Not determined by time: how the "Comeback" with Alexander Petrov turned out
The new "Word of the Kid"? The best role of Alexander Petrov? The "brother" of the twenties? The series "Comeback" is one of the main intrigues of the season. Without premieres at festivals and any preliminary activities, he was released on Kinopoisk, and only Petrov himself managed to launch the flash mob #Comeback, which readers of his social networks actively join. Izvestia watched the first two episodes of the new show and shares conflicting impressions.
Alexander Petrov's "Comeback"
Alexander Petrov spoke to Izvestia in January of this year before the premiere of the film "Vasya" and said that the most expensive recent project for him at that moment was "Comeback". Filming had only recently ended.
— A well-written script, excellent drama, an unexpected role for me. It's a pleasure to work on such material," he explained. — The series starred great artists, and I've wanted to work with Lesha Chadov for a very long time. The last time we starred together in some past life was in the movie "Love in the Big City 3". It was one of my first experiences in cinema, and Lyosha was already a big star back then. In the Comeback, he plays the main antagonist, and we have some very bright, cool scenes with him.
Actor Alexey Chadov
Months have passed since that conversation, but the creators of the "Comeback" based on Ilya Kulikov's script were in no hurry to lay their cards on the table. All the TV series festivals were held, but not even the pilot episode was shown at any of them. But October has come, and the "Comeback" suddenly comes out, almost without warning, out of the blue. And by the way, Alexey Chadov is not in the first episodes, which means that we will not see the "chemistry" of the actors yet. But what will we see anyway?
When the events of the "Comeback" take place
The year is 2004. This is reported to us mainly through the cutting of television news and music videos of that time, they create a background for the narrative, but so far they have little effect on what is actually happening. In the meantime, what we see is clearly done with a reference to the "Word of the Kid." The main characters are high school students, a girl named Dasha and her three friends: Yura, Ptakha and Oleg. They come from different families, each of which is a microcosm with its own rules. Somewhere, a prostitute mother drags men home and is ready to trade her own daughter. Somewhere, the father returned from the zone and teaches his son to survive by the rules of the thieves. A very bright family, where everything is decided by the mother of a businesswoman, and the seemingly brutal alpha father must obey, because he does not bring money to the family. The school, courtyards, basements, city streets, family — these are the main scenes on which the action will unfold. It's just like in "The Word of a Kid."
A shot from the TV series "The Word of a kid"
The adult friend of the guys and the catalyst for action here will not be Vova Adidas, who returned from Afghanistan, but a homeless man named Compote. He's covered in scars, dirty, overgrown, he's lost his memory, he doesn't even know his own name. But sometimes he sees strange images in flashbacks. And if you pin him to the wall, he turns into a "ninja," as the students say. He will stand up for the guys, they will help him deal with the past. And the time of action hints that the injuries of the Compote may have both a Chechen and a bandit trace. In any case, one look at Alexander Petrov's character is enough to understand that this man was not always a homeless man.
How the "Comeback" turned out
It turned out to be unusual. There is a lot implied in it, a lot laid down, but the series is clearly in no hurry to share it with us. Let's take the default figures alone. So, the word "comeback" in 2004 could only be associated with a line from one super hit that "the last thing I need is your comebacks." But there is no such song in the first two episodes. There are a number of other songs, but not as iconic.
A shot from the movie "Comeback"
What was the center of high school students' lives in 2004? At that moment, they were all divided into those who already had mobile phones, and those who for some reason did not have them yet. The former, in turn, were divided into those who have polyphonic calls and those who do not. 2004 is when people constantly call each other, but hang up after a few free seconds in order not to pay for the connection. These are calculations in dollars. It's an internet cafe where everyone is constantly hanging out. This is Chechnya, the upcoming military service, and the transformation of Russian television, which is moving to a new historical stage of its existence. These are gum inserts that have been replaced by picture chips. These are pagers that go back in time. This is the cult of "Titanic" and DiCaprio among girls, this is the universal infatuation of boys with Angelina Jolie. These are the first digital video cameras that everyone actively used. The disappearing but not yet extinct "new Russians".
Why isn't this in the series? Maybe there will be more, and all this is worth waiting for in the next episodes? Right now, 2004 is more of a splash screen than an action hero, and this is a very important era. Of course, she was not a "fat zero" for everyone, and from the authors of the "World! Friendship! Chewing gum!" waiting for the interpretation of time. But it is given so abstractly that almost everything here is easy to imagine in 2025. Maybe that's the calculation.
A shot from the TV series "Comeback"
On the other hand, it was around 2004 that Arman Yeritsyan shot his best film "Under the Open Sky" — it can still be viewed today, it is a recognized masterpiece of Russian documentaries. The authors of the series know this picture about two Yerevan homeless intellectuals, because the visual entourage of homeless life in the "Comeback" is based on Yeritsyan's painting, and there is even a direct quote from there: a homeless man plays a piano with poorly listening fingers. And this is fascinating, although, of course, the intimacy and at the same time realism of the "Open-air" Comeback avoids. And at some point, even cinephile twists the style towards a completely different movie bomb - the shit from the novel by Leos Carax in the Tokyo Almanac! Also, by the way, the time is not far from 2004.
A hungry girl and a homeless man are sitting there. He asks her, "Do you like dogs?" - "I love… What do you mean?!" she breaks off in horror. The best thing about comebacks is the dialogues. There's really a lot of accurate, aphoristic stuff that sticks in my memory. Petrov doesn't say much in the frame yet, so most of the successful lines went to the young artists. And it is they who are still showing themselves with full dedication, it is especially worth remembering Khetaga Khinchagova, his hero is trying to be worthy of his father "with concepts", and at the same time not to look like a beast in his relations with his friends. But in general, all these guys are great fellows, because the scriptwriters have created really deep proposed circumstances for them.: The characters feel bad in their family, at school, and on the street, and it's not easy for four friends to agree among themselves. Three guys are friends with one pretty girl, they are all growing up, and you have to go through the ordeal of first love and compete with each other without fully realizing it.
A shot from the movie "Comeback"
It is difficult to say whether the "Comeback" is waiting for the laurels of the "Word of the Kid". There is neither a nervous fresh hit like "Pyala", nor a powerful "adult" line (or rather, it has yet to manifest itself), nor any special conceptual key to the heart of every viewer. But all these claims are not well—founded, because they are based only on the first two episodes, and the only thing the authors can be blamed for now is that they have been harnessing for a long time. I want to believe that something grand is waiting for us, but in the meantime, we can review "Under the Open Sky", because even after twenty years, that film is not a single frame outdated.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
