Inconsistencies that annoy viewers in films about the USSR, shot in our time

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Like any great era of the past, many films and TV series are now being shot about the USSR. And heated debates flare up around everyone. Sometimes it seems that a little more, and in discussions on the Internet about only pictures of the past of dark energy, the moon will explode. Why are films showing Soviet reality from the twenty-first century criticized?

Dudes

Understandably, as in the case of most films about the Soviet Union, reviews are mainly divided along the ideological line: does the picture blacken the country for the sake of groveling in front of the West, or vice versa, honestly shows its horrors. But there is also a purely objective criticism.

For example, lovers of the real history of Soviet fashion noticed one detail. For most of the film, the costumes of dudes and "normal" citizens copy the aesthetics of Soviet cartoons. It was on these cartoons that the dudes dressed excessively brightly, while Soviet citizens are shown in neat gray clothes. In fact, the fabric, gray in color, was one of the rarest (if you do not count burlap as such), and it was the dudes who hunted for it, while ordinary citizens took conditional funny calicoes.

However, they object that it mainly concerned women. Hipster men did dress brighter. In addition, the director clearly uses this as a technique. The world around Mel grows dimmer as he discovers that people are reacting to him in increasingly unfriendly ways. The variegated fabric on women and girls is replaced by shades of gray, reaching dark gray on the bus. From the very beginning, in an unfriendly gray, only Komsomol members are representatives of the system itself.

Legend number 17

Valery Kharlamov was a real legend of Soviet sports. Named after Chkalov, a pilot who was admired by the entire Union. The son of an international communist friendship - a Soviet worker and a refugee from Spain. A boy who was banned from any sports - and who, most importantly in his image and biography, was a hockey genius. Talent, tragically lost in the prime of fame and vitality. His biography, of course, simply required a film adaptation.

The film "Legend No. 17" came out as bright as the real Valery Kharlamov. However, he was almost immediately accused of "miscasting" - the wrong choice of actors for the role. Known, among other things, for an unusually small athlete for a hockey player, he was played by Kozlovsky, an actor whose height exceeds one meter and eighty. And if in the dialogues they were able to remove it, creating the illusion of correct growth, then on the general plans the difference with the prototype is very clearly visible. In addition, the actor was picked up with a noticeably more northern appearance, apparently in a desire to please Russian tastes.

Not like the real Tarasov and charismatic, like the devil himself, Tarasov-Menshikov. At least outwardly. The character, as many argue, is just conveyed well.

There are also factual errors. It is clear that the story with a boy, a puppy and a bull at the very beginning of the film was added simply for the sake of maintaining the image - and in order to draw a beautiful parallel at the end. Which, I must say, would have looked brighter if Kharlamov had been played by a short actor, against whose background the “Canadians” would really look like angry bulls.

In fact, the match, in which Siberia lost dry, did not take place with the participation of Zvezda from Chebarkul (subordinate to the CSKA team), but directly with CSKA Novosibirsk, and Kharlamov did not play the role shown in the movies in his team's victory.

Tarasov in the frame now and then mentions the names and surnames of the players who, in fact, were not on the team. Brezhnev, for whose sake in the film Tarasov is offered to succumb to "Spartak", actually rooted just for CSKA. And in fact, the matches from Canada were not broadcast live, and the decisive goal with the Canadians in the match with the result "7: 3" was not scored at the behest of Kharlamov. And the car accident, which is shown in the frame, happened after all the events. Kharlamov did not recover after it. He died in this accident. Together with his young wife.

All other factual errors are in fact chronological staging of real events to make the narrative more compact, which is usually the case for cinematography.

Streltsov

Another picture about the famous Soviet athlete, only now a football player, caused massive indignation of the audience. The real criminal case in this film is presented by the intrigues of enemies who hid the athlete for nothing for twelve years behind bars. Both fans of the Soviet Union, outraged by the accusation against criminal justice of those years, and many opponents are indignant because of the very desire of the filmmakers to whitewash a real criminal. By the way, in reality, the authorities met Streltsov very much - he was released five years later, when the hype died down.

Other unpleasant features of Streltsov's behavior were also strongly cleaned up, so that with each frame the character on the screen becomes less and less like his prototype. For example, Streltsov did not get on the train to Leipzig, not because he slept sweetly in a childish way, but because he was deeply intoxicated by the time of departure.

The filmmakers are right in portraying the footballer as a person who does not recognize the rules, but they do not go all the way - because the denial of the rules with constant delays rarely ends. Streltsov never ended. Perhaps the film industry should better pay attention to the story of Streltsov after his release, when he rebuilt his life bit by bit and again reached sports heights, this time defeating himself.

House of Sun

The main complaints about Garik Sukachev's film are constant chronological discrepancies. The film is set in 1974. At the same time, they play on the “Basketball” machine from the eighties, hippie girls flaunt on their naked tanned bodies with pale traces of thongs (even the most desperate informal women did not wear them then), policemen wear caps of later years. But the "Volga" in the frame was taken just outdated - other models were widespread. Cars in those years were already quite actively purchased by citizens, so it is difficult to explain such a discrepancy by the habit of driving their father's cars.

In addition, the writer didn't bother to familiarize himself with the real hippie jargon, so they are often expressed as the youth of the late eighties and early nineties. Subcultural fashion is also heavily distorted.

The prototype for the Sun was Sunny, a real hippie. But his biography - which many lovers of the history of this movement did not like - was seriously changed. From the son of an official, he became the son of an admiral. Solnyshko practically fed and watered his company at his own expense (but without attracting funds from his father - Solnyshko was a speculator). And the epilepsy, which he suffered, was not perceived by anyone as a fatal disease, much less requiring surgery. When he died during an attack at forty-three, on the contrary, it was more of a surprise.

A separate area of criticism of the film is the racial diversity in the picture. It was considered a tribute to fashion, since in the Soviet Union, blacks and Asians were, they say, not to be found. However, it was the Soviet Union that launched free education programs for students from African, Latin American and Asian countries.

But not everything is so bad in the current cinema: 10 best TV shows about life in the USSR that convey the spirit of the times