Of course, the budget scale advertising campaign of hype and all-all-all the attendant circumstances of the premiere of the film by Alexei Uchitel "The Edge" can not be compared with the second part of "Burnt by the Sun" by Nikita Mikhalkov. However, the project, which involved such iconic face of Russian cinema, Vladimir Mashkov and Sergey Garmash, with such a heavy-handed for the Russian budget (11 million "green") and with clear international ambitions ("The Edge" proposed by the Russian film community to be included in an expanded list of nominees for "Oscar"), is doomed to let indirect, but still compared with the landmark project of Nikita Sergeyevich.

Siberia - a delicate matter ...

But first, as expected, the plot of the film "The Edge" .  In the fall of 1945 at a Siberian station with the eloquent title "The Edge" (because it is really nowhere to go farther, more stations on this railway branch there) comes demobilized soldier-soldier Ignat, before the war, a former train driver and now directed here to take their civic position .  Ignat pretty quickly realizes that Edge is not just abandoned in the taiga wilderness station when the station is the village inhabited by exiles "enemies of the people" hostile to the government entity which is obvious, but still not enough to send them to camp .  However, life in this free settlement for the better from the camp differs slightly - a life in common barracks, hard work in the logging .  Almost immediately it becomes clear that Ignat, a soldier-winner, absolutely stranger among these desperate people .  And the fact that Ignat and "kraychane" different, is particularly evident when the soldier discovers on a desert island miraculously surviving throughout the war a German woman Elsa .  In 1940, she and her friend and father - railway engineer came to work here, in 1941 her family was shot and she was presumed dead, was living in an abandoned on the island of steam .  Ignat initially treated it as a trophy to the labor force - still German .  But gradually he was able to see her as a person, while all the others, including a woman Ignat, Sophia continued to persist in his almost animal bitterness .  The situation is complicated by the fact that just about had come Chekist "Fishman", oversees the settlers and in his time who shot close Elsa ...

Price-quality ratio"…

Of course, the film, like any art, is not so well gives assessment in terms of the economic criterion of value for money .  But if you remember that movie a long time ago not only art, but also a business, this figure can be very telling .  The fact that Nikita Mikhalkov spent on the continuation of "Burnt by the Sun" more than 40 million dollars in Russia did not know that people without TV, internet, radio and newspapers .  And while rare man peeking "Burnt by the Sun-2" does not say that this is the case, about which we can say "the mountain gave birth to a mouse" (common and sharper assessment of the level of the project) .  On the screen you can see what the money was spent, but that does not help, in fact turned out not epochal saga of war and human destinies in conditions of terrible trial, and set, of course, spectacular, colorful and well-shot scenes, it is not developing in one story, and even with obscure characters and storylines strained .

The cost of production of the film by Alexei Uchitel "The Edge" made .  As mentioned, $ 11 million .  Most likely, the Russian box, he does not pay off - for this you need to collect at least 22 million (half the box office take away cinema), and the viewer now fisted, and advertising promotion of "Edge", again, as with all the latest film projects of the First Channel, leaves much to be much better .  But at the same picture of the Master, first, where meaningful, and secondly, a lot of whole, thirdly, clearly more worthy to represent Russia at the international level than the "Burnt by the Sun-2" .  Because, despite all its scope (the race on a real steam locomotive mid XX century Siberian taiga is the scale of the Hollywood blockbuster), the film "The Edge" is masterfully designed and intelligible language told the story of the one hand, human relationships, on the other, the Russian people in it as the best and the worst forms of national .  It is also a remarkably successful fusion of life stories from real life facial features, with human, warm and tangible, not artificially cardboard, passions and downright mythological narrative, a kind of parable .  And the ability to Alexei Uchitel choose actors for specific roles, and then in the good sense of the word "squeeze" all of the performers, to the last drop, it is well known .  About Vladimir Mashkov and all we can say that Ignat is one of his best roles of his career .  And sincerely sorry for people who are in the movie "The Edge" have not seen anything but "cranberry" bears, moonshine, taiga and sweatshirts - apparently it is for them the most important thing in all of history ...

Alexander Babitsky