2023-06-23 00:05:27
A film about the selfless work of doctors during the coronavirus pandemic was released. Making an optimistic movie about the fact that our salvation is in our hands, director Roman Karimov, as if by chance, makes a less optimistic reservation: of course, provided that we have a lot of money
Early spring 2020, the very beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic. Former surgeon and now businessman Viktor Likhachev (Anton Batyrev – Andrey from Survive After) finds out that his elderly mother (Galina Sazonova, known from the TV series Molodezhka and Teachers in Law) is hospitalized, and rushes to her to to transport her from a simple hospital to some good one. This is where the mothers of rich and caring sons should lie.
It wasn’t there: while he was negotiating with the head physician (Sergey Lysov, known for the police series and the film “You are my only one”) and collecting his mother, the hospital, as if in an apocalyptic zombie horror, was cordoned off by armed National Guardsmen around the perimeter. Strict quarantine for two weeks, no one is allowed in or out. They react nervously to attempts to break through by force and break the hero’s nose. Having become a little sad and changed his bloody shirt, Victor understands that saving the drowning people is the work of the drowning people themselves, and is actively involved in the work of the hospital.
The idea to make a film that glorifies the feat of health workers during a pandemic belongs to Alexei Trotsyuk, one of the general producers of Yellow, Black & White (known for the films Cheburashka, The Challenge and Serf). Director Roman Karimov (“Walk, Vasya!”, “Inadequate People”) wrote the script for “Breathing” together with the real doctor Andrei Goncharov, who worked in the infectious disease department for patients with covid during the pandemic. How realistic the film depicts the work of doctors is for connoisseurs to judge, but otherwise, Breathing, where it needs to, easily neglects both historical accuracy and everyday plausibility.
/START / Yellow, Black & White
For the story, it is necessary that the hero be locked in the same hospital with mere mortals, and the authors do not come up with anything better than a semi-fantastic move with security officials in bulletproof vests. The authors want to oppose medicine to charlatan healers, and now the gullible mother of the hero constantly watches on TV some type advertising his miraculous ointments: judging by the frequency of the broadcasts, the scammer completely bought out the airtime on one of the federal channels. It is also hard to believe that Viktor, who sells medical equipment and has just arrived in Moscow from China (!), marvels at the masks on the streets of the capital and reacts as if he had not even heard of covid.
Not all is well with the film and with the narrative structure. A third of the screen time, the viewer is offered to follow the storyline of Victor’s friend and business partner (Daniil Vorobyov), who cannot choose between his wife (Evgenia Khrapovitskaya, known from the Trigger TV series) and her mistress (Vera Shpak, the film High-rise Building). All this drama takes place outside the hospital, has nothing to do with the pandemic, and it is completely incomprehensible why we are shown this in such detail at all. And what’s even worse: gradually the intrigue with the love triangle becomes almost more interesting than what happens to the main character, because in the main storyline there are no intrigues, in general, there. There is nothing that makes the viewer tensely expect what will happen next.
The line with corruption and the alleged villainy of the head physician develops sluggishly and ends more or less in nothing. In the relationship between the hero and the sharp but pretty doctor played by Irina Gorbacheva (already playing a medical worker in Khlebnikov’s Arrhythmia), on the contrary, everything is very predictable. People are working, Victor is morally changing, but a coherent narrative does not add up very well. Sometimes the heroes face problems, but the viewer does not have time to realize their significance and worry, as they are immediately solved thanks to courage and ingenuity. Or they do not decide, and then we are briefly shown the sad face of Victor, who has learned a bitter lesson.
/START / Yellow, Black & White
The wonderful Irina Gorbacheva plays a naked character (strong, strong-willed, and the list goes on), because nothing was invented for her character except a naked character. Almost never taking off his medical mask, Andrey Karako (“Cop Wars”) plays naked professionalism as an epidemiologist, because in his character there is nothing but naked professionalism. The rest of the doctors are shown in the background, as if Victor had not even met them in two weeks of living together in a confined space.
“Breath” lacks a plot-dramatic core, but on the other hand, as is often the case in Russian spirit-uplifting cinema, the ideological core is clearly visible. We are all in the same boat, and no one will help us except ourselves. Therefore, we must organize ourselves and not be afraid to break the rules – this is how we will be saved from misfortunes.
By this, “Breath” is a little like Soviet films, in which enterprising youth, in spite of cowardly bureaucrats, made life better and more fun (remember, for example, Ryazanov’s “Carnival Night”). But if the resource of this youth was pure Komsomol enthusiasm, in “Breathing” the main character’s money is the main resource. The excess of money allows Victor not only to buy all sorts of necessary things for the hospital, which then the character of Daniil Vorobyov secretly throws him over the hospital fence, but also to break the law without fear of punishment.
And if “Breath” was conceived as a story that our lives are in our hands, then perhaps it would be more logical to make the main character a person who would not have capital behind his back. But, apparently, the authors are well aware that it would be completely fantastic.
#Breath #alive #Vedomosti