On Thursday, the video service PREMIER presented the first two episodes of the serial detective comedy "Out of Oneself" about a talented but mentally ill financier who is haunted by the phantoms of the dead.
A strong duet from showrunner Alexander Dulerain, the producer of the massive hits "Fizruk" and "House Arrest", and Klim Kozinsky, who in 2017 made his debut in directing with a full meter - the philosophical film comics "Tetragrammaton", was responsible for the production of the tape.
According to the performer of one of the central roles, Elena Lyadova, the directors added a lot of personal things to the project, and also introduced new solutions and techniques to implement their ideas.
Dulerain directed the pilot episode, was in charge of the overall concept, and worked with Andrey Zolotarev (Invasion) on the script.
Among the creators of the series, one cannot fail to mention the cameraman Heinrich Meder, who visualized an unstable reality filled with visions and mental traps.
The main role in the tape was played by Evgeny Stychkin ("Election Day", "Gogol").
The project also involves Evgeny Tsyganov, Elena Lyadova, Aglaya Tarasova, Anna Kotova-Deryabina, Elena Morozova and others.
The action of the series is able to grab the attention of the audience from the first seconds.
The viewer sees the financier Dmitry, who sees what is not in reality: these are phantom characters who interfere in his life, and non-existent blood on a white work shirt.
All these images are associated with people for whose death, for some reason, Dmitry blames himself.
So, he is regularly visited by his dead ex-wife (Elena Lyadova), her lover-investigator (Yevgeny Tsyganov) and casual acquaintances, including a businessman who threw himself from the roof of a building after a refusal to invest (Ivan Makarevich), and a security gamer performed by Pavel Komarov ...
The hero turns to a psychotherapist.
The ultimate goal of his treatment, however, is not so much getting rid of visions as passing a medical examination to regain the rights to his son: Dmitry has fully learned to coexist with his ex-wife and her lover.
The situation becomes more complicated when the number of phantoms increases, and the hero plunges deeper and deeper into his forgotten past.
Fleur of the paranormal scriptwriters destroy immediately.
The viewer has not the slightest doubt that all the visions are the fruit of the fantasy of a hero suffering from mental disorder and partial memory loss.
At the same time, the filmmakers did not visually separate the phantoms: all the visions of the hero look like ordinary people (and can even physically influence him).
Thus, the world of the series "Beyond Yourself" only looks ordinary, but acts according to its own rules, like a complex video game.
This duality adds charm to the cinematic cliché: it is difficult for the viewer to predict how a typical scene with a kidnapping or a gangster showdown will unfold.
The reality of the series is completely subordinated to the consciousness of the hero, and therefore constantly changes its structure, like a kaleidoscope.
Another suitable analogy is the constructor used in the project's splash screen: from a certain set of fragments, different situations and plots are formed, sometimes resembling reality, and sometimes completely opposite to it.
The viewer, guided by Dmitry's point of view, finds himself in a whirlpool of strange feelings, impulses and decisions alien to common sense.
At some point, the series makes the audience doubt not only the characters, but also their own judgments.
So, as you watch it, Dmitry and his phantoms turn out to be not at all who they claim to be.
The series "Beyond Itself" is difficult to integrate into the traditional system of cinematic genres: the creators classify it as a detective comedy, some call it a thriller.
In reality, this story is so distinctive that no label can be attached to it.
The philosophical monologues of some phantoms seem especially curious: discussions about the meaning of life and existence, about what determines the existence of a person.
If you choose between dramatic and comedic principles, then the former is more likely to dominate.
“Out of Oneself” is a drama about a personality revealed through the investigation of a case that does not exist.
The detective arrangement here is nothing more than an excuse for satire and play with the genre.
In fact, the series' ragged dynamics hardly include details of police work, gang conspiracies or investigative processes.
Often scenes with them are skipped, displayed outside the brackets.
But a significant part of the screen time is devoted to the interaction of Dmitry and the phantoms, the emotions of the heroes, who are in fact the products of one consciousness.
In this context, one cannot fail to note the play of the actors - the Stychkin-Lyadov-Tsyganov trio attracts the eye, capturing and enlivening the plot.
Even if there is no action in the frame, the viewer monitors the relationship between the protagonist and his subpersonalities.
The series is addictive and keeps in suspense, which is sometimes diluted with jokes and fantasy graphics.
Even if the viewer does not consider himself a fan of thrillers, Dmitry's story works on a universal driver of attention - curiosity caused by the unpredictability of the plot.
I would like to watch “outside myself” at least in order to find out how far the hero's consciousness has gone in deforming the truth.