alone after a total evacuation - two days ago a young blossoming city, becomes dead, hostile, empty. There, she meets a soldier Pasha (Yuri Borisov), a member of the accident liquidation, which protected her and, miraculously survived, then escaped from the hospital. Now, the young lovers are hiding: not committed any crime, not fully realizing the scale of the tragedy, they have been outlawed on a kind of deck of the sinking ship.
That's why "Inseparable" – despite a bit lack of drama linearity and certain factual stretches - is relevant for the present.
Andrei Kokotyukha for "Telekritika"
