“I, Victory and Berlin” – the film about Kuzma is finally on the big screens

The premiere was delayed for two years and here is the film “I, Victory and Berlin” finally met the audience. Shooting a film based on a literary work Kuzmy Scriabin about his life director Olga Ryashina started back in 2020.

There was no need to expect an arthouse masterpiece after the debut of “Sex and Nothing Personal” – the production team positioned the film as a popcorn movie from the very beginning.

In addition, the film community has not yet decided how to perceive the fact that the film was shot by the Star Media studio. A company that, on the order of the Russian government, made documentary and game propaganda films both shortly before the invasion and during it. For example, “Heart of Parma” (2022) with the support of the Russian Film Fund and the Rossiya 1 channel. Or “Country of the Soviets. He will kill the leaders” (2017, 2019) with the support of the Russian Military Historical Society and with funding from the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.

The head of the company, Vlad Ryashin, was removed from the list of members of the Ukrainian Film Academy in October 2022. But his company continued its work. And here is the result.

Film reviewer UP Culture of Elizaveta Sushko watched the musical road movie and tells what was left in the tape in memory of Andriy Kuzmenko.

90s on wheels

This is another movie about the 90s. But, unlike those that were already available for rent (“La Palisade”) or which will be released this year (“You love Me?”“Me and Felix” and “Forever, Forever”) there is no acute attention to time.

It is rather a background that was not chosen, because the story was taken from reality – Scriabin’s story about his adventures in 1993.

He is just beginning his journey in music and is preparing for his first solo recital in his native Lviv. But his character does not allow him to finish everything – at the same time, he buys Pobyeda, because his beloved wanted a wheelbarrow, and even agrees to drive it to Berlin three days before the first performance in order to exchange the tattered yellow one for a brand new Mers.

Kuzi’s adventures with a friend who is engaged in the smuggling business begin adventurously and will unfold both in the car, and in Berlin clubs, and with Turkish authorities. But the main thing for the hero is the path of realization – to go into business selling Polish ham or to fulfill the dream of a musician.

Young, promising and blogger Vitaly Gordienko

The actors managed to present the characters in a textured manner – and Ivan Blindar (Ivano-Frankivsk Drama Theater) tries to sing like Scriabin, and his friends in the group look like themselves from old photos that will appear in the credits. AND Maria Stopnyk (Berlin series “First Days”) maintains a melodramatic line.

But where would a Ukrainian movie for popcorn be without non-professional media people. The blogger got much more screen time Vitaly Gordienko (“Squad of moviegoers”) than, for example, an actor Roman Lutskyi (“Reflection”), which you still have to try to recognize in the make-up of the poor Pole at the gas station.

Although, let’s be honest, in this way the film prepares promotional companies even at the stage of production. And this time the director managed to keep the balance (and not cast the main role, for example, Serhiy Prytulu).

So, the musical accompaniment of the film also performs a marketing function. Scriabin’s songs were sung by the most famous performers of the Ukrainian music industry. Tina Karol, Monatik, Jamala, Wellboy – everyone gathered here to reach the widest possible audience and fill the film with a lot of music. It turned out to be sufficiently sentimental to support the nostalgia of the older generation – those who loved Scriabin from his first songs. But it is quite modern in order to attract young people to watch the film.

In the last few years, Ukrainian cinema has been actively reflecting on the “evil”, “difficult”, “thuggish” 90s. “I, Victory and Berlin”, of course, does not idealize Ukraine in those times. However, it does not paint in gloomy tones. Although abroad does not look like the “promised land” here – there are dirty houses on both sides of the border, and jokes about Lviv and “Glory to Isa” and bribery of Ukrainian border guards are adjacent to Polish racketeers and gray Berlin, filled with drug dealers of Turkish origin. And if street food and alcohol raves in the German capital are interesting, then it is always better to go to Galicia on tour.

In the end, the film is neither period document nor thought provoking. He is more about not taking life too seriously – quite in the spirit of Kuzma.