The East is a top business: how "Finist. The First Bogatyr
The New Year will start with the release of the fairy tale movie "Finist. The First Bogatyr" (from December 29 to 31 will run in selected theaters in preview format). "Finist" is a prequel to the "The Last Bogatyr" trilogy and the first movie in the cinematic universe (not counting the "Legacy" series) made without Disney's involvement, but otherwise by the same people who worked on the past films. As before, the fantasy with Yulia Peresild, Kirill Zaitsev, Fedor Dobronravov and the voice of Pavel Priluchny aimed at the family viewer in the broadest sense. "Izvestia" watched the fairy tale and found that it is quite an independent work, open to a new viewer, but retaining much from its predecessor.
"Walt Disney" does not represent
To understand how much and with what interest professional viewers waited for "Finist", it is necessary to go back a few years and understand the significance of the franchise "The Last Bogatyr" for Russian cinema and why this project is iconic and important.
Until recently, it was thought that the genre of the fairy tale movie was dead in Russia and perhaps forever. Individual pictures made to Soviet standards did not resonate with the public and, at best, settled somewhere in the daytime TV airwaves, no one ever thought of betting on them. A slight revival in this direction happened in the late noughties, when the Russian office of "Disney" decided to force the situation: together with the studio "TriTe" filmed and released the picture "The Book of Masters", based on the traditions of both Disney and Russian folk tales. Quite expensive in production (about 800 million rubles in today's money) the movie failed miserably. And not so much commercially, here just due to the global resources of "Disney" managed to come out in the plus, but precisely image. The public did not understand and did not accept the movie, it was quickly forgotten, but not by everyone. For example, not by Disney.
A still from the movie "The Last Bogatyr."
Five years "Disney" was working on the mistakes. He hired a classic of Soviet children's cinema Vladimir Grammatikov, attracted the best American script doctors and scripts sent there to jointly achieve the ideal modern family product. One that would be based on national traditions, but at the same time could easily enter international markets and become part of a common Disney library. That's how "The Last Bogatyr" came to be. The fall of 2017 can be considered the new birth of the Russian fairy tale film.
The ingredients of success were several. First, the main character was chosen not a folkloric character, but a "gotadanets", a swindler Vanya, a star of TV air and a threat to gullible young ladies. Thus two realities, ours and folklore, collided within the plot, giving birth to many amusing parallels and conflicts.
Secondly, the character system was built in a completely Disney way, so that the main character got a motley group of friends and traveled with them together, in contrast to the traditions of a magical fairy tale. Each character was rewritten in an ironic Disney way, something we've seen many times in their classic adaptations of other fairy tales.
A still from the movie "The Last Bogatyr."
Third, "Bogatyr" was high-tech, with fully computerized characters (such as Vodian), and therefore looked very modern, without any discount. Plus elements of musical, open ending, social satire were introduced. But most importantly, it all existed in perfect balance for a family audience.
Production was handled by a new to the market studio Yellow, Black and White, and the director was chosen Dmitry Dyachenko, a newcomer to fantasy, but a specialist in comedies, who worked with "Quartet I" and filmed the superhit STS "Kitchen".
What happened then, everyone knows. "The Last Bogatyr" became not just a hit, he created a trend for fairy tale movies, set the bar and raised it himself in the next incarnations - at least in the technological sense. But in 2022, Disney left the Russian market and the question arose as to what would happen to the franchise next. And even the TV series "Legacy" did not fully answer this question, although it was made quite well. Moreover, it became a big event among family TV content.
"Finist" - for the whole family
It is clear that in such a situation a lot was expected from "Finist", and at the same time we were afraid that the balance, which was discussed above, could not be maintained. In addition, the difficulty was with the main character: Finist had been present in past movies and the series, and it was necessary to either give a story about how he became a narcissistic weirdo who was impossible to be around, or go some other way. You couldn't construct this story as a story of re-education, unlike Vanya in The Last Bogatyr, or it would have contradicted the "lore". But most importantly, it was necessary to make "Finist" stand out against the background of numerous movie-stories, which now come out two a month and almost all are suspiciously similar to the very "Last Bogatyr" that spawned them.
A still from the set of the movie "Finist. The First Bogatyr"
The creators of the movie took several steps that changed the concept of the movie, but marked a vector, which, probably, Yellow, Black and White will go further in case of success of the picture. The first innovation - there is no direct clash of realities, we are only in a fairy tale, but there are elements of our everyday life, which are gratefully accepted by the viewer. Thus, Finist wears fashionable glasses, there are some kind of "robots" in the frame, even a "helicopter" appears - this is not a spoiler, everything is in the trailer. And Finist also sells his own merch. Of course, at the level of vocabulary everything is also as modern as possible.
The second innovation is the localized plot. In fact, everything is built around one particular journey of Finist to the eastern city from Arabian fairy tales and the feats he accomplished there. This allowed the creators of the picture to concentrate on working out details and characters, because the last movie about "The Last Bogatyr" was, perhaps, oversaturated.
A still from the set of the movie "Finist. The First Bogatyr."
Third - "Finist" is arranged in such a way that it can be watched by a new audience that has not seen the past movies or the series. We are not introduced, as is often the case in Marvel blockbusters or anime, to a world that takes a long time to navigate, but are introduced to the characters and topography in a calm and unhurried manner. Here's Finist, a narcissistic, arrogant, reckless bogeyman who is willing to go to the stars for glory. A parody of Don Quixote, and he has his own Sancho Panzo, Melekha, too. Here is the village where he is carried in his arms. Here is Baba Yaga, who sits on rejuvenating potions and is ashamed of her age. Then there's the ship, the Orient, the mysterious old man whose palace is crammed with machinery. A talking camel with a handsome owner. And a mysterious monster protecting a sad beauty. Everything is very simple, but written in such a way that it will be remembered for a long time. And to look forward to the sequel.
A still from the set of the movie "Finist. The First Bogatyr"
Of course, it's a pity that there is no Vodian and Koschei in the movie, it's sad without them. But there is an exotic oriental world, reminding the viewer of Aladdin, and Ali Baba, and the Chinese cult of the tortoise, and at the same time about the ancient Greeks, because the monster, with which Finist fights, is clearly ofancient origin. At the same time, the Disney tradition is also partly preserved here. Heroes again travel in a big company, bickering, falling in love and betraying each other. Most of the situations are solved in a comic way, everything is very harmless and friendly. This, by the way, is the main difference between "Finist" and its main competitor in the New Year vacations, the fairy tale "The Wizard of Emerald City". "The Wizard" gravitates to "The Hobbit", there are a lot of loud and frightening scenes, it is an attraction for older children, rather for teenagers, and the humor there is rather 12+. "Finist" is a confident 6+, even more so than Soviet fairy tales, and if a child likes "Disney" and the trilogy "The Last Bogatyr", everything will be clear to him from the first to the last frame.
At the same time, it is funny that just today the image of a dangerous scientist, which is more typical of a Hollywood mass product, appears in the movie. Anyone who has watched American blockbusters knows that if a scientist, then a mad, creepy one, dreams of taking over the world. All this is built on the strong class stratification within American society and distrust of "eggheads" who are always up to something. This is less characteristic of Russia, and although Galichev's physicists turned the Earth backwards, we have more trust in science. The image is a bit alien to our culture, but it is true that the scientist there is not ours, but a foreign one, so perhaps this is the game with the audience.
A still from the set of the movie "Finist. The First Bogatyr."
But perhaps the most important thing is that "Finist" is practically devoid of edification. That is, of course, it is clear that evil is bound to lose to good, but it is also shown that the first impression is often deceptive, and the second and third too. That everyone can make mistakes, and that judging others is not a very noble thing to do. That the world is diverse and complex, and we must learn to accept each other. That charming for those who understand, all our stupidity and petty villainy against the background of something much more important and high. If "The Finist" teaches us anything, it is a magnanimous nobility that would seem contrived and silly if it weren't so self-ironic. If it continues in this tone, "The Finist" and the other films in the "Last Bogatyr" universe will do just fine - and so will the brains of the children who come to see it.
