Vladimir Mirzoyev - about the TV series "Swampland": "Beauty is hostile for the intermediate person"

Angelica Zaozerskaya

- Vladimir Vladimirovich, how did you come up with the idea to shoot a series for the platform?

- Back in 2014, Mitya Glukhovsky wrote to me on the FB - we were not represented then, and there were no Russian platforms yet. Mitya offered to read a script called "Topi" ("Swampland"). The story immediately hit me, but it was a more concise version, for four episodes. This was the beginning of our acquaintance and co-authorship with Mitya. Prior to that, the script had been traveling on television for two years - without much success. It's clear why - this story is not for glamorous TV. For six years we have been looking for producers and money for the project. As often happens, chance helped. And the actor Maxim Sukhanov. Well, platforms have appeared, and the TV has a strong competitor.

- Anyone who follows your work understands that the choice of material for you is not accidental... and that for you "Topi" ("Swampland") is an important statement... In your opinion, is the Yandex platform a freer platform for creativity?

- Sociologists say that Russia is divided into two peoples: one watches TV, the other sits on the Internet. And these peoples hardly understand each other - the information flows and the ways of their perception differ so much. The audience for which the platforms work watches the best American and European TV series. This is an experienced viewer, accustomed to complex drama, experimentation, and non-standard film language.

- In our interview, you said that "in Russia, movement in a circle - an endless circle, and the same thought in "Topi" - wherever a person goes, he still returns to the starting point, the point of death... What then is the point life in Russia, if there is no way out, no breakthrough?

- The point is to break out of cyclical time and get into axial time. Break out of the archaic, from the class society, where everything new turns out to be well forgotten old. The "Russian system" of domination and subordination, as Yuri Afanasyev called it, will one day turn into a myth, into a poignant subject for cinema and literature, and nothing more. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Chekhov prophesied that "the beautiful Russia of the future" would appear in two hundred years. Now, one hundred and twenty has already passed - there is very little left.

- In "Topi" ("Swampland") - frozen time... What was 50, 100, 200 years ago, it remains... Only the language changes... Instead of fools - "assholes"... What is time? Hell is probably also timelessness? Maybe Russia is hell? But after so many centuries something could have been changed?

- There were more than one attempts to change something: Peter the First, the Decembrists, the reforms of Alexander II, the February Revolution, October Revolution, Perestroika, 1991... Historians believe that modernization requires at least two centuries of consistent and solidary efforts. If modernization is aborted, much has to start over. A hundred years ago, Russia was an agrarian country: 87% of the population were peasants, the most archaic layer of the empire. The Bolsheviks destroyed this layer, cut it to the root. The current elite are mainly the descendants of peasants - hence their unconscious passion for real estate and the seizure of foreign territories.

- Muscovites in your film find charm in this village, - their own bath, nature, village products... My grandmother lives in the Arkhangelsk region, and I was with her. I have not seen a more beautiful place in the world... Why in Russia beauty is associated with ugliness, why do we all want to disfigure, mutilate, destroy?

- Vandalism, a barbaric attitude towards nature and beauty in general is a stable characteristic of an intermediate person, a person at a crossroads. He has already broken away from traditional culture, and he perceives modern civilization as alien, hostile. This is how a child breaks a toy with which he cannot play.

- You have the only young and lively person (all are premature old people) - a journalist... He remains a journalist every minute. What is the reason for this phenomenon? Maybe a person who is looking for sensations has no age?

- I think Tikhon Zhiznevsky, who played the role of Max, is an actor of amazing charm - that's the whole point.

- The film has excellent acting work. How was the casting? How challenging was the shooting for the artists?

- The casting took place in different ways. Vanya Yankovsky was very determined. He began by saying without a shadow of embarrassment: "I want this role, this is my material, I am interested in this story, this hero, I want to play it." After the first try, we got Denis. And we searched for Max for a long time and painfully, tried dozens of actors - and did not find a single candidate. Until Tikhon Zhiznevsky appeared for the final of the casting.

- There is not a single child in the series... We have no future?

- We have a future. And in the final seventh series there will be children.

- Will you continue to shoot for internet platforms?

- Time will show. Hopefully, some of the projects I have in my portfolio will fit in well.

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