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| Images courtesy of Mosfilm |
Mosfilm chairman Karen Shakhnazarov has had something of a
career renaissance as of recent. Despite
often appearing on Russian state television, Shakhnazarov might be the greatest
living director of his country next to Alexander Sokurov as far as making a
successful transition from the Soviet to the Russian Federation era of
filmmaking without compromising his ever-mind-bending aesthete. A multifaceted auteur who at one point
directed an English language Russian produced surrealist mashup of historical
fiction with The Assassin of the Tsar which made its US disc debut
recently alongside Zerograd through Deaf Crocodile Films, Shakhnazarov’s
filmography has seen special preferential treatment over other works and by now
much of the director’s filmography has been digitally restored in 4K
resolution.
With his last film Anna Karenina: Vronsky’s Story in
2017 getting both a theatrical and expanded televised run, the seventy-two-year-old
filmmaker took a hiatus for about six years following the outbreak of COVID-19
and the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Despite the situation, the work of Shakhnazarov nevertheless continues
to gather interest in the West with Deaf Crocodile’s efforts to publish
renowned cinematic works by the director for the very first time and most
recently the boutique label announced the acquisition of the yet-to-be-released
here latest film of his: Khitrovka. The Sign of Four or as it has been
dubbed in the US In the Moscow Slums. Something of a new Mosfilm super production spoken
of the same historical fiction mashing breath of The Assassin of the Tsar,
it is a loose fusion of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Sign of Four mixed
with the works of late 19th century writer-journalist Vladimir
Gilyarovsky only it features theater-director Konstantin Stanislavsky hastily
assuming the role of Sherlock Holmes.
Moscow, 1902, the great Russian theater director Konstantin
Stanislavsky (Konstantin Kryukov) is researching a new play to depict poor
people living quite literally In the Moscow Slums. Joining forces with street-smart slum tour
guide Vladimir Gilyarovsky (Mikhail Porechenkov), the two descend upon the squalor
and criminality of Khitrovka, a square in the city of Moscow that lasted until
the 1930s to get a firsthand look at life there. Mingling with drunks and beggars, they meet
up with Ksenia (Anfisa Chernykh) an alluring thief nicknamed ‘The Princess’
with an air of sophistication and wit who chooses to stay in Khitrovka despite
the omnipresent dangers. However soon
after, Stanislavsky and Gilyarovsky happen upon a wealthy Indian Sikh who has
been murdered by way of poisonous dart, propelling the duo into a labyrinthine
murder mystery loosely following the trajectory of The Sign of Four as they
more or less assume the roles of Holmes and Watson.
A reworking of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the writings of
Gilyarovsky as a kind of historically fictitious mixture of real life figures
wading through authorial imagination, an expensive and sumptuously ugly period
piece with all the beauty and wretchedness of then-Khitrovka onscreen, a
beautifully rendered 4K digital workflow production shot handsomely with grace
and reserve by Oleg Lukichyov, Karen Shakhnazarov’s return to the director’s
chair while not as perversely avant-garde as his earlier Soviet works
nevertheless represents a warm welcome back.
With lush production design rendered by Kuryer Film Studio and Mosfilm
on a sizable budget over 200 million rubles (around the same cost here), every
dollar is on the screen in a film unafraid to get its hands dirty as it takes
the viewer more or less through Maxim Gorky’s The Lower Depths.
Part of the charm and fun of the film is how Shakhnazarov
develops the text into a thriller replete with a physically deformed poisonous
dart shooting native who feels plucked right out of an Agatha Christie whodunit
and how ensemble side characters are picked off in startlingly unexpected
ways. Surprisingly violent and gory at
times including some grisly crime-scene-investigation imagery but never losing
its sense of grandeur, In the Moscow Slums finds its footing somewhere between
Shakhnazarov’s own approach and obvious influences of Western media including
but not limited to a rather Downton Abbey sounding score by Yuri Poteyenko
reflecting the sound of the early 1900s.
Konstantin Kryukov makes a good Stanislavsky exuding class and manner
while also displaying a humility when faced with poverty while Mikhail
Porechenkov as the burly worldly Gilyarovsky is both sidekick and a bit of a
Dr. Watson leader. Anfisa Chernykh is
particularly striking as the street goddess of Khitrovka while Alexey Vertkov
plays a mysterious character only known as ‘The Englishman’.
While the film underperformed at the box office and was more
or less overlooked by audiences, Mosfilm recently uploaded the film to their 4K
channel with English subtitles following Deaf Crocodile’s announcement of an
eventual disc release. A bit more
playful, extravagant and oddly fun than your usual Karen Shakhnazarov cerebral
experimental outing despite continuing in the director’s melding of fantasy and
reality, In the Moscow Slums for all intents and purposes is a splendid
entertainment from the Mosfilm chairman.
Although it has yet to really find an audience within its country of
origin, Shakhnazarov’s painterly, gloriously decrepit and squalid mystery adventure
epic with more than a strong hint of historical realism running through it is
one of the best and prettiest examples of genre cinema as anachronistic historical
fiction mashup. Fans of Arthur Conan
Doyle as well as Konstantin Stanislavsky will find much to chew on here in this
unusual but otherwise time honored cocktail of the Mosfilm chairman’s
invention.
--Andrew Kotwicki
