Anniversary of the Sad Comedy
Most publications about the film of Georgiy Daneliya "Autumn Marathon" contain information that it appeared on the screens in late 1979. This is indeed so. If by screens we mean only screens of Soviet cinemas. But a few months before the premiere of the film in the USSR, it was presented to a foreign audience. First, on August 30, at the Venice Film Festival, and two weeks later - at the San Sebastian Film Festival (Spain). At both film forums, the film received high international recognition.
In Venice, it obtained two Pasinetti awards. This award, as a rule, is raffled between foreign films - participants of the film festival. Firstly, "Autumn Marathon" received the Pasinetti's Award as the best (foreign) film (along with the American film "Saint Jack" by Peter Bogdanovich). Secondly, the Pasinetti Prize was received by Evgeny Leonov as the Best Actor.
It can, of course, be clarified that in 1979 the 10-year period of the updating of the Venice Festival ended. It took so many years to get rid of the norms, orders, procedures, concepts, etc., etc., that had developed even under the fascist regime of Mussolini. All these 10 years there was no professional jury at the festival, all decisions were made by the director of the festival. True, in consultation with highly competent expert advice. And the prizes were rather symbolic, that is, without real, let’s say, material content. For all these reasons, Daneliya's film did not have serious competitors at this festival.
But at the festival in San Sebastian, the competition for the "Autumn Marathon" was, as they say, "in full growth." Suffice it to say that Daneliya’s film received the main prize - the Golden Shell - as the best film. And, let’s say, the second place and the Silver Shell for the best camera work and special effects was received by Ridley Scott's film “Alien”, which was subsequently included in almost all the lists of the best films of world cinema.
Probably, "Autumn Marathon" could have received the highest prizes at the Berlin International Film Festival, of which it was a participant in February 1980. But! The political situation changed dramatically in connection with the invasion of Soviet troops in Afghanistan. No one still can intelligibly explain why this was done, but the damage to the country was enormous. So Daneliya's wonderful film had to be satisfied with some third-rate award of this festival. And the film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears", which also participated in the festival, did not receive even this.
And then, crowned with the laurels of two international film festivals in November 1979, the "Autumn Marathon" appeared before the eyes of Soviet cinema viewers. In the first year of the cinema demonstration, more than 22 million people watched the film. Let's face it, the figure is quite significant, but far from record. Suffice it to say that the film “Afonya”, released 4 years before that, also shot by Daneliya, gathered at the screens more than 60 million Soviet moviegoers.
However, to us, students of the 70-80s, all these details were unknown then, and, frankly, were not very interesting. My friends and I just went three times to this film, and then, during our feasts, we quoted it in every possible way. Like “We're sitting well!”, Or “Palych, you yourself are pulling the time”, or “Cactel-cactel! Hippy is shaggy.” Well and so on.
But now, let's say, at a serious age, the following question made me wonder: why did the film "Afonya", which, being presented at the absolutely uncompetitive film festival in Locarno (Switzerland), did not receive a single prize in it, but at the same time collected 60 million moviegoers in the USSR. And the “Autumn Marathon”, crowned with the laurels of two authoritative film festivals and, by the way, nominated by the USSR for the Oscar in the nomination “Best Foreign Language Film”, but not on the short list, attracted the attention of three times fewer number of spectators?
Recently, in April, when Russian moviegoers mourned the great film director Georgiy Daneliya, in one of the television programs on one of the federal television channels dedicated to the memory of the master, the following thought sounded: "The male half of the country's population was offended by Daneliya for this film, because he, allegedly, gave out some secrets of men's campaigns "to the left." Well, this is the mentality and the overriding task of our federal television channels - to explain everything with a household and reduce everything to jokes about a mother-in-law with a business trip husband.
And my friends and I, back then, in the 80s, perfectly understood that the main idea of the film is that a person cannot say no. He cannot say no to a colleague who is mercilessly exploiting him. He cannot say “no” to a foreign colleague, tearing him away from pressing problems for the sake of insignificant runs. He cannot say no to a boozy neighbor, again to the detriment of his own affairs and health. And so on and so forth. That is, in fact, "Autumn Marathon" is not a sad comedy, as it was entitled Alexander Volodin and Georgiy Daneliya, but a satirical comedy. But it was impossible to call this comedy satirical. You probably remember how the hero of Kostolevsky in the “Garage” of Eldar Ryazanov explained that satire in our country is something that does not exist.
And the object of satire in this film is us. We are all as then, as now we can’t say no. They unreasonably raise tariffs for utilities, but we can’t say no. We are being raised the retirement age, but we cannot say no. They deprive us of normal medical care, for which, incidentally, we are regularly taxed, but we can’t say no. At the expense of our taxes, someone builds castles and buys yachts, but we can’t say no. In short, we are all Buzikins. And that is why many people cringe at movie shows with the "Autumn Marathon".
And the film is brilliant. But Ksenia Rozhdestvenskaya described the film even more accurately in her recent review: "This whole film is like Russian vodka. In the sense that it creeps to the very guts."
Modern moviegoers rate this film at least no lower than the audience of the 80s. 74% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave the film ratings from 8 to 10, and 35% gave the film "tens". Taking into account this indicator and the above, the rating of the film "Autumn Marathon" according to FilmGourmand's version was 8,894, thanks to which it took the 182nd place in the Golden Thousand.
