Without denying the film's merits as an
action flick, critics have already accused director
Yevgeny Lavrentyev of confusing reality with fantasy.
They were completely off base, however. The director
knew the difference between what was going on in the
film and what happens in real life. He made a film about
the way things should be, not the way they are. The film
inspires pride in a country that can produce strong
films and in a country that dreams of having strong
security forces.
It seems that action movies are the only
place in Russia today where reality is clearly separate
from fantasy and where actors do not confuse themselves
with the roles they are playing. Sure, we have already
gotten used to announcers pretending to be journalists
and guys in sweaters pretending to be analysts. Yet this
autumn's events in Ukraine demonstrated that live
television coverage is actually one of the performing
arts.
This would not be a big deal, however,
if there were a director behind the televised scenes who
faithfully summarized events and wrote a plotline for
the average television viewer. The horrible truth is
that there seem to be no faithful summaries. Statements
by Russian representatives during the course of the
Ukrainian elections suggested that they were getting
their information from the same television coverage they
were supposedly running. The over-identification of
actors with their roles made viewers feel completely cut
off from reality.
The surreal trend continued with the
recent Yuganskneftegaz auction. No one seems to know how
Rosneft came up with the $9 billion needed to buy
Yugansk. How do we know whether Rosneft ever paid a
cent? Only from the speeches of federal officials on
television. Maybe they are simply reading from a
prearranged script. Sberbank then reads its lines that
certain guarantees have indeed been paid. That $9
billion should show up in the federal budget somewhere.
How will we know it appeared? From State Duma deputies?
Half of them are merely cartoon characters. If someone
draws them without mouths, they won't say a word. It is
possible that Yugansk was bought for free, and we were
shown an economic soap opera. With these surreal media
dramas unfolding, the fantastic adventures of an FSB
major are the least of our worries.
Konstantin Sonin is an assistant
professor at the New Economic School/CEFIR.
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