On Thursday, January 20, the first part of the Russian fantasy saga Eterna was released on the KinoPoisk HD video service.
The series is based on the work of the domestic writer Vera Kamshi, the author of the cycle of novels “Reflections of Eterna”.
The director of the project was Evgeny Nevsky ("Rules of theft", "Interns").
The works introduce the reader to the fictional world of Kertian and its inhabitants - the descendants of ancient rulers, their vassals, clergymen and mystics.
According to legend, four gods created Kartiana thousands of years ago, but they left the planet to resist evil.
For the main gods left King Rakan and their four heirs - the Lords of Lightning, Rocks, Waves and Wind.
As a result, they became the founders of the Great Houses, and their descendants were dubbed the Men of Honor.
Curtiana's history book features a prologue in part, in which the details of a fictional world are revealed through the thoughts of a certain Lone One.
In the film adaptation, everything is simpler - the viewer is brought up to date through a special story.
The released series "Eternas" is an adaptation of part of the first novel from the "Red on Red" series.
According to the plot of the book, power in the state of Talig is seized by the Ollar dynasty, and the true heir to the throne, Aldo Rakan (one of the central characters of the work), is in exile in the city-state of Agaris.
Another equally important hero is Richard Oakdell, the son of the late leader of the rebellion against the Ollars.
The rebellion in Taliga took place a few years before the main action of the novel.
The reader learns about those events in the course of the story, the uprising acquires details through the memories of the characters.
© kinopoisk.ru
Adaptation, in turn, begins with the events of the rebellion: hostilities unfold on the screen between the rebels and the heroes who support the current government, led by commander Roque Alva (Yuri Chursin).
This technique gives the viewer the opportunity to get acquainted with the world of Kamshi and his many heroes in the first few minutes.
According to Kartiana's laws, epochs change every four hundred years.
The world is just at the turn of a new period.
Many residents of Talig hope for liberation from the power of usurpers, having seen the legitimate heir to the throne at the head of the state.
The role of Aldo Rakan in the series was played by 27-year-old Anar Khalilov, and Richard Oakdell was played by 24-year-old Denis Nurulin.
The game of the second deserves special attention, which, it seems, easily managed to reincarnate as a young duke.
The youthful expression of the character and his desire to avenge his father are read through dialogues, a cocky look and sometimes harsh actions inherent in a young man.
The writers also contributed to the strengthening of the image of the hero.
For example, they slightly changed the plot: one of the episodes of the novel is dedicated to the “fight” of a young man with a rat, which eventually bit him on the hand.
In the film adaptation, problems begin with the hand when the hero himself breaks the stained glass window in a fit of anger.
In the finale of the series, his thirst for revenge for his father turns into an obsession - Oakdell's mind is clouded either from infection, or from obsessive thoughts.
© kinopoisk.ru
Also in the first part of the fantasy saga, Pavel Krainov ("Podolsk cadets"), Andrey Smolyakov ("Movement up"), Sergey Gilev ("Chiki"), Valentina Lyapina ("Peace! Friendship! Chewing gum!"), Yulia Khlynina ( "The Law of the Stone Jungle"), Sergei Goroshko ("Major Grom: The Plague Doctor") and other actors.
Many scenes from the book are missing from the adaptation, but there are also fundamentally new ones. In the story, Duke Oakdell is sent to the Laic School to be trained as an unar (squire). There, the hero finds himself in the company of the same young dukes, but the young men are divided into Men of Honor and "dung beetles" (the new nobility that appeared after the Ollars seized power). In the pilot episode of Eterna, the head of the Unars, Arnold Aramona (Aleksey Matoshin), arranges a game competition between them, while giving preference to the "dung beetles". There is no such game in the book, but the unspoken opposition of the dukes becomes more and more obvious with each new page. For the viewer, the scene with the team rivalry is the personification of the tension between the inhabitants of Kertiana.
The Russian "Eterna" will remind many of the American "Game of Thrones", based on a series of novels by writer George Martin "A Song of Ice and Fire".
In both cases, the way of life is comparable to Europe of past centuries - in the "Game of Thrones" it is the Middle Ages (XII-XIII centuries), in "Eterna" it is the later period of the Musketeers and Baroque (XVII century).
The presence of four main houses, rivalry for the throne, intrigue and an abundance of storylines also indicate the similarities between the projects.
Costumes help to immerse yourself in the world of knights, duels and conspiracies.
Wide-brimmed hats with feathers, flared boots and, of course, swords and muskets.
In addition, the actors performed all the tricks with fencing on their own.
Before the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the first episode of Eterna was going to be filmed in Slovenia, Hungary and the Czech Republic, but the filming of the project had to be moved to Russia, both on location and in the Lenfilm pavilions.
Unfortunately, the scenes captured on the territory of the film studio (the City of Agaris, the Laik school, the Rakanov palace) sometimes prevent acquaintance with the new universe - the abundance of scenery periodically looks unnatural, like a big doll house.
Be that as it may, the first episode of "Eterna" is a good start for immersing yourself in a fictional world with its rivals for the throne, Men of Honor and ladies in puffy dresses.
The release of the remaining parts of the fantasy saga is scheduled for 2023.