'Red Silk' is filmed so beautifully that Guy Ritchie will just lick his lips."
"Red Silk" goes into wide release on February 20, and producer Gosha Kutsenko is already thinking about a sequel. Honored Artist of Russia offered an Oscar nominee to become a spy. Dreams that the adventure detective saw moviegoers in China. Proud that the Russian President spoke about the joint Russian-Chinese movie at the BRICS summit in Kazan. After all, "Red Silk" is a film about love for the Motherland, about honor and about courage. About this Gosha Kutsenko told "Izvestia" on the eve of the all-Russian movie premiere.
"We already knew about the rakes that are laid out on the way, and looked for new ones"
- "Red Silk" was filmed in Russia and in China. The action scenes were shot at the largest movie studio in the world, Hengdian World Studios. What interested the Chinese side in your project?
- The idea for the movie belongs to the general producer Vadim Byrkin. This is a little-known page of Russian-Chinese history. In 1928, the Chinese Communists, because of the dangerous situation in their homeland, had to hold their sixth congress in the Moscow region. This is a historical fact. And we invented such a trans-Siberian story, a detective story, how they traveled with these lists of future delegates across Russia to Moscow. They had enemies - agents of the Kuomintang, British and Japanese spies, border gangs of Hunghusis. They tried to cope with the Chinese Communists, but we all fought against them together.
The detective is a forgotten genre in our country, and completely undeservedly so, and especially the adventure detective. Popular Russian and Chinese actors starred in "Red Silk". There was casting. The Chinese actress Zheng Hanyi is studying in St. Petersburg. And others we invited from China, including Yang Zihua. He is popular in China for his participation in a TV series similar to our "ER".
We filmed in Baikal last year in winter. There were serious frosts, up to minus forty. We filmed beautiful winter nature, steam locomotives. Then we built large pavilions in Moscow, made seven cars and put them on the rails. Plasma screens from our partner XOVP were installed along the cars. When the train was running, they showed the nature on them, and there was a complete illusion that the train was moving, it was shaking, and forests and fields were flying by. Chinese producers were impressed by our scenery. And then the film crew went to them. At Hengdian World Studios, Shanghai of the 1920s and 1930s was built.
- And that has already impressed you?
-I wasn't there. My character stayed in Russia. And the guys shared their impressions and footage. There's a whole city there! If you want the 1930s , you go to the block on the left. You need the 1940s - turn right a little earlier. The scope is insane.
- You shot this detective with the same company as "Balkan Border." Coincidence?
-No. We're a great company. We shot with Vadim Byrkin and director Andrei Volgin. We were already aware of the rake that was laid out along the way, and we were looking for new ones. (laughs) The old ones were successfully avoided. As in "Balkan Frontier", we were supported by Rostec State Corporation.
"Milos Bikovich was threatened, but he said that he was a patriot of his country."
- Miloš Biković also moved from "Balkan Frontier". Why do you appreciate him?
- We have more than just a partnership and friendship with Milos. "Balkan Frontier" - a complex picture, which was created in cooperation with Serbia. The script was written over five years. At some time Hero of Russia Yunus-Bek Yevkurov got involved in the creation. He told us the background of the story of the march of the Airborne Forces battalion to Slatina airport. Milos Bikovich was threatened, but he said that he was a patriot of his country and wanted everyone to know the truth about those events in Yugoslavia.
Actor Miloš Biković
- Now he is also a patriot of Russia. Milos Bikovic has received Russian citizenship.
-Our man. In "Red Silk" he will be unique. Milos has a different way of existence in the frame than our actors. European style.
- Actors in "Red Silk" perform most of the stunts themselves. Some directors strictly forbid their actors to take risks. There are stuntmen for that. You have no specialists for stunt filming, or the actors are so brave?
-Well, you know, I've done a lot of stunt filmmaking myself. When you're younger, you're willing to take any risks. Because when a stuntman does a stunt, you can see it in the frame. In a movie, it's important what function your character performs and how much you care about the role. When my face is in the frame, then there's a flash, a span, a splicing, and then there's my face again, the insertion is always noticeable.
Of course, if the artist is in good shape, the director wants the truth on the screen. And with one trick you gain serious trust from the viewer. A movie is an illusion. And we're renting your attention for two hours. And you have to earn it. That's why we take such risks, and the actors perform the stunts themselves. Jumping on cables, fighting on the roof of a moving car. It was dangerous. There was also a great stunt team involved in the filming, both in Russia and in China.
Actor Miloš Biković
Brave Bikovich on the set not once injured. But the shooting at his insistence did not stop.
- And the Chinese did not refuse extreme filming?
-On the contrary. If it was new for Zheng Hanya, Huang Haonan serious sports training, then Yang Zihua began his way in the movie industry as a stuntman. Well we are representatives of the fight cinematography. (Laughs).
My last fight with the Chinese was not going well. For some reason he decided to save me. But director Andrei Volgin set the task to act to the best of his ability. It was quite unexpected in the movie that in one of the scenes it was decided to fight with real cold weapons rather than with sham weapons. Thank God, it turned out only a few scratches. The actors were not seriously injured.
- After the pandemic, our viewers had a hard time returning to cinemas. Then there were sanctions, the departure of foreign companies. And now it turns out that Russian cinema can gather full halls. How do you assess your prospects at the box office?
- I'm afraid to guess. Once upon a time, at other prices for tickets in cinemas, we collected about 400 million with "The Balkan Frontier". It wasn't a bad figure, but we were aiming for more.
It's very important when a movie is released. I'll tell you, it's such a science - painting the release schedule in theaters. There's incredible competition for dates. "Red Silk" has the biggest competition at the box office right now.
- "The Prophet" with Yura Borisov.
-Yes. Which I also supported, by the way. I read Alexander Sergeevich's poems to promote the movie. I got my asses kicked: "What are you doing? It's a competitor." I said: "Calm down. We, artists, do not let each other down. If necessary, we help." I got in touch with Yura Borisov, and we are doing a flash mob with him now.
- Tell me about it. It will be a flash mob in support of "Red Silk"?
-Yes . We have 12 characters in the movie, 12 suspected spies. But there's a 13th, a super famous actor. And we want the viewer to think about who the thirteenth spy is. We're already dreaming about the next picture.
- You want to compete with Marvel heroes?
- We rather have "Get Knives" and "Mission Impossible." I think they'll be happy for us. (laughs) Movie people are active. We watch foreign movies and, of course, learn from them. We borrow all the technology. This is normal. Without false modesty, it seems to me, we have a world-class movie. No matter how you look at it, we are pioneers in space, they are pioneers in the movie industry. It is not for nothing that they "flew" to the moon with the help of cinematography. But our movie people flew into space for real.
"I don' tknow if I would have watched "Anora" if it weren 't for Yura Borisov."
- Here already Yura Borisov is a contender for the Oscars.
- If anyone reacted strangely to the news of his nomination, I was just happy. I called and congratulated Yura. Frankly speaking, when I watched "Anora", I was waiting for the appearance of Yura, our dear man, our favorite actor. And the picture... Well, yes, they play on fashion trends. I don't know if I would have watched such a movie if it weren't for Yura Borisov. He has a small but expressive role. Despite the fact that it was a harsh satire on us, I don't classify Anora as a movie about Russia. Russia is completely different. "Anora" is a movie about a branch of Russia abroad.
Actor Yuri Borisov
- Yura has better movies and roles.
- Of course he does. But you don't know his best role. Few people have heard of it.
- What kind of movie is this?
- There's a movie on the shelf called Anna K.
- A Netflixseries based on Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina, starring our artists. The movie never came out.
- It never came out, but I know the fate of that picture. It was not given to us. It lies in full readiness there. And I believe that as soon as there will be a lull, a long-awaited peace, this picture will make progress. It will be very seriously appreciated.
I played Steve. I'm as critical of myself as anyone. But I liked myself. I had four directors working on me. They squeezed notes out of me that I didn't expect from myself.
And Yura played Levin. When you see it, you'll understand. It's incredible. Now, God willing, on the wave of peace, everything will happen and "Anna K" will come out. I think we've been missed.
It's been a tough time for everyone. So have we. The world is driven by politics, that's how all societies work. But art, I think, is a little ahead of the curve. In general, the mission of art, like beauty, is to save the world, as Dostoevsky correctly noted. If there are creative outbursts, it means that there will be warming.
I was very offended when our musicians told me that they were afraid to play Rachmaninoff abroad. Because they were being punished. We had a more dignified attitude to what was happening. We had no prohibitions. And the movie developed calmly and naturally. Our "Red Silk" is a film about love for the Motherland, about honor and courage.
- And what movie is producer Kutsenko dreaming of?
- About the next "Silk". Well, for now, look at the story of "Red Silk". This movie is shot so beautifully that Guy Ritchie will just lick his lips. Seriously!
- The movie's gonna be released in China?
- It's our dream for "Red Silk" to be seen by moviegoers in China. At the BRICS summit in Kazan, the President turned to the Minister of Culture and asked if we cooperate with the Chinese in the movie. And Olga Lyubimova immediately recalled "Red Silk".
But to go into Chinese distribution is a separate song. Who was involved, knows, it is a difficult goal to achieve. There is a whole apparatus there, political, which makes decisions. The same "Balkan Border" is quite popular on Chinese platforms, did not show there in theaters, because the picture has too much blood and serious political moments. All distribution permits have already been received. It's up to the distributor.
In Russian distribution we are supported by National Media Group. I'm so proud, so happy about it. It's going to be good. We deserve full houses.
"When the hostilities end, we'll go to help children."
- You're not indifferent, you help children with cerebral palsy. And recently you and Vyacheslav Razbegaev returned from Donetsk.
-It was a long-standing dream. We had been planning it for a long time. My friend Slava always goes on important trips with me: to the North Pole, then to Donetsk. It was unforgettable. We met with doctors of the clinical center of neurorehabilitation, stopped by the children's center. We spoke to military investigators. These are the people who were the first to arrive at the shelling, who saw all the horrors, the results of torture and what is now happening in Kursk region. My heart breaks from the stories of eyewitnesses. Of course, it deserves a separate movie. We shot our movie there. We're editing it now.
I hope we will also go to Lugansk. God willing, now the fighting will be over, we will go to help children. We have been there since 2013. We had connections with charitable foundations. Guys from Donetsk and Luhansk came to visit us. It's very difficult to do this. I am friends with Tatyana Batysheva, who is the chief pediatric neurologist. And she invited doctors from new territories. The subject of cerebral palsy is with me all the time. This is my moral and material responsibility.
Actor Gosha Kutsenko
- Over the past three years, have you changed your views on life, on your profession, on your colleagues? Has something changed in your outlook?
-Of course. A person turns upside down, and more than once. I guess that's how humanity works, that it needs such hellish shocks. There's a lot of broken bonds. And a lot I can't, unfortunately, say in public. The fate of other people close to me depends on my words. I live a sheltered life. But I am 100% sure that on the other side there are people who believe in peace and that everything will be restored. Because there are ties that no metal and no hatred can burn out. Those are the ties of kinship. Hopefully, the clock to the light at the end of the tunnel has now been started.
- Let's hope for the best.
-Yes . "Hope is my compass on earth...", a great song by Alexandra Pakhmutova and Nikolai Dobronravov. We now gather artist friends and organize movie concerts, singing songs from Soviet movies. And each I end with "Hope", which, by the way, in the cinematography sounded only recently, in the series "Anna Herman". In 1973, the Polish singer was bedridden after a car accident, she had 40 fractures. She said she would never sing again. And they brought her this song. She perked up. She decided she was going to sing and make the world famous with this song. Notice, Anna Herman is one of the rare foreign singers who sang Russian songs, who was so beloved. The great polka.
Composer, People's Artist of the USSR Alexandra Pakhmutova
I have this music playing in my heart more and more often. I think art is the great intuition of mankind. When a person takes a brush in his hands, when he sits down to write a script, when he takes a pen, when his imagination starts working, intuition rules him.
And there is such a thing as anti-intuition, it's our reflexes, our passions. Before going on stage, I asked my director friend how to fight fear. He said: "The main thing is don't scare your intuition. Don't be afraid to seem ridiculous, stupid. Start to play, let it be mediocre, pronounce the text. And then your intuition will wake up, it will master you and show you the way".
When we started working on "Red Silk", we did it intuitively. We believed in the idea and we became a team.
- And Guy Ritchie would be a bit of a dickens.
- I wish he'd stop smoking.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
