Sergey Loban’s film Chapiteau Show that elicited a very good response at the last Moscow international film festival has been released into wide distribution. The director himself described the movie as “the film for broken hearts and a remedy for stress,” and also as the second volume of The Dead Souls – an allusion to his previous movie The Dust with a ridiculously small budget.
Chapiteau Show is an almost four-hour production comprised of four cine novellas with the same place of action and some common characters, though each is a complete film in its own right. No wonder the movie is released for distribution as four individual novellas.
“The film is as round as a chapiteau tent,” said Loban at the press conference. “It can be viewed from any frame or episode.”
One may think that the picture, which can be viewed from any frame, is total confusion and chaos but this is not so. On the contrary, Chapiteau Show stuns with compositional refinement.
Everything is coherent and interconnected in this huge production: each dramatic “hook” always finds its “eyelet.” The plots and characters resonate with each other through the novellas: flashing in one, they get magnified and unraveled in another. And this cinematographic ploy transforms into a philosophy in everybody’s eyes: you are the main character of your life’s drama, with some walk-ons in the background; yet each of these walk-ons lives his or her own drama where you’ll function as a background in the same way. This is a matter of optics: which one to pick and who shall use it?
The compositional and stylistic endeavors and virtues of Chapiteau Show can be discussed for quite a long time and with gusto; it’s also pleasant that a deep meaning can be perceived in everything. Richness of form coupled with witty content is a rare combination nowadays. The name of each novella reflects some aspect of human relationship in focus – “Love,” Friendship,” “Respect,” “Cooperation” – with musical breaks in between. The personages, who just lived in a somewhat mad but sublunary world, land on the stage of an infernal circus where they sing about their intimate experiences, dance as they can, bow to the applause, and vanish into the black backstage space as though teleporting themselves back to this world. The show is staged by director Shpagin played by film expert Alexander Shpagin famous for his pungent polemic and critique. Like other personages, his hero confesses in a song and dances as he can, cutting funny capers.
The clumsy hero of Aleksey Podoltsev (a star in the Dust movie and here the main character of the Love novella) is the Web haunter under the Cyber Wanderer nick, who is pulled away from his display by his Internet friend and transported to the far-off Crimea where he loathes everything: fuss and buzz, bright sunshine and damp sea… Young guy Nikita (Stepan Devonin) sings about his loneliness. He is also transported to the Crimea by his father (Petr Mamonov) who suddenly decides to become closer to his son, roving with him over the Crimean mountainside and discussing the meaning of life (“Respect”).
Even the deaf lad Lesha sings. He traveled to the Crimea in the company of his hearing friends. He wanted to prove that he was strong like other healthy guys. But the healthy prove tougher and crueler than the deaf and Lesha has no other alternative but to crawl back to his own (“Friendship”).
Also singing is a look-alike of Viktor Tsoi, a stand-in star of the provincial mold (“Cooperation”). The mavericks are made reminiscent of real people by Mr Loban, revealing their talents and potential and hatching like chicks from eggs, whereas “normal” people reveal their subhuman nature. The latter are diluted in the vulgar rumbling lifestyle at a cheap resort (the film was made in Simeiz, Crimea, a typical holiday destination for Ukrainians and Russians of average means), they are like fish in the water there, they are happy with the repertoire of seaside disco clubs, beachfront rustle and hustle, and the taste of wine from the wood. At the same time refined, odd and timid souls like Cyber Wanderer wearing glasses with lens, home boy Nikita and deaf Lesha are scared by this roaring thousand-voice monster; they are not at home in this caddish hell.
Chapiteau Show can also be looked upon as a generational work. The heroes are of different age, to be sure, but still young (some are even youthful). Most of them were born in the USSR and they feel obvious affection for the tokens of their Soviet childhood. This is most apparent in the Friendship novella. Deaf Lesha sets out for the Crimea in a company led by a boy nicknamed Pioneer who wears a garrison cap and a red tie on his neck. His friends follow in his lead: they flock together at the sound of his horn, rank and give a pioneer’s salute. Adults like this game as well as anything else reminding them of their careless childhood. Those who are now in their thirties were young pioneers in their early years.
Darya Borisova
