IN THE "VIDEOTEKA" HEADING OUR HEROINES TELL about your favorite films - important, vivid, inspiring, those that are hard to forget when you see them once. In this episode, the chief artist of the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre confesses his love to Wes Anderson and tells how serials have gradually replaced feature-length films in her life.
Anastasia Nefedova
set designer, set designer, costume designer
In real
I don't understand anything - I always need to turn everything into an image
and artistic expression
The following picture was deposited in my head: I am about five years old, wake up in the middle of the night from a nightmare and jump for consolation to my parents in the bedroom - they lie and watch a movie, and they also allow me. I remember this moment as a story about adulthood and trust - I still cherish that feeling of security and importance. Then I didn't really understand what was happening on the screen; then it turned out that it was "Foundling" with Faina Ranevskaya. What could be better?
I was lucky with the work of my life: the profession and people chose me themselves, but I intuitively accepted something, but something I didn’t. My current occupation and, in general, who I am, I owe to Alexander Dulerain. He invited me to his first feature film "Ivan the Fool" with a funny text that he wants all the characters to look like me. This is how my love affair with cinema began. Sasha taught me to see, think and tell stories in images, and not draw beautiful pictures - I still master this experience. The most difficult relationship I have is with a historical reconstruction or a direct illustration of reality: this is pain for me, in reality I do not understand anything - I always have to turn everything into an image and artistic expression.
The relationship with films has changed so much throughout life that it has come to a complete lack of interest in full-length cinema. It's like with a man: when you want long-term stories, a one-off doesn't work anymore. Now I have a period of lingering love for TV shows, for immersion in myths and in the worlds created by directors, composers, artists, cameramen and actors - this is a dive to a depth where it is so good that I want to stay. At the same time, I have a great inexhaustible love for old films: they are a source of relaxation and hope, medicine and pure joy of being and honesty.
There are several people whose vision will always be especially close to me. First, Wes Anderson: for an artist, this is a Klondike of humor and up-to-date optics - his "Kingdom of the Full Moon" and "The Grand Budapest Hotel" are ideal. There is Roy Anderson - refined and discreetly wealthy. The Coen brothers are insane and flawless. And Godard is the romantic of beingness.
Penelope, 2006
Penelope
A film that my children loved very much when they were little, and I am with them. Then the world seemed magical and fragile, and in moments of pre-sleep calm to watch "Penelope", embracing with your beloved children and buns, is a wonderful dream, especially if James McAvoy is watching you from the screen. I reviewed it today - I have not experienced such a touching delight, everything seems to be a bit the same, but McEvoy is still irresistible.
The Darjeeling Limited, 2007
Train to Darjeeling. Desperate Travelers
The movie that I tell students about, talking about the connection of the director, cameraman and artists into one heart and breath. This is a clear, witty, ideal example of joint creative work and a bold approach to the so-called canons of cinema, where "it never happens" is completely erased by an immediate immersion headlong into the new unknown world of Anderson.
Utopia, 2013-2014
Utopia
A series based on a world conspiracy comic. I love these genres: I am ready to believe anything if they tell me convincingly and fascinatingly about it. This is exactly the case here: the magnificent graphics of the drawn comics themselves are elegantly woven into the picture of the narrative, into the construction and the large-format image. Frame proportions and color compositions are subordinate to mise-en-scenes, and mise-en-scenes are played out according to the laws of composition and dynamics of storylines and character stories. Casting, play, costumes and objects - all speak the language of this invented but close world.
The Duelists, 1977
Duelists
The first feature film by Ridley Scott. I fell for the poetry of the frame and the reproduction of the world of the early and mid-19th century through painting - from the Dutch school of the late 18th century to the English canvases of the mid-19th century. "The Duelists" is a director's perception of the visual culture of the time. The work of the cameraman and artist is brilliant and inexhaustible: some shots have been in front of my eyes for many years. The film hints at and admires Barry Lyndon: Kubrick, for example, shot a candlelit painting without using electrical appliances in any shot. It seems that this is how one master learns from another.
Bron / Broen, 2011- …
Bridge
Danish-Swedish series about relationships, mentality, subtle metaphysics of the existence of two countries and their inhabitants against the background of the investigation of mysterious murders. The show mesmerized me with the parsimony of funds. An almost monochrome greenish-olive gamut for all shots, deliberate disregard for contrasting colors and light, unusual acting, casting that does not bode well for anything exciting. At the same time, the extraordinary heroine-investigator is completely devoid of empathy and sense of humor at the same time. All this is so impressive that you want to be inside, feel everyone, help, care, stay forever and just contemplate their life as it is.
Pleasantville, 1998
Pleasantville
Coloring film: the technique is here turned into a philosophical metaphor. The colorless heroes of the popular TV series about the 50s and their world, as “real life” penetrates to them, begin to “bloom”, gradually acquiring the ability to deeply and interestingly feel, think and make decisions. An impeccably made film based on the picture, the ability to embody the plasticity and facial expressions of another time, the variety of the actors' play range. So cool that it’s even bad!
Dick Tracy, 1990
Dick Tracy
An iconic film, bold and innovative. A film comic strip, which gave impetus to the creation of a new genre, one of the brightest representatives of which was "The Mask". "Dick Tracy" does not get old at all: you watch it with enthusiasm, admiring the artists who dared to give a damn about everything and do it in a way that no one else has done before.
The Young Pope, 2016 - …
Young dad
Divine in the full sense of the word TV series. My love, Jude Law - shocking, paradoxical, irresistible - it's all about him and the picture. In no plot can you predict the dad's reaction to people, events and objects - and this is in the landscape of a geometrically impeccable frame. Feast of the soul.
2014
Angels of the Revolution
On the advice of a friend, she reluctantly took up the picture - she began to look and was stunned. Climbed to study the director Fedorchenko; while I think this picture is his best. I could not even resist and wrote him an enthusiastic letter to Yekaterinburg, which is completely unusual for me. So to see the revolutionary myth - through the artists of the Russian avant-garde and the mythology of the small peoples of the North - is so sincerely and paradoxically beautiful to intertwine everything. The film not only gives rise to a lot of thoughts about what a revolution is and that time through the eyes of artists, but also strikes with the charm and strength with which you are instantly settled in this world. Respect.
À bout de souffle, 1960
On the last breath
It's still a real and unbearable lightness of being, which shines through and breathes in every frame of Godar's view of the world. Fleeting and attentive, optional, casual and extraordinarily precise, empathetic and distant. Young Jean Seberg and Belmondo filled with an alien mystery - I look today, and my heart is filled with the poetics of the 60s, stingy and rich in their aspirations into the unknown.