Assa 32 Years Later: Why Movie Stars Disappeared From Screens

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

Premiere of Sergei Solovyov's film "Assa" in the late 1980s. became a real event not only for movie fans, but also for music lovers - thanks to the music of Boris Grebenshchikov and Viktor Tsoi, the film was called the main film of Russian rock. This film became a cult film for the generation of the 1980s, the premiere caused a real stir at the box office of cinemas. The main roles were played by non-professional actors - physician Tatyana Drubich and artist Sergei Bugaev. How their fates developed in the future and why they disappeared from the screens - further in the review.

Oddly enough, but in the process of creating the film, Sergei Soloviev was guided by Indian cinema, which was incredibly popular then in the USSR. Of course, parallels can only be drawn with regard to the large amount of music and in the general plot scheme. The director explained: "".

A young musician and avant-garde artist Sergei Bugaev, who moved from Novorossiysk to Leningrad at the age of 14, became one of the youngest participants in the legendary rock party, whose spiritual leader was Boris Grebenshchikov. There he met Viktor Tsoi and Sergei Kuryokhin, with whom he played in the same group. And since Bugaev at that time was fascinated by ideas about the African roots of Russian culture, he earned the nickname Africa. Who introduced him to Bugaev, Soloviev later could not remember, but at the first meeting with him he realized: this is how the main character of his film should be - a young informal spitting on public opinion, a harbinger of an era of change.

Initially, the film was supposed to be called "Hello, Bananan Boy" - after the title of the song of Yuri Chernavsky's rock album "Banana Islands". And the word “Assa” was suggested to the director by Sergei Bugaev, who in one of his interviews explained it like this: “”. And the director himself preferred to laugh it off when asked about the strange title of the film, stating that it was an abbreviation "Author Soloviev Sergey Alexandrovich".

After filming Sergei Solovyov's film, Bugaev did not plan to continue his acting career - he continued to paint and create installations that were exhibited both in Russia and abroad, was one of the co-founders and authors of the Cabinet magazine. In the 1990s. he became interested in politics, he was even called Putin's confidant.

Tatyana Drubich, who played the main female role in the film, was also not a professional actress. Her film debut took place at the age of 12, and a year later she played in the film by Sergei Solovyov "One Hundred Days After Childhood", from which their acquaintance began. When she was 14 and he was 28, they began an affair, and 9 years later Tatiana became the director's wife. However, she did not seriously think about the acting profession. Drubich graduated from the Medical Institute and worked as an endocrinologist at a Moscow polyclinic.

In 1987, Soloviev, who at that time was already her husband and the father of their two-year-old daughter, convinced her to star in his film. In the same year, simultaneously with "Assa", in the same Crimea, Drubich starred in Stanislav Govorukhin's film "Ten Little Indians", which was called the first Soviet thriller. She did not like to remember filming in "Asse": "".

Critics called her one of the most profound actresses of Russian cinema, but Tatyana Drubich herself had a low opinion of her acting abilities, called herself an "actress by mistake" and did not want to continue her film career. A year after the premiere of "Assa" they parted with Solovyov, but the director has filmed it in his films more than once. In the 1990s, Drubich went into business - she opened a nightclub in Moscow, and later organized her own pharmaceutical company in Germany. In addition, she is involved in charity work. Since then, she practically did not act in films. Her last film work at the moment was the role in the film "Rita's Last Tale" in 2011.

Soloviev saw only Stanislav Govorukhin in the role of the "master of life", the bandit Krymov. At first, he refused to act, because at that moment he was working as a director on his own film, but Solovyov managed to convince him. And on the very first day of shooting, they had a conflict. Govorukhin tried to give advice to Soloviev as a colleague, to which he replied: "". There the angry Govorukhin went. True, the result of their joint work amazed everyone - this role became one of the best in the acting biography of Stanislav Govorukhin.

The popularity and recognition of "Assa" brought another actor - Viktor Beshlyage. The Lilliputian circus performer has acted in films since 1968 and became one of the smallest actors in the USSR: his height is 140 cm. But "Assa" was his last film work. After that, he returned to his homeland, to Moldova, and no longer appeared on the screens.

The appearance of Viktor Tsoi in the film was a triumphant one. At that time, Soloviev did not know who he was. When he appeared on the set along with other musicians whom the director planned to use in the crowd scene, Choi seemed uninteresting to him. And later Soloviev heard his songs and decided to make him one of the heroes of the film. The scene of his concert was filmed at the Green Theater in Moscow. His real fans were invited there, and he really performed in front of them on stage. People came 4 times more than planned, they demanded the performance of their idol and did not want to hear about the filming process. At some point, the director felt uncomfortable - the crowd was uncontrollable. But Choi coped with the situation - after working out his scene in the film, he continued the promised free concert. And on the set in Yalta, the musician met his last love - Natalia Razlogova, the director's assistant. 3 years after filming, the artist was gone - he died in a car accident.

And his music remains relevant in our time: Viktor Tsoi's song "Change!"