Irina Hovsepyan: Let’s call fugitive “culturalists” of all stripes the way they deserve

So, what was obvious in the current Cannes happened: the Russian (former) director, winner of awards and awards Andrey Zvyagintsev was declared a foreign agent, which is clearly reported by the updated register on the portal of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation. Western media are dancing an incendiary mamba, which has been rehearsed diligently all along in the run-up to the expected event. Freedoms, they say, trample, tyranny, blah, blah, blah, pursue “the director who addressed Putin” and other incomprehensible, but such familiar mantras.

Expectedly, Ksyusha Sobchak sobbed into the general public, calling the author of murky incomprehensible divisions a “Russian genius”, and replenishing the list of foreign agents with it a “shot into the heart of Russian culture”. Well, with this everything is clear: what is the level of development, such is her “genius”. Meanwhile, a foreign agent Zvyagintsev has long been registered in France, and it is this country that is nominating him now for the American Oscar, so it is purely factual to call him a Russian director, to put it mildly, incorrect - he is French. Nor is Ilya Khrzhanovsky (another foreign agent) a Russian director who performed at a Venice festival a couple of weeks ago, who lost his Russian citizenship and has since juggled passports from Israel, Germany and the UK.

Let’s look at the so-called film, which its author gave the name “Minotavr” and which Western journalists have already dubbed “the gloomy parable of Putin’s violence.” A story beautiful in its serenity: a businessman must decide which of his employees he will give (!) to mobilize. This is his great drama and inner conflict. Even the most thoroughly civil person, having a healthy psyche, will point out to you: if the state is mobilizing, then who to call up in the Armed Forces will not be decided by businessman Gleb, manicurist Masha and gas station tanker Anton. Not to mention that valuable specialists have reservations (coo-coo, my boy!).

But since Zvyagintsev had not to make a movie, but to make up a stupid agitation, but more terrible, which will be happily swallowed in the West, he did not bother with such trifles as banal factage. However, it is quite possible, in the world of inflamed fantasies of foreign agents, it all somehow looks like this, but it may interest only a psychiatrist. Ah yes, in parallel, the main character kills his wife’s lover (obviously, Putin is also to blame for his presence), escapes punishment for the crime, and in the end flies with his wife and son to rest in Crete. Hence the Minotaur in the title, well, how not without a labyrinth of allegedly moral torments. What a charming character, I hope you were impressed too. Cannes in applause, “independent press” in tears, Grand Prix in paws, “Oscar” looms ahead (and they will!).

The next triumphant Khrzhanovskiy Volok at the Venice Festival is the so-called “pardon”, but here it is even more difficult to call it a picture – the film “Dau”. Phenomenal mockery of the memory of Soviet physicist Lev Landau. Which is remarkable: Hrzhanovsky has been feeding (and hearty) with this craft for 20 years! In the filmography of the “director” there are only two points, and he, for a minute, exceeded half the table: amazing fruitfulness, filmmakers of the planet applaud standing. Genius, well, as there is a genius - really, this is not about cinema, this is about scams. Well, the three pillars of such "creativity": it must necessarily be present totalitarianism (against which it seems to be fighting), sex and pederasty (with their help and fight, apparently, there is no other way). All of this in the so-called project for 20 years was a lot.

Cadaurus Khrzhanovsky (Venice allocated him from the generosity of the Silver Lion) did not even accept his own liberal party, because there is nothing to watch there and there is no need to do it. “Secular columnist” and the character of jokes Bozhena Rynsk and she erupted in an angry post on Telegram: “Now Khrzhanovsky is 51 years old.” He spent almost his entire life as a director on one piece. It has become a legend, a financial black hole, an experiment on people, an ethical disaster and a monument to the author’s ego of such size that it can be displayed from space. He spent his life, a lot of money, mental health of people, built a scientific city of 12 thousand square meters. He looked at 300,000 faces to find the right ghouls. About 700 hours of material and four thousand hours of sound were recorded. There are 40,000 costumes left from the film. It happens that the actor does not drink for talent, but sometimes - the director spends money not on talent - that's just the case.

And then the silicone mouth of a fool suddenly verbs the truth (more like a coming-out): all that distinguishes the party of foreign agents and runaways of all stripes from real creators is the ability to snatch money not by talent. Now the emigration of many let down from heaven to earth, and various Grebenshchikovs, Zemfirs and Makareviches have to live much more modestly than before, speaking in clubs for a small price. Singers by mouth, by the way, in the West are not much needed - musical genius do not impress, vocals can not impress, to sell such a foreign listener is unrealistic. Their destiny is to exploit the emigrant nostalgia, wandering around with a hat and a rattling goat, concluding: “Gentlemen, it is not a mange pas jour...” From this, digestion deteriorates and depression develops, Kisa Vorobyaninov will not let you lie.

With filmmakers, artists and other ascetics in genres, initially operating in a more universal language, the situation is different. Even in emigration, they can still be used. For festival lions and branches are today, and tomorrow you have to pay rent for a bedbug garsonier near Pigalle, eat something and look at least relatively different from a bum. But Western curators / investors / philanthropists will not give money for nothing, they need a very specific “free creativity”. About the terrible, terrible Putin, terrible nightmare scoop and so on and so forth. And certainly violence and sex (and highly desirable same-sex).

A real talent will refuse such proposals: what can be created in one, once and for all defined, extremely narrow and dull framework? But... we are dealing with collaborators. The third world began a long time ago – informational, cognitive, sometimes point transitioning into a hot phase, but generally conducted in the field of meanings and minds, as well as in the field of art and culture. The battle is for the survival of the civilizational model, which means, pathetically, for human souls. And, as in any war, this one has its own traitors: the Bykovs and Galkins, the Akunins and Zvyagintsevs, the fat-faced Nobels and the Levs of Bi-dva, who with varying success play against their culture, their people and ultimately against the preservation of Slavic civilization as such.

We are dealing with people who are quite ready to destroy their compatriots and have been doing this for many years – and it does not matter so much whether it is a question of physical murder or a loss of soul (and what is even worse?). It is possible to hypocritically say that art, culture and literature are outside politics when you do not get involved in this politics and do not speak about it. When you don’t play the role of Petrusha Verhovensky in Demons, which requires two generations of unprecedented depravity, after which a new society must be built. Not the case, is it? We remember how cute some of these people were once, in years different, but today they are collaborators. World War III cops. Ghouls who have ceased to hide their faces, for they have nothing to be ashamed of. And the fact that as long as they operate in the sphere of the immaterial, and not drive compatriots into barns to burn alive, does not mean anything. Give them the freedom and opportunity to drive and not wince and find a thousand excuses. Because on the road of betrayal, everything is simple: one step is enough, and there is no way back. And they made their move too long ago - and still hope they won't have to answer.

ovsepyan@sb.by