People are nostalgic for the Soviet past, soas at that time everything was simple and understandable. Everyone remembers the USSR in their own way: one remembers the shortage and queues, while others remember how it was stable and good to live. In the movie "The Vanished Empire" actors tell us about Moscow in the seventies. It is presented in the way that its director, Karen Shakhnazarov, remembered it.
First of all, this picture is about love and complexrelations between friends. The plot of this kind was used more than once, but for spectators of any age, the peculiarities of relations in the times of the USSR will be of interest. Two friends - Sergei and Stepan - are studying at the institute. They look all right. Sergei has Luda's favorite girlfriend, but with the arrival of a new student Katya, the couple showed discord.
It turns out that Stepan loved Lyuda all this time.He begins to take care of her, and soon she reciprocates and becomes pregnant. Friends swear and no longer meet. The film ends with an unexpected meeting of former friends that happened at the airport. The USSR has not existed for a long time, and the characters are much older. Life divorced them in different directions: Stepan did not have a happy life with Lyudmila, and he emigrated; Sergei works as an interpreter, and their mutual friend has drunk. The original version of the film was called "Love in the USSR". It is this name, not the "Vanished Empire", the actors often point to in their portfolio.
The main male role Karen Shakhnazarov gavea young actor Lyapin, who at that time only graduated from VGIK. He hesitated for a long time, but in the end he chose Alexandra. For the picture "The Vanished Empire" actors and roles were selected very carefully. For a long time could not decide who would be able to play the main character. Many well-known actors were auditioned for this role, but no one was happy with the director.
Alexander Lyapin was a backup option.He was invited to the casting because of the similarity with Sergei Bezrukov. Completely the requirements of the director he did not satisfy, but he became the best of all applicants. In the film "The Vanished Empire" actors are involved mainly those who have just started their journey. The role of the young Stepan and Sergey was casted by graduates and students of the capital's theater universities and colleges.
Despite the fact that the film "The Vanished Empire"whose actors are very young, became the starting star in Alexander's career, he did not begin to recognize him in the streets after the role of Sergei. He became much more popular after the role of Alexei Maltsev in the sitcom "Interns". In this project, his role was comedy, not dramatic.
Thanks to the role of Sergei, Alexander Lyapin receivedAward "Constellation" for the best debut. According to critics, he well got used to the role and perfectly played the dramatic character. Meanwhile, the film "The Vanished Empire" (actors and roles were discussed above) was able to help Alexander reveal himself as a very gifted person. In 2009, he played another major role in the military drama Lieutenant Suvorov.
For the role of the main beauty Lyudmila was invitedLidia Miluzinu, who before the participation in the film Shakhnazarov was virtually unknown. This is not a capital actress, she was born in the city of Urzhum in the Kirov region, but she managed to win the hearts of the audience.
The "vanished empire" became for her the first serious work, followed by other major film-makers. His career, Lilia builds for the most part on the stage of the Maly Theater.
Also see this young actress in theepisodic roles of popular TV series. At one time, her life was watched by reporters, since Lydia was the wife of the famous actor and director Kirill Pletnev for more than two years. In this marriage, the actress had sons, Fedor and George. After the birth of the youngest child, the couple broke up. Critics noted that in the film "The Vanished Empire" the actors were in a similar situation. At the end of the tape it turned out that Stepan and Luda lived together for a year.
All the audience liked the choice of the director on the roleof older people. For example, an aged Stepan (by the time of the meeting of friends was 30 years old) was played by Vladimir Ilyin, famous for the films "Menya" and "I want to go to jail." As Ilyin and other actors said, "The Vanished Empire" is a tape in which it's not shame to act. That is why the masters of the scene took part in it.
Grandfather Sergei played Armen Jigarkhanyan,whose popularity is undeniable. During his life he played in more than 250 films. Not for nothing, Valentin Gaft said that there are less Armenians on the Earth than the films where Jigarkhanyan was shot. Also Armen Borisovich is engaged in scoring cartoons, dubbing foreign actors in Russian cinema. He received a lot of state awards and is inscribed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most filmed actor. Now she lives alternately in Russia and the United States.
When the casting for the film "The DisappearedEmpire ", the actors reacted positively to it: a classic script, a famous director and filming in 4 countries attracted young talents. Critics, in turn, took the film ambiguously. Some called the picture sound, and others found in it a lot of blunders.
Most of the filming was conducted in Teply Stan,where the Khrushchevs still existed, but at the time of the picture, there were no houses on the P-44 and P-46 projects in Moscow. They appeared only in the eighties. Also, the film was criticized because of the mismatch of fashion hairstyles of that time - the men then grew their hair to be like western rock stars. Wrong, according to critics, were chosen costumes for the actors. In the early seventies, young people wore very broad gloves, which were not in the picture.
