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- The sadness of vice: the Russian response to the "Real Detective" with Tribuntsev has been released
The sadness of vice: the Russian response to the "Real Detective" with Tribuntsev has been released
Psychos, perverts, violence, drugs*, missing children and sex in public toilets — the Abduction series is presented as a concentrate of metropolitan vice, where investigators and criminals play out a common bloody spectacle. Timofey Tribuntsev, Marina Vasilyeva and other stars make the viewer wonder who the main character is here and whether there is at least one person among the actors who cannot be called a criminal or a monster. The gloomy, cynical and dynamic project will definitely not be lost this summer, although you don't have to wait for a good mood after watching it.
Why is everyone talking about "Abduction"
Despite the fact that it's summer now and there aren't many major online releases, the creators of the series are starting to put trumps on the table literally from the very first minutes. Already at the beginning of the first episode, the viewer is waiting for the inner kitchen of the elite investigation department, a bloody Oriental-looking woman, drugs planted on a teenager, quick sex in a public toilet, the missing grandson of a famous conductor, a suicide attempt, a girl playing with a real gun, blood, cynical humor, a positive pregnancy test...
But the series has just started, nothing has even happened yet. These are thick brushstrokes, catchy scenes, biting dialogues, and high stakes. And every few minutes, there is always a naked female breast or bags of white powder in the frame. And a slight touch of mystique, which remains to be seen how much it will thicken by the second half of the season.
"Abduction" is a cocktail where both "True Detective", "Dr. House", and "Dislike" are at once, and even, for example, Dominique Moll, whose recent works "Mysterious Murder" and "Case No. 137" are quickly guessed as sources of inspiration.
Of course, the eclecticism of the series can be annoying, just as the stylistic heterogeneity of Moscow architecture is annoying, but this is clearly a deliberate move. If the action took place in St. Petersburg, it would be hard to watch, but here the capital itself seems to dictate this blurriness, this eternal color difference, leaps from hero to hero, from farce to subtle drama, from a mystical thriller to a pure procedural, and from there to a soap opera or suddenly a European arthouse.
Who are the main characters of the Abduction series?
From the latter, the series borrowed the main character, police captain Aglaya (I wonder if she is named after the creative producer of the series Aglaya Smirnova), a peculiar and closed personality. They are often played by Isabelle Huppert. Smart, not allowing herself to feel and get attached, hiding her defenselessness under the mask of unjustified cruelty, Aglaya works in the most ungrateful place in the world: she investigates the crimes of her colleagues (the very greetings from Dominique Moll).
She lacks empathy, her principles are unclear, and she is so often sick in the frame that we realize long before the corresponding scene that she is pregnant and that she will immediately run to have an abortion because she hates children, and probably all other people too.
This is the biggest film role of actress Marina Vasilyeva's career, although she has another premiere in a week: the Window to Europe Film Festival will open with the dramedy "It's all her!", where her heroine will struggle with the crisis of 30 years.
Aglaya sleeps with investigator Ludov (Dmitry Kulichkov), who works under the infamous Vsevolod Kosinsky (Timofey Tribuntsev). It is not surprising that Kosinsky, a monster, a misogynist, a manipulator and practically a maniac— quickly learns about Aglaya's existence. "I'm an autistic and a moron, we don't keep others," he sums up caustically. What is much more surprising is that he seeks to transfer Aglaya to his men's department and gives this "Cat" (as Aglaya is called only by Kosinsky) the most responsible assignments in a high—profile case - the kidnapping of the grandson of the influential conductor Krechetov (Artur Vakha).
Garden of Divergent Paths
And that's where the character system starts to get complicated and turns into a garden of diverging paths. If this were a "True Detective", then the core of the plot would be the relationship between Aglaya, Ludov and Kosinsky. Kulichkov has long deserved a really big film role, but if he had performances of the Bukowski level in the theater, then he always gets a second plan on the screen.
So it is here: his character does not become the main character, and Kosinsky does not appear in the frame so often, he mostly performs the function of a sage. He has a lot of experience investigating kidnappings on his side. The cases that this scruffy character retells to the place and out of place are so similar to the real ones that at these moments reality seems to break into the closed and conventional world of the series.
Kosinsky is an antihero, he has crippled destinies on his conscience, perhaps the lives of victims, he is hated and feared, but for some reason he is still not under investigation. But he spends suspiciously much time educating Aglaya and does not engage in other investigations at all, which turns his image into an official one.
There is also a separate world of the Krechetov family, where the father is too influential and strong, the mother (Natalia Kurdyubova) is too tyrannical, the son (Rinal Mukhametov) is an unemployed drug addict running around Moscow in a sports car, the daughter—in—law (Isabelle Eidlen) is always half—naked and in every second scene tries to commit suicide, and the grandson, like us We know he's missing.
We see this family so often that we begin to suspect: that's where you really need to look for the main characters, and here you can see the influence of the film "Dislike". And they also add the world of the Krechetov servants along with all her relatives, introduce new and new characters, and with them the world of Moscow hospitals, the world of fights without rules, the world of teenage drug addicts, and so on.
The most striking thing is that the open-ended plot, head-on moves combined with unexpected twists and constant repetitions not only do not harm the series, but, on the contrary, admire how cleverly all this chaos is harmonized in the script and tangible threads are stretched from one dialogue to another, complicating our perception of what is happening.
Of course, someone may ask why the boy himself ends up being of little interest to anyone in the investigation of the boy's disappearance, but the authors don't just put a programmatic remark into Kosinsky's mouth.: "Emotions are almost facts. The main thing is to be able to achieve them." That's right, and in relation to this series, even the word "almost" can be safely removed.
* Illegal consumption of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances, and their analogues is harmful to health, their illicit trafficking is prohibited and entails liability established by law.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
