The series by Alexander Kott, dedicated to the performance of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony in besieged Leningrad, became another reason for fans of historical projects to arrange a heated discussion on the Internet. Before the premiere of the film, there was some intrigue associated with the fact that more was expected from the series than from other projects about the war. And for some, these expectations were justified.
The film begins with a scene of an air raid in which the family of one of the main characters of the NKVD lieutenant Seregin (Alexei Kravchenko) is killed. From that moment on, almost all the main characters of the series begin to struggle for survival, at the same time trying to fulfill the seemingly completely tyrannical order to execute Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony in the besieged city so that on both sides of the front line it becomes clear to everyone: the city is still alive and does not surrender …
The plot and characters of the “Seventh Symphony” do not really resemble the already developed templates of modern TV series about the war. Usually, in these projects, a very noticeable border is immediately drawn between good and bad, after which both begin to speak in phrases that seemed to be written like a carbon copy. There are no good characters among the heroes of the Seventh Symphony. People are scared, they are starving and often do not understand what will kill them faster: a German bomb or a neighbor’s denunciation to the NKVD. Therefore, their actions are often motivated exclusively by personal interests and nothing heroic in their behavior can be traced.
“Let’s do something for art,” says conductor Karl Eliasberg (Alexei Guskov) and his orchestra starts playing Beethoven right after the bombing ends. Among all the merits of Eliasberg, what stands out is what he collected in besieged Leningrad and brought eighty half-dead musicians into proper shape for the sake of performing Shostakovich’s most complex work. According to the plot, among the motives that prompted him to carry out an almost impossible order, there was the opportunity to free his wife, who was arrested on a denunciation, as well as the prospect of saving his orchestra members from starvation thanks to increased rations.
But as the performance develops, it becomes clear that the main motive for the conductor is precisely to do something for art. “Karl Eliasberg was absolutely a man of art, he didn’t understand anything else,” says Alexey Guskov. – The often quoted phrase of Mstislav Rostropovich: “Between life and death there is nothing but music” – this is the most accurate of the characteristics that I can give my hero. ” In Guskov’s interpretation, the famous conductor hears notes rather than sees people, and in his icy gaze there is often disdain for those who do not really understand what, in fact, a great musician does.
In the orchestra, which gathers bit by bit, the morals are not that bohemian. News of the death of loved ones, bombing and visits by NKVD officers keep people on the brink of despair. They are trying by any means, including forging food stamps, to alleviate the situation of their relatives and the general idea does not seem to unite them very much. But as we move towards that very concert, it becomes clear that great art can save human souls even in disastrous situations. At the present time, it is not the most ideological message, and the very fact that it sounded can already be considered good news.
Any serial or film project, which is declared as historical, is immediately viewed as if under a magnifying glass by a biased public, uniting both specialized experts and simply lovers of quarreling. The Seventh Symphony, predictably, fell on such critics. There were indeed many reasons for indignation.
The creators of the series never said that they were engaged in an accurate reconstruction of events and carefully transferred the biographies of the main characters to the screen. Nevertheless, historically savvy citizens immediately noted that some of the storylines, in particular those related to the arrest of Eliasberg’s wife, were clearly far-fetched. As well as a line of a kind of antagonism between the conductor and the lieutenant of the NKVD, who was appointed to help and at the same time control the creative intelligentsia. The significance of the concert under the bombs was so important that they tried to help Eliasberg in every possible way, for which there is archival evidence.
Even more passions flared up around the visualization of the heartbreaking siege tragedy. “Another anti-Sovietism”, “fake storytelling method”, “well-fed people are playing, all men are clean-shaven, women are combed, the main thing is there is no starving glint in their eyes” … It is very likely that it is not easy to play hunger for modern actors. Maybe the costumes that were chosen for Alexei Guskov look too dandy in contrast to the devastation. And Elizaveta Boyarskaya, who played a flute player from the orchestra, simply does not know how to be not a beauty, it just so happened by nature.
There is no consensus among moviegoers as to whether feature films should pretend to be documentaries. There is even more controversy regarding the ideological savvy of historical projects. Probably the degree of “anti-Sovietism” depends on the personal depravity of the sofa critics, but the degree of musicality of the “Seventh Symphony” is difficult to question. Try to think of a TV show where the soundtrack is mostly Shostakovich. And in this case, the picture and the sound were clearly at the same time.
.