Known for Acting
Viktor Ryzhakov takes charge of the Sovremennik theatre after the death of Galina Volchek, who led the troupe for almost half a century and enjoyed absolute authority. For the theatre’s first new production, the new artistic director chooses a play about a family whose members have ceased to understand each other. While working on the play, the director and actors become more and more like the characters in the future production, and find it increasingly difficult to find mutual understanding within their “theatrical family.”
This film is not about Oleg Yankovsky in the usual sense: not a biography of a great actor, not a review of roles. And not the sharp facts from his personal life. Although it's all in the film: a dramatic fate, unknown pages of biography. Like any great actor, he possessed a secret - he did not tell both in the movies and in life. But his main gift was not even acting. Yankovsky was talented at making people fall in love with him. I wanted to look at him again and again: that's why they loved him and still love him.
Oleg Yefremov was one of the most beloved actors and directors in Russia. He was the founder of the Sovremennik (Contemporary) Theatre and later became the artistic director of the Moscow Art Theatre. The film shows him in a moment of extreme dramatic tension: Yefremov has decided to split the repertory company into two. His aim is to re energize a stagnant group of actors and move them away from an artistic "dead end". The company, split into supporters and detractors discusses the situation on very heated terms. The situation mirrors the overall climate of a country and a society shaken by the changes brought about by perestroika.
One soviet programmer has problems in his job. He is laughed at by women, they think he is too awkward. His chiefs are giving no rest to him. In addition to that they give him very difficult project to be done very soon. Overcoming himself he does impossible. After closing away in his office and spending there several days and nights without sleep he finds some solution and immediately fells asleep. After waking up after very surrealistic dream he surprises of what has happened while he was asleep. And the miracles have just started for him…
Andrey Pavlovich Buzykin, who makes a living by teaching at an institute and translating English literature, is cheating on his wife. Buzykin's main problem is that he's a kind man with a weak character. The lies he is telling his wife all the time are inconvincing, but he never has the courage to tell her the truth. His lover, Alla, is aware of his family life, but gets offended when, for example, he cannot meet her so that he doesn't come home late, or when he doesn't want to go home in a new jacket she gives him to avoid having to explain to his wife. Alla and Nina, Andrei's wife, both leave him, forgive him, and return to him at the same time, and Andrei continues with this kind of life, full of suffering and deceit. Finally, both women are so fed up with his lies that they don't believe him even when he is telling the truth...
A sequel to the well-known story about a Little Red Riding Hood (Krasnaya Shapochka). This time, a family of a slain wolf decides to avenge his death. So they falsely inform Little Red Riding Hood that her grandma is sick and prepare to eat her on her way.
A little Mermaid falls in love with a Prince whom she saves during a storm. Using all kinds of magical incantations in exchange for the Mermaid’s beautiful blue hair, a witch replaces her fish tail with human legs, making it possible for the Mermaid to walk and live on earth at the cost of great pain with every step she takes. The Little Mermaid willingly suffers through these trials only to be near her beloved. But the Prince, not realizing how lucky he is, becomes enamored with a beautiful but vain princess.
This little-seen and little-discussed film combines animation with self-reflexive, live action segments to embody the anarchic, satiric spirit of the poet and playwright Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930). The film also showcases Sergei Yuktevich's fondness for formal experimentation. It is nominally adapted from Mayakovsky's play "The Bedbug" and his screenplay "Forget All About the Fireplace."
