Supple and impressionable minds of Russia’s youth easily fall prey to Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita – and well they should, they’re in good hands. It’s also natural to surrender to a cinematographic production of Bulgakov’s Heart Of a Dog with venerable Sir Yevstigneyev, darling of Russia’s theatre and film.
Today, I’ll be throwing jabs (swinging at the air so to speak) at Mr. Vladimir Bortko, the man who directed the afore mentioned movie. “Once a success, twice a success. Ухнем!”, thought Mr. Bortko and hastily began filming one of the most complex works of Soviet fiction.
A little more about our director if you please … he is, bless his soul, the creator of garbage like “Бандитский Петербург/Criminal Petersburg” (both Baron & Advokat) and “Улицы разбитых фонарей/Streets of Broken Lanterns”. Soon after Soviet regime was put to rest, folks became highly interested in soap operas (called mini-series, for effect). Particularly what captivated the audience was “da gangsta life”, the Russian mob. Mr. Bortko toiled for over three years to quench the mob’s thirst for rubbish and, by the by, was a natural at it. Vulgarity of it all must have been gnawing at him for years but escaping vulgarity when you regularly concoct it, isn’t easy.
His first attempt, Dostoevsky’s Idiot (mini-series), wasn’t a success. His second, Master and Margarita (mini-series again), an absolute disaster. There is virtually no screenplay, the whole thing, in lump, is thrown onto the screen. Bortko, claims to have aspired for completeness and exactness but, dear fellow, movies aren’t books, they aren’t complete. Film scenes must be carefully selected to provide maximum possible “entertainment” value (unless you’re shooting for a visual masterpiece). Films, especially when they are long and shot in a meager year, can’t embody a written work. Films are visual things and the art of creating them involves a detachment from words, a craft altogether different from that of a writer.
Casting, in this mini-series, is astoundingly poor. When choosing a person to play the dimwit Bezdomny, you must take great care not to cast an actual dimwit (forgive me Mr. Galkin, you’re in line of fire). When choosing voluptuous Margarita, you shouldn’t really choose your investor’s dull daughter (Mrs. Kovalchuk, it’s just my wild guess, pray do not take it too personally). Aleksandr Galibin, apparently the Master, is at best trite but at worst just a hack. There are very rare moments when events come alive and they do so because of Basilashvili and Abdulov. Even so, at their best moments in the film, Basilashvili is a drying fruit and Abdulov, hmm, Abdulov … well he’s just naturally charming and that’s all.
I mentioned that the whole ordeal was pointlessly long but what’s more depressing is the lack of funds with which the thing was shot. When Tarkovsky shot with his abysmally minimal cash reserves, he was inventive, he minimized the emphasis of superficial visual effects or found miraculous, natural substitutes. Master and Margarita should, in the least, be done in a visually stunning way or should not be done at all. Mr. Bortko’s work was cheap, poorly planned, poorly cast, poorly directed, poorly filmed and hence offensive to Mr. Bulgakov and to his countless admirers.
More and more, I feel that Russia’s cinema is in a sorry state, staining wonderful works of literature with its vaudevilles made by chronic dilettantes.
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