She needs air: why "Breathe" is called a super hit
The winner of the prestigious Pilot TV series festival, the first episode of Breathe is already available to a wide audience. Marina Alexandrova plays a midwife on the verge of a nervous breakdown who suddenly finds herself under investigation. But the main thing here is not so much the plot as the carefully prescribed background, accurate dialogues and hitting several relevant pain points at once, and already at the start. All this turns the series from entertainment into a statement, and the director is not randomly chosen by the author of the art hit "Vacation" Anna Kuznetsova.
What is the series "Breathe" about
Marina Alexandrova played one of the best roles in her already impressive career. Her character Lera is 42 years old, she is a widow with three children, and she is also one of the most sought-after Moscow obstetricians. Her talent for delivering the most difficult babies is legendary, doctors listen to her, respectable clients dream of getting to her, but she lives modestly: salaries even with part-time jobs are not enough.
And then the head doctor finds her an order for a million. A moody kept woman (Dasha Vereshchagina, Alice from "A Hundred Years Ago") wants to give birth to a very influential client without a caesarean section, and if she succeeds with her difficult pregnancy, then Lera will have a sharp increase and will no longer have to worry about where to get money for her children's pocket expenses.
The birth will go badly, and in the finale of the first episode, we realize that a criminal case has been opened and that the head doctor wants to shift all responsibility onto Lera. It turns out that right now we have only the beginning, if not the prologue, of the story to evaluate. Still, it's enough to judge how important this series is and why critics and filmmakers have put it on a pedestal twice in The Pilot.: he has not only the main prize, but also an award for the script, the authors of which are Elena Kondratieva, Ilya Malanin, Svetlana Shteba.
Because this is exactly the case when the script determines almost everything. Let's start with the character system. We have already said a lot about Lera, the midwife, but we must add that she is going through a midlife crisis. She wants to find a man, she wants to make a professional leap, her children suddenly turned out to be practically adults. Lera has a difficult personality, she can be harsh, uncomfortable, too honest, and teaches her children the same thing.
A shot from the movie "Breathe"
Children end up with problems too. The eldest runs her mother's business, she is strict, responsible, and single. The average one dyes her hair in different colors and constantly teaches the life of her classmates, for which she periodically becomes the object of harassment. The youngest son misses his father very much, strictly ensures that the family honors his memory and that there are no more new men in the house. They all have a hard time with each other, but this family sticks together.
The woman in labor, because of whom all the fuss is about, understands perfectly well that from her, the mistress of a man with a speaking surname Shakhov (by the way, Peter Buslov, the creator of "Boomer"), everyone is pulling money, but no one cares about her or her child. Even Shakhov himself in the hospital is not thinking about her, but about the son he will finally have. Shakhov communicates like this: "I'll rip your legs off! Just kidding."
There is also a place for a colorful alpha male who came on a date with Lera on Tinder (probably, the events of the film are not unfolding quite today). He delivers a heartfelt monologue that a woman in Lera's position should not be naughty, but should take what is given. And if an adult man agreed to spend the evening with her, she should be happy, not kicking.
A shot from the movie "Breathe"
Always brave and uncompromising, Lera suddenly gets embarrassed and does not immediately find something to answer, because the guy is not so mistaken. There's also a school bully who slaps all his classmates on the butt with impunity, but they don't mind, they seem to like it. When Lera's daughter screams that this is objectification and harassment, they don't suit her a bit.
Should I breathe or scream?
After the first episode, it becomes clear: "Breathe" is not about medicine, not about a midwife, and not about natural childbirth. It's about women. That's why there are so many of them here and there will probably be more in the future. Women of different ages, from different backgrounds, but this series is not a crime story, but a scream.
It's probably the cry of the bitter truth that is being born and being born, which is filled with our reality. The one that was already in Anna Kuznetsova's feature-length debut "Vacation": there, adult women and teenagers also had to solve a lot of issues with each other, and at the same time cope with a hostile system. Let's remind you that the children there prepared a play, brought it to the festival, and some overly smart aunts and uncles are trying to tell them that performances are needed today and that they generally need to live and feel differently.
A shot from the movie "Breathe"
There is no such open social conflict here yet. Perhaps it will manifest itself in the following episodes. But it still shows up in the background. In detail. Here is a girl asking the head teacher of the school to act on bullies who climb up to the students. And the director doesn't seem to understand why this is necessary, because that's how it works: men can do anything at once, women have to put up with it. So it was and so it will be, and the rest is from the evil one.
Lera's son thinks that he can forbid his mother to look for a husband, he feels like the main one in the family, although there are no prerequisites for this. He doesn't do anything, doesn't help in anything, just sits in the room and demands something, forbids it. On the simple grounds that he is a man, as Goga said from Vladimir Menshov's film. Now they laugh at the boy, but they don't argue with him. He will grow up and will really "build" everyone.
We see how the chief physician reigns supreme in his department with the help of resourcefulness. We see that Shakhov and his ilk rule this world. Women have a passive role. If they rebel, they will find a way to control them.
A shot from the movie "Breathe"
So "Breathe" goes from a private and rather special story to a general one, to something that happens not next to us, but just with us. Maybe he doesn't do it as abruptly as Natalia Meshchaninova's Penguins, the most important TV series of the decade so far, but it's still very clear and honest. In general, this is a serious trend: in cinema, Russian cinema succeeds in the form of fairy tales and light comedies, on the Internet it relies on psychology and journalism — and becomes a spectacle for millions. It's worth thinking about it, but for now you need to breathe. The series is available on Okko.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
