Мастер и Маргарита - Михаил Локшин

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On January 25, 2024, the film The Master and Margarita directed by Michael Lockshin premiered in the Russian cinema theatres. This film has undergone an eventful development since the start of the project in 2018, of which you can read more about by clicking the link below.

Click here to read the history of this film

The regular visitors to this website know that Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita has three storylines: the biblical story, the story of the devil in Moscow, and the love story of the master and Margarita. In Michael Lockshin film a fourth storyline is added. It tells the story written by the master about himself, his beloved Margarita and the people around him. The title of that story is - you might have guessed it - The master and Margarita.

Confused? Looking at the result, it seems reasonable to assume that the screenwriters of this film must also have been quite confused with this extra dimension. While Bulgakov in his novel initially runs the three storylines in parallel in a clear manner to have them come together flawlessly at the end, in this film it is quite a muddle. During the 2 hours and 37 minutes of this film, events move quickly and chaotically from one storyline to another in a sometimes a difficult to follow chronology.

The storyline

Anyway, let's try to describe the course of the film as good as possible. After the opening scene in which Margarita destroys the apartment of the critic Latunsky, we see how a successful playwright called the master goes to the theatre for a performance of his play Pilate. At the theatre entrance it becomes clear how popular he is: there are women waiting to ask for his autograph - a reference to the time when Bulgakov's play Days of the Turbins was performed 987 times with great success at the Moscow Art Theatre. One of those women is a certain Hella, with whom he agrees to go to the writers' house Griboedov that night where they will meet his friend Aloisy Mogarych. But first he has to go to the Writers' Union to defend his drama in a public trial, because the censors want to have it removed under the motto:«what is allowed today may be prohibited tomorrow». During the hearing, allegations are formulated by, among others, the critic Latunsky and Baron Meigel, and the poet Bezdomny receives much applause when he loudly shouts reproaches against the master from the public space. On the evening of that day, when the master finds himself in Griboedov together with Hella and Mogarych, he is forced to leave the writers' house. Outside he meets the German Woland, to whom he briefly tells his story. When Woland leaves in a taxi, the master notices that Hella is leaving together with him.

Later, the master takes a walk through the streets of Moscow, where a mass demonstration of the communist party is taking place. Among the thousands of participants and spectators, there are many women caryying yellow flowers. The master stops in front of one of them. They look at each other for a while, and then leave the place and make a walk through the city together. It is the beginning of a relationship through which we learn what the master's novel is about. Some parts he tells her, other parts she reads his manuscripts. It is through these conversations and readings that the film shows well-known scenes from Bulgakov's novel: Berlioz and Bezdomny meeting Woland at the Patriarch's Ponds, the tramway that decapitates Berlioz and the subsequent pursuit of Ivan, Woland who, with «son entourage», confiscates Styopa Lichodeev's flat, Woland's show in the theatre, Berlioz's funeral where Margarita meets Azazello, Margarita's flight on the broom and very short fragments of Satan's ball. These scenes often deviate from the descriptions in Bulgakov's novel, both in terms of storyline and atmosphere, but they are clearly inspired by it and also use most of the well-known quotes from the novel. You can judge for yourself watching the excerpt below showing the famous scene with the yellow flowers.

One day, Woland visits the master while Margarita is not in the basement. After a while they hear the secret police approaching, but the master is able to quickly burn his novel before he is arrested. He is sent to doctor Stravinsky's clinic, where he is visited by Baron Meigel and Woland. The latter shows him from the balcony of the clinic what will happen next with Pilate and Yeshua Ha-Notsri.

Woland arranges that the master and Margarita are reunited in his flat. During this meeting, the secret police invade the flat. When the armed policemen burst in, however, they only find Behemoth, who fires at them from the chandelier. As a result of the firefight, not only the apartment catches fire, but almost all buildings in Moscow are destroyed by explosions and fires. Woland and his retinue, together with the master and Margarita, survey the city of Moscow, whiwh is almost completely destroyed - a reference to an ending that Bulgakov had in mind once for one of the early versions of his novel. While the group is oerlooking the ruins, we see a zeppelin arriving in the red-hot sky with which Woland and his leave Moscow. Finally we see the master and Margarita happyly and peacefully together in the garden of their house.

Review

Ase a principle, I have no objections when a film is not a literal transcription of the book on which it is based. But on April 28, 2023, the production company Mars Media announced that the original title of the film - Woland - would change to The Master and Margarita with the aim to «combine the power and spirit of the novel with the story we want the tell audience with our film». This change made many fans of Bulgakov believe that, despite previous reports, the film was moving towards a reasonably faithful screen version of the novel - quod non. And after having seen the film twice, I still wonder what «they want the tell audience».

After all, the film is quite precarious: I have seen rather strong scenes mixed together with downright weak scenes. At times I was watching a good part with great interest, although it was often suddenly cut off in the middle of a sentence for no apparent reason. At other times, I would find myself looking boredly at the status bar of my video player to see how much longer it would last.

Many filmmakers say that it is difficult to convert a novel as complex as The Master and Margarita into a film of 2.5 hours. There is some truth in it, of course. And precisely for that reason is it is a shame that in this film at least 30 to 45 minutes are used for scenes that are drawn out too long or scenes without any added value for the storyline or the atmosphere of «the story we want the tell audience with our film». The time wasted on this could easily have been used to insert better scenes - scenes that could have given the entire film more depth or could have done much more justice to underused elements like, for instance, the cat Behemoth. After all, fans of Bulgakov's novel will cerainly be disappointed when they notice the minimal presence of one of the most characteristic figures from the novel in this film. On the other hand, it is also surprising to see how secondary characters from the novel play a much more prominent role in this film. For example, Aloisy Mogarych, the critic Latunsky, Baron Meigel and the vampire Hella appear more often than Behemoth and play a more active role than this icon from Bulgakov's work.

Of course, Behemoth's limited role could have been the result of the film's problems during production. At the start of the project, there was an agreement with the American media giant Universal Pictures allowing the production house to rely on the technologies that Disney had used in 2019 for the remake of The Lion King to create a three-dimensional animation for the role of Behemoth. But in August 2022, Universal Pictures withdrew from Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine. At that point, most of the work on Behemoth's animations still needed to be done. To make matters worse, the Kremlin-controlled Фонд Кино [Fond Kino] or the Federal Fund for Economic and Social Support for Russian Cinematography refused to provide any further funding. This refusal may also have been related to director Michael Lockshin's attitude towards the war in Ukraine. On his social media channels he had condemned the Russian war in Ukraine more than once, and he had also he had expressed his support to film director Kirill Serebrennikov, who was arrested in August 2017 on staged charges.

Disturbing factors

The film also contains disturbing factors in various areas. One example of disturbing factors is the bombastic background of the exterior shootings, transforming Moscow into a kind of futuristic city with astonishing high-rise buildings that never stood there and with zeppelins that cleave through the air as if this was the screen adaptation of a work by Jules Verne. We also see, among other things, the Palace of the Soviets, which was one of Stalin's megalomaniac dreams that was never realised, although the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was destroyed for it in 1936. I wonder what part of «the story we want the tell audience with our film» this would serve.

Click here to read more on the Palace of the Soviets

Another set, the one of the Griboedov House, seems to come from the film The Great Gatsby by Baz Luhrman - a director whose name, by the way, circulated in 2017 as a possible director for this film.

What also bothered me was the excessive desire for spectacle that is shown so often in this film. We see an example of this when Koroviev, Behemoth and Azazello appear on stage in the theatre. It doesn't bother me at all that, unlike in the novel, Azazello plays a role in Woland's show. What did bother me was that Koroviev, dressed up as if he were taking part in a Pride Parade, and with an overacted squeaky voice, orders Azazello, dressed as a clown, to fire a plethora of bursts of machine guns at a swinging disco ball to make banknotes flutter down onto the audience. It is absolutely unclear to me how this adjustment helps to «the story we want the tell audience with our film». You can judge for yourself based on the excerpt below.

By the way, the master had gone to this performance together with Woland, but after the support act Woland discreetly sneaked out from his seat to appear on stage a little later.

Another disturbing factor is how foreign languages are managed in this film. Woland and the master speak German to each other, while Pontius Pilate speaks Latin with Yeshua Ha-Notsri and Aramaic with the high priest Kaifa. Their dialogues are overdubbed by a monotone and emotionless Russian bass voice so that you hear two voices at the same time. From the time I lived in Moscow I remember that foreign films are often overdubbed this way in Russia, but in my humble opinion it would have been less confusing if the problem had been solved with subtitles. In a film produced with high-tech and probably expensive tools, this voice dubbing makes a poor amateurish impression.

Reception.

Michael Lockshin's The Master and Margarita got an average appreciation score of 7.9/10 with more than 43,000 reviews on the website KinoPoisk and led the Russian box office in its opening week, including a revenue of 57.3 million rubles (581,000 euros).on its first day in the cinema theatres, but the director made enemies before a single ticket was sold.

The strongest attacks came from Vladimir Solovyov, presenter of An Evening with Vladimir Solovyov, a daily talk show - or rather a «swearing show» - on the Rossia 1 television channel. Solovyov idolises Vladimir Putin and calls the president's opponents «the eternal two percent shit». He said that all Ukrainians would better disappear from globe. He called Michael Lockshin's film anti-Russian and showed screenshots of the director's social media posts, in which Lockshin had advocated damage compensation to Ukraine and wished that the Ukrainian armed forces would win. Solovyov's guests responded by saying - or better: by shouting - that Lockshin had «donated the money he earned from this film to the Ukrainian army». Journalist Andrei Mevedev even threatened to shoot Lockshin. Furthermore, the director was described as «a Russophobe, a traitor and a neoliberal smear of the fearless Soviet secret police». Director and Kremlin propagandist Tigran Keosayan urged for a criminal prosecution of director Lockshin, while Trofim Tatarenkov, a presenter on the Russian state radio Sputnik (who admitted he had not even seen Lockshin's film), called the filmmaker «scum» and remembered it fondly how such «enemies of the people» were shot in the Stalinist era.

Conclusion

Michael Lockshin's film The Master and Margarita is a precarious film with both good and weak, and sometimes even unnecessary scenes, which might have been better served with a different title to avoid confusion among people expecting a faithful representation of the novel. Before its premiere in the Russian cinema theatres, many people had already asked me if I planned to subtitle it in English. At that time, I replied with a hesitant «maybe», but that has now changed to a «probably not». Although I might adjust my opinion whenever a director's cut would be released.

Технические детали

СМИ
Никто

Режиссер
Михаил Локшин

Роли
Август Диль (Воланд), Евгений Цыганов (Мастер), Юлия Снигирь (Маргарита), Юрий Колокольников (Коровьев), Алексей Розин (Азазелло), Полина Ауг (Гелла), Евгений Князев (Берлиоз), Данил Стеклов (Иван Бездомный), Леонид Ярмольник (доктор Стравинский), Александр Яценко (Алоизий Могарич), Алексей Гуськов (барон Мейгель), Игорь Верник (Жорж Бенгальский), Марат Башаров (Лиходеев).

Дата релиза
25 января 2024 г.

Язык
Русский



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