Borisov, you're right: the top movies and TV series of 2024
"Palme d'Or" to an American film with Russian artists, a guest from the future in the company of the same artists, a Yakut western, a musical from the creator of horror films - in the world of cinema this year there were no absolute events and unconditional masterpieces for all time. But there were a lot of bright and interesting in some way films and series, without which 2024 is impossible to imagine. "Izvestia" summarizes briefly, admitting that the list should have been many times longer and more extensive, but, fortunately, we have already written about almost everything important during the year. If it didn't make this top, you can just read about it separately.
"Anora" 18+.
Paradox, which is impossible to believe: an American movie with Russian actors won at the world's premier film festival, and now also played there Yura Borisov is promoted to Oscar nominees, for the Globe, he is already a contender. Yes, the main event for our cinema is the triumph of the Russian acting ensemble in Cannes and the ensuing international interest in Mark Eidelstein and Yura Borisov.
You can argue all you want about the artistic merits of the film and how much it deserved the Palme d'Or, but the year 2024 will go down in history as a victory for the Russian acting school - and, by the way, if in Cannes there were still hesitant remarks about not "shining" Russian artists for political reasons, now no one thinks about it anymore. Mark, Yura, Alexei, Dasha - thank you very much!
"One Hundred Years Ago"
It is well known that Eidelstein appeared in "Anora" because in "One Hundred Years To Go" he became friends with Borisov, and the latter recommended him to director Sean Baker. Borisov himself after "Coupe No. 6" and "Captain Volkonogov" and was already known in the world of auteur cinema. Thus, "Anora" and "One Hundred Years Ago" are quite obviously connected. But we're talking about the movie because it's really the best blockbuster in Russia for the year, combining classic science fiction with the traditions of Soviet cinema, Bondarchuk's developments in "Attraction" and Russian modernity, which isn't much here, but it's there nonetheless. This is a movie where there is an attempt to understand the new generation and convey their fear of change, which still needs to be overcome. And the funny thing is that the whole intrigue is built around who will be the first to accept the message from the outside world.
"Summer will end."
A landmark movie from landmark authors. Two directors. One, Maxim Arbugaev, by his 33 years already a Sundance winner and Oscar nominee, a world-class documentary filmmaker. The other, Vladimir Munkuev, won in Karlovy Vary with his brilliant debut Nuuchcha, which was eventually seen in Russia only by festival audiences.
Their joint film "The Summer Will End" had acquired cult status even before its release, it was said that it might not see the light of day. But the movie is there, there were several high-profile screenings, and it's amazing how faithful heirs Balabanov turned out to be two young guys from Yakutia. We immediately understand where the wind blows from when Alexander Mosin, Balabanov's loyal friend and actor in his last films, appears in one of the first scenes. And then there is a story about two brothers, a weak one and a strong one, who is actually strong only on the outside. His name is Kesha, and he is the reincarnation of Danila Bagrov, but he will never get his fame, because he is not a "savior" at all, but a guy who always has bad luck. And plays him... also Yura Borisov!
"Master and Margarita"
There was not a single Russian movie this year, which would be so biased watched and discussed. So much scolding did not get anyone else, but also so much money at the box office - too, if you do not take the family storytelling movies. The film's creators Roman Kantor and Mikhail Lokshin treated the text very freely, so we are not so much an adaptation as an essay on the motives. Voland is played by a German artist, the Master clearly resembles Bulgakov himself, and Moscow is framed in such a way as to be more a dream of Moscow than a real city of the 1920s or 1930s. Does Yulia Snigir resemble Margarita? What might Satan's ball have looked like in everyday life to inspire Bulgakov's one of the most impressive scenes in Russian literature? Of all the movie versions of the novel, this one is the most provocative and the most vivid.
"Air."
Strictly speaking, "Air" is the premiere of 2023, and we wrote a lot about it, but the movie was not released in Russian distribution until January 2024, so it is worth saying about it now. Continuing the tradition of great Soviet cinema with reflection on the theme of war, Alexei German in terms of spectacle relied on realistic air battles, detailed panoramas of military life and episodes of harsh trench truth, but it is still not a commercial film, but an author's film in the full sense of the word. About how war changes consciousness and how exactly it happens on the example of one fragile girl. About how many factors are involved, how many things that can not be imagined until you see with your own eyes - and Herman in the spirit of Astafiev's prose gives some sketches that allow you to remotely imagine what a person could feel during the war.
"Panic Attacks."
Ivan Tverdovsky is the most scandalous figure among young filmmakers. His "As if waiting for the bus", "Pain Points", "Class of correction", "Zoology", "Conference" in different years, as if on purpose to get into trouble and easily get them, and with them festival prizes and audience attention, which is so lacking in author's cinema.
"Panic Attacks" - no exception. The plot centers on a girl from Murmansk, who decided at any cost to cross the border with Norway, because there her sister lives happily and does not know grief. And then Tverdovsky's imagination inserts such shocking elements into stereotypes about the Russian countryside and Scandinavian prosperity that by the end the viewer feels stunned. Now Tverdovsky is shooting a doc in Mariupol, and again it's sure to be a shock and a scandal, definitely something no one expects. But after "Panic Attacks," it's clear that Ivan has certainly not become less radical with age.
"Teenagers: First Love"
This is not a masterpiece, but the movie is iconic. Russia's most successful horror director Svyatoslav Podgaevsky moved into the musical genre - partly because folk-horror from Russia lost markets and stopped paying off. But it's not just the change of genre, it's also about the optics. This nostalgic look at the 1990s, a time when Podgaevsky was as old as his teenage protagonists, is filled with wonderful details like clothing markets where Bogdan Titomir's music blares, or gas stations where kids earn pocket money by wiping car windows and stealing stereos. But it is noteworthy that the movie is biographical (you can feel it) and everything in life ended much sadder (you can feel it too). And the main stage will remain the brilliant performance of Elena Lyadova's song with the words: "Don't believe in tears! Everything will come back - after long nights".
"Combination"
The story of how the first female pop group in the USSR grew out of the irrepressible energy of a single OBKhSnik. Nikita Kologrivyy as always a hundred percent organic - he in 2024 is equally good here, and in the series "Pure", and in the drama "Lost", and even in "The Last Bogatyr", which turned into a series "Legacy".
"Combination" is a story about how important it is not just to dream, but to continuously act, making mistakes, losing everything most important and risking to lose even more. Romance of pure water, backed by the success of a real pop band, whose songs today sound, perhaps, even more accurate than they did then - about "two pieces of sausage", and about "beautiful - big", and about "I have one question, you have one answer". The audience responded, and the series became an unqualified hit.
"Crime and Punishment"
The series, which was much more talked about than watched, but how without it? Vladimir Mirzoeva to scandals are not used to scandals, he and after "Boris Godunov", and after "Her name was Mumu" received the full, and now hardly much surprised. Strange as it may seem, the most noise was around the fact that the release of the series several times shifted for reasons that no one has not explained. There were rumors that it was all about the naked Ivan Yankovsky in the frame or in the scenes of seduction, which seemed to have caused a ban. But when the series came out in two runs, half a season at a time, the noise gradually subsided, and the last episodes of the series few people finished watching. Because they were waiting for a scandal, and Mirzoyev packed in a bright form of his reflections on passions, Russian literature and natural perversions of the soul in the crisis period.
"Joker: Madness for Two."
A slap in the face to public taste, a mockery of kidalta, adoring Marvel blockbusters and comic books, a graceful gesture of two bright personalities - Joaquin Phoenix and Todd Phillips, from which wanted a new "Joker" on any terms. You wanted it, you got it! Batman is not here, nor are almost all the other heroes of this universe, even Harley Quinn is not quite her, and almost all the action is the Joker's preparation for trial for the murders and the trial itself. In his sick mind erotic dreams are transformed into Sinatra-style musical numbers, and in the end the viewer gets not a grotesque thriller, but a musical, and the main reference here is not "Taxi Driver", as in the first "Joker", but "Dancing in the Dark". Almost the whole world cursed this movie, but the more time passes, the clearer it becomes that this is a great movie.
"Puzzle 2."
The highest-grossing movie of the year, "Puzzle" was awaited with skepticism. Too many feature-length animated films had flopped in the past few years, and it seemed like the auteurs wouldn't jump above their heads. They did jump. The second installment was better, subtler, more complex, smarter than the first - and it's still just as witty in its attempt to answer the question of why we understand everything but do stupid things all the time and if there's anything we can do about it. Of course, it's all about the tiny little people inside our heads! And also in the memory, which does not hold what should be, and negative emotions that prevent Joy (the main character of the cartoon) to give us to live calmly, freely and happily. The humorous session of psychoanalysis came to the world just right, and no other movie people went to so much in 2024.
"Emilia Perez"
The favorite of the Cannes Film Festival, a musical by Jacques Audiard received in the end, the Jury Prize and the award of the main actresses who played and sang about how difficult it is to get out of the mire, if stuck there to the ears. And the quagmire there is multilevel, there is not only Mexican organized crime, but also, it seems, all the family, social and political rudiments imaginable. Before us is the story of three strong personalities, each trying to radically change their lives. It is clear that there will be a lot of blood, shots, tears and violence, and yet it is impossible to tear yourself away from the screen, looking at, in general, banal showdowns with elements of melodrama, but packaged in perfect form by the master of French cinema Odiar. After the triumph in Cannes and the high-profile premiere on Netflix, the movie received 10 nominations for the Golden Globe and will surely appear at the Oscars, and deservedly so.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
