In the autumn of the past year, the Rossiya-1 television channelpleased the viewer with an action series "Ashes". Reviews, however, have been mixed, despite the chic promotion, arranged long before the show. They mentioned both the exciting plot and the stellar composition of the painting. What were the critics unhappy with?
So, in 1938, the captain of the Red Army, IgorPetrova (played by Vladimir Mashkov) is waiting for Stalin's dungeons. At the same time, the thief Senka Ashes (Yevgeny Mironov) is taking the jewels stolen the day before in the thieving obshchak. Heroes are found in the train compartment. On the way, accomplices attack Ashes, but Captain Petrov interferes in the brawl at a decisive moment. Now he has on his hands a blood-stained body of a thief and a bag full of jewels. Petrov grasps the chance to avoid arrest and, disguising himself in Senka's clothes (not forgetting to dress up a lying thief in his form) and taking the treasure, disappears in an inconspicuous village. Then the Ashes with Petrov's documents will wake up in the military hospital and fall into the hands of the NKVD, and the former Red Army man will be in the clutches of bandits demanding the return of the obshchak.
The Great Patriotic War begins.Passed officer's training from a cellmate - an unbending military man (Vladimir Gostyukhin) - Senka, and now "Captain Petrov", successfully fights and attains the rank of colonel. A former Red Army soldier knocks together a gang that intercepts the fascists' values, which they are preparing for export to Germany. After the war, the gang, in the guise of prospectors, works at the mine and robs gold mined there. The fate of the former thief and former officer clashed in Karelia: now Colonel "Petrov" should catch a dangerous and cunning "Ashes". The stumbling block is Rita, the wife of the real Petrova, who is forced to become Petrov's fictitious wife. For her sake, the characters are ready to forget the duty, honor, and thieves' ethics. It turns out to be a tragic victim of a story with a substitute.
What caused the "Ashes" (TV series) reviews fromfilm critics? The TV-correspondent Arina Borodina did not have enough reliability. She reproached the creators of the series in the absence of logic and the psychological background of the actions of the characters. Let's close our eyes to the observation that after the rivers of blood spilled during torture, the clothes of the heroes remain immaculately clean. Suppose this is a convention. An artistic device can be called and countless coincidences, in which the characters are always there (and with those), where necessary. But why should such an officer, who is correct at the beginning of the film, who answers to his wife's alarmed offer to hide from the arrest, responds with an unshakable refusal and rides on the agenda to the People's Commissariat, suddenly become a fraudulent criminal? Yes, and Senka Ashes with its dark past does not look too believable in the guise of a brave and noble colonel-bearer who survived inhuman tortures. However, in order not to be exposed, he sometimes has to dissemble and dodge. And this, too, does not add integrity to the character that the authors are trying to recreate.
And what kind of work on the film "Ashes" reviewsleft the creators? An outrageous writer and blogger Eduard Bagirov, who wrote the script in co-authorship with Renat Khayrullin, on the eve of the premiere, guaranteed that the series would "tear to shreds" all the projects that had been up to now. Directed by Vadim Perelman (Hollywood celebrity, but originally from the USSR), he was also sure that the film was doomed to success. Producer Timur Weinstein did not doubt that this was "an entirely new level for domestic television." It was rumored that the film would compete with the "Meeting Point" (referring to S. Govorukhin's picture). Some alliteration really is: the ashes of a cigar as a visiting card of a bandit at the scene of crime, understanding the peer-eyed Pele-Petrov with the recidivist Voron at the thieves' meeting, etc. In both films, there is enough suspense and action, but in the Govorukhin ribbon the plot was built according to all laws detective genre, and it was clear who the criminal is, and who is the hero. In "Ash" there is no such clarity, as there is not one unreservedly positive hero.
Critical about the series "Ashes" reviews of police officerspros. An employee of the modern MUR, Gennady Sarychev, noted that Ash is wrongly called in the frame by a beef-bearer. Those hack safes roughly, cutting through the metal slots and bending off the lid. Masterly work with master keys, and even for a few minutes, until the cigarette is extinguished, is called the art of a shnifer. Unlike cinematographers filming domestic detectives, the creators of "Ashes" in the police department did not apply for information.
Not so picky and categorical about the series"Ashes" reviews most moviegoers. Disconnects with chronology, geography and texture, they call trifles, but highly appreciate the rich, far from banal plot and fascinating psychological intrigue. So do not watch this movie with a red pencil at the ready and notice "bloopers." What is really dear to the viewer is the embodiment (let on the screen) of a dream to live not only one's own, but another, radically opposite fate.
Is it possible to consider the final of the film open?Where, with a broken heart, rides a motorcycle over the broken Petrov-Ashes car, and did his enemy survive again? The authors do not promise the continuation of history. But if it happens, the film "Ashes" (2013), whose reviews are a curious duel of opinions, will remain in the annals of the national film history one of the brightest events.
