Children of nature: "Moana 2" burst onto Russian screens

Disney's animated blockbuster "Moana 2" reached Russian screens two weeks after its world premiere. The world box office of the picture is already $600 million, it is in fifth place in collections for the year, and in Russia it is shown with Kazakhstani dubbing: Moana is voiced by a well-known both there and here hip-hop singer Nazima, who used to sing with Timati and Valeria and recorded on the label Black Star. "Izvestia" watched the cartoon and tried to understand why it was so successful.

Polynesian antiquities

One hundred years ago, director Robert Flaherty reaped well-deserved laurels: his movie about Eskimos "Nanook from the North" in 1922 not only became a hit, but generally laid the foundations of documentary cinema. Studio Paramount, expecting to repeat the success, offered Flaherty to make a movie on the same principles that "Nanook", only about Polynesia. Flaherty went there to develop his new project - "Moana".

Flaherty had a hard time. With the Eskimos, he lived about ten years, so he thoroughly knew how and what to shoot, what to pay attention to, how to organize the material to create a truly romantic work, a hymn to the human spirit and the beauty of nature, which was "Nanook from the north. It was different with Polynesia. Ten years Paramount certainly would not wait, especially since Flaherty was entrusted with the latest technology shooting, which, if delayed, would cease to be the latest, and the release would lose an important trump card. So Flaherty had relatively little development time.

He did the same thing he did at Nanook. Like the Eskimos, he made the Polynesians change from modern outfits to traditional ones, which included, by the way, shooting topless women (the American censorship later erased this). He found himself the main character - a young man who was given the name Moana, that is the Depth, Deep Water. And further Flaherty could not come up with a plot.

In the case of "Nanook" everything was clear: around the terrible frost, ice, polar bears, and the whole life of Nanook and his family - the struggle for survival. And the Polynesians, as luck would have it, lived serene, joyful and lazy, enjoying the sun, fruit and love. Flaherty unearthed the ancient custom of initiation with painful tattooing and constructed the movie as a preparation for this ritual. And yet there was neither conflict nor intrigue.

"Moana" is really about sun, sea and beautiful people. A century ago, the audience was not ready to watch it, and the picture, despite all the efforts of Paramount, was very sluggish, although in Europe it was received warmer than in the United States. Today, the film is considered a classic and recognized as a masterpiece, but Flaherty after that things went badly, never again he had such confidence in the industry and such opportunities.

"Moana" came out and became a hit

A hundred years have passed, and now comes "Moana 2," the sequel not to Flaherty's masterpiece, but to the 2016 animated film. On November 21, the release came out in the world, now it began to be shown in Russia in the format of pre-screening service. And what a surprise to discover that the creators of the new "Moana" had exactly the same problems as the great Flaherty!

At the beginning of the movie Moana decides that an authentic Polynesian should not be a homebody, but a sailor. If so, it is necessary to immediately set out on a raft, which the heroes for some reason call a canoe, although it, to put it mildly, does not look like a boat and in general with all its appearance refers rather to the famous "Kon-Tiki", on which Thor Heyerdahl and his crew crossed the Pacific Ocean and got from Peru to Polynesia proper. By the way, made a movie reminiscent of Flahertian, and received an Oscar for it.

Moana with a small crew sails "to I don't know where" with little chance of finding a certain mythical island, which, by and large, promises nothing interesting. On the way they are joined by Maui, the best friend of Moana and all Polynesians, a tattooed trickster deity, on whose tossing the whole first cartoon about Moana was based. But what to do with the characters and with all this adventure further, the authors of "Moana 2" did not come up with.

There is no classic Disney supervillain, who obstructs the heroes and plans to gain power over the world. There is no story of great love, which would move the heroes towards each other. There is no fight against the prejudices of Polynesian society, no flashy messes for the heroes to get involved in. We observe only how good guys after a slight misunderstanding still find common language with very good guys, and then great guys join them. Ocean, sun, bananas - and then there are those very tattoos, which, unlike in Flaherty, do not become here a symbol of pain, overcoming and initiation. What initiation if everyone is harmonious, honest, brave and friendly as it is?

It's hard to say why the Disney bosses decided that this would do. Maybe they hoped that a few musical numbers and the general good mood - this is quite a bid for victory. Besides, everyone loves Moana and Maui, so let them watch them for an hour and a half and be happy. Even the cool reception from critics (62% on Tomatoes, 58% on Metacritic) didn't stop Disney.

Life, as is often the case, put things in their proper place. Family audiences around the world spit on the opinions of nerdy critics and rushed to the movie. In the U.S. alone, the cartoon earned $300 million - and the same amount in other countries. In North America in a few days, "Moana 2" will become the third highest-grossing release of the year, in the world it is already in fifth place, but will soon overtake "Dune" and end the year at least in fourth place.

Because the sea, the sun and total harmony, apparently, so much lacking that nothing else can be invented, while the creators of the critically acclaimed aesthetic and conceptual "Wild Robot" are smoking aside with half the result at the box office. If there were no "Puzzle 2," perhaps "Moana" could still be an Oscar contender. And this is an animated film, which initially did not even want to make a full meter, instead of a sequel Disney was thinking of making a modest series for its streaming!

The movie was released in Russia with Kazakh dubbing, where Moana was voiced by singer Nazima, and, as they say, she also made a version in Kazakh. Nazima's vocals are more modest and conservative than those of Aulia Cravalho, who sings in the original, but in our country this is unlikely to be an obstacle for family viewers, who will find a way to watch "Moana" in theaters even without posters and other advertising.

The first film in Russian theaters watched almost 3.5 million people, and how many have since fallen in love with "Moana" in home formats, it is impossible to count. All of them, of course, were waiting for the sequel, so among the New Year's Eve hits must see cartoon will definitely take its place. However, the pirates are also not slumbering and have already posted "Moana" online, where it can be watched "free and without registration". And what the Disney management thinks about it, all these people are completely indifferent.