The film "Dow" by Ilya Khrzhanovsky, whose several episodes the other day the Ministry of Culture refused a rental certificate, will, of course, go down in history. It will enter it a little from a different move than Ilya’s colleagues did: Fellini, Scorsese, or even Spielberg, and will lie on a slightly different shelf - but the author of this project, as it were to put it more neutrally, hardly wanted something else. In the end, it doesn’t matter if he got the movie or not, but the myth is definitely a success.
What do we know about the film "Dow"? He starred for ten years. The budget, from a modest three and a half million dollars, has grown to completely astronomical figures: a figure of 70 million was also called. For filming, the largest pavilion in the history of the post-Soviet space was built, a full copy of the institute where the main character of the film, academician Landau, performed by conductor Theodor Currentzis . On the territory of the pavilion extras constantly lived, playing the role of staff. To take the scene of Landau's arrival in Kharkov, a full-size copy of the Soviet giant plane K-7 was built: this is a colossus with a wing area of 452 square meters.
Unprofessional actors took part in the project - in addition to Currentzis, Ukrainian TV presenter Dmitry Gordon, the notorious shaggy gold merchant Pyotr Listerman and the equally scandalous head of the Kharkov administration and YouTube star Mikhail Dobkin - the one who says “Misha, you have a boring face, were noted there. nobody will give you money. ” They said that on the set they naturally raped women, beat and tortured men, and also shot sex scenes with animals. After the filming was completed, the pavilion was blown up (!), And a disco was organized on the wreckage.
Then, for a long time, they mounted 700 hours of material filmed on a 35 mm film (that is, the movie turned out to be literally golden), arranged one closed show in Ukraine, plus a performance in Paris, at which shamans and other mummers took part in the show.
Do you already feel what the trick is? We are talking about a film that we have not seen. Very few people saw him. There were shoots, but no movie. Even those who were able to attend the Chatelet Theater premiere in Paris, the Theater de la Ville or the Georges Pompidou Center, talk about shamans, about the organization of space, about anything - just not about the frames that flashed on the screens during this performance.
For 70 million (or how much an unknown benefactor gave him there) Ilya Khrzhanovsky created a chimera. Simulacrum, “glock cousin” - meaning without signifier.
There seems to be something about totalitarianism. It seems to be something about power. And almost certainly about Academician Landau and his promiscuous sex life. It's all. And the fact that the Ministry of Culture refused to rent several pornographic episodes (and there really is pornography, and hardcore) will undoubtedly benefit the film. I think the author would not mind if the whole picture were banned.
This film was planned in the middle, and started shooting already at the end of the “golden zeros”, at the very edge of the economic crisis. And in this sense, Dau is an ideal monument to the era of oil at 120 per barrel and easy money burned in a vanity furnace, like gas torches. The era of clubs “for millionaires” with face control, strange businesses that didn’t bring anything, people who knew nothing and didn’t represent anything, but to touch them for some reason was considered a great honor. In other words, the era of a very expensive and beautifully packaged void. And at the same time a reminder that this era is irrevocably over.
After the return of Crimea and the outbreak of war in the Donbass, our directors no longer make films in Ukraine. Oligarchs who fall under sanctions will not scatter money. The icy breath of the harsh new time reminded that in the new realities only that which has real weight will survive, that you can touch and understand without further explanation.
In war and pre-war time, simulacra always die first.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.