The Cuckoo's Birthday
On June 26, 2002, within the framework of the Moscow International Film Festival (MIFF), the premiere of the film "The Cuckoo" by Alexander Rogozhkin took place.
At this festival, the film "The Cuckoo" received three nominations, including the main award - the Golden St. George. The jury of the film festival, chaired by the famous Soviet and Kyrgyz writer Chingiz Aitmatov, awarded the main prize to the film by the Taviani brothers "Resurrezione (Resurrection)". But Alexander Rogozhkin's film received two Silver Saint Georges - for Best Director and for Best Leading Actor - Ville Haapasalo. As well as the FIPRESCI award.
After that, the film "The Cuckoo" by Alexander Rogozhkin took part in 16 international festivals in 14 different countries of the world. In most cases, this participation was limited to out-of-competition screenings. But at home, in Russia, in addition to the MIFF awards, the film received 4 more Nika and Golden Eagle awards.
Thanks to such wide participation in international film festivals, Alexander Rogozhkin's film "The Cuckoo" enjoyed great success with foreign filmgoers. The assessments of the film both by moviegoers and by film critics outside of Russia were mostly enthusiastic. True, the leading American publications and the most authoritative film critics passed over the film in silence. Of the most respected film critics in the United States, perhaps only Dave Kehr of The New York Times condescended to give his review of the film. In it he wrote:
"Mr. Rogozhkin maintains a good sense of blood, dirt and sweat, human elements mingled together to keep the action rooted in some degree of reality."
However, the fact that the action in the film by Alexander Rogozhkin "The Cuckoo" is real only to some extent, is also emphasized by one of the most authoritative Russian film critics, Sergei Kudryavtsev. In his review, in which he rates the film 8 out of 10, he writes:
"Of course, "The Cuckoo" is almost a fairy tale for adults with a clear pacifist and philanthropic pathos, giving the desired hope that mutual understanding is quite accessible and feasible .. ..In the reality created in "The Cuckoo", everything is possible if human beings are captured by a sense of peace, not war, when love is the only thing they need."
Be that as it may, the film by Alexander Rogozhkin "The Cuckoo" was rated quite highly by viewers around the world. 63% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users rated the film from 8 to 10. Taking into account this indicator and the above, the rating of Alexander Rogozhkin's film "The Cuckoo" according to FilmGourmand version was 8.224, thanks to which the film took 462nd Rank in the Golden Thousand.
But the appearance of the film, to some extent, one might say, is described by the lines of the immortal Anna Akhmatova: "If only you knew from what rubbish poetry grows, knowing no shame..." Spectators who watched Alexander Rogozhkin's comedy "Pecularities of the National Hunt" will surely remember such funny moments from this film when Raivo, the hero of Ville Haapasalo, and Kuzmich, the hero of Viktor Bychkov, actively and emotionally communicate with each other, while speaking exclusively in their native languages (Finnish and Russian) and not understanding each other at all. The actors, who became friends during the filming, came up with the idea to build a whole film on this, but not just a comedy, but a drama where the heroes would be soldiers of the opposing armies. With this idea, they turned to the film director Alexander Rogozhkin, who liked the idea and wrote the script in 3 days. At the same time, he added another character to the script - a woman speaking a third language - the Saami people.
Writing a script is one thing. But after all, it was necessary to find an actress with knowledge of the Saami language. And with this there were problems. And it must have happened that rumors about the search for an actress with knowledge of the Saami language reached the 23-year-old student of the Institute of Arts Anna-Kristina Juuso. It was she who became the uncontested candidate for the role of Cuckoo. She herself translated the role into the Saami language. She played it herself. She played brilliantly, not being a professional actress. This is how the film was born, which became the 7th in the list of Russian films included in the Golden Thousand.
