A Russian remake of Malle's
"Ascenseur à l'échafaud", 1958, was the standout film of the 11th Russian fim week in Paris "Regards de Russie"
held from 13 ~ 19 November at the Arlequin cinema in Montparnasse.
Title: WEEKEND ~ УИК-ЭНД
Réalisation: Stanislav Govoroukhine
Режиссер: Станислав Говорухин
Starring Maxime Matveev as Lebedyev in the Maurice Ronet Role and blonde knockout, Youlia Peresslid, as the sassy bombastically stacked secretary. Other main roles are the inspector investigating the case and the young double murderer of the Swedish couple in his baseball hat. (In the original they were German tourists).
Also ran, the killer's pregnant girlfriend and the wife of the нero trapped in the elevator over the weekend, as well as the investigating inspector, (Vyacheslav Chepurchenko -- Lino Ventura in the original Malle version).
The existential killer in the baseball cap which is actually the second most important role in the picture, reminds one of a Slavic Belmondo resurrected from Godard's "Breathless".
Lebedyev, the handsome young central figure of this. Bizarre set of murders with twisted evidence is a handsome young business executive in a thoroughly modern Moscow with an insanely sexy secretary.
The basic tale is the same in both versions. A young manager in a major company of some sort kills an elder superior in an adjoining office with a pistol to obtain certain papers that will make him rich. The carefully orchestrated murder is made to look like a suicide and is reported as such. He has a perfect alibi but then gets hung up for another pair of murders he had nothing to do with.
After killing the old guy in his office Lebedev dropped his car keys on the ground outside and his fancy convertible was stolen by a young passerby - the guy in the baseball cap. The car was recognized by the wife in a restaurant with the new girl at the window, and she assumed the unseen driver was her husband, making her extremely jealous and contorting the évidence.
The suspense laden tone is set at the start when Lebedev edges perilously along a high bldg ledge over to the office of a company elder from whom he gets the valuable papers he needs then shoots him making it look like a suicide. If this caper is successful it will put him on easy street forever. He gets back to his office over the same ledge just in time to make it seem that he never left his office at the tîme of the death next door, as his sexy sec'y opens the door to tell him his wife has been calling. He then leaves the office but forgot something and goes back. This is where he drops the car keys and the hand gun he has in his glove compartment will be used by the young Belmondo type psychotic who steals the car to kill the swedish photographer and his wife.
The intrigue follows the main outlines of the Malle scenario fairly closely but is somewhat different in certain details with the Jeanne Moreau role reduced in importance as the double killer goes scot free at the end, while the main guy (actor Matveev) takes the fall for his crime on the overwhelmingly convincing circumstantial evidence.
Weekend is a perfectly orchestrated thriller in black and white with very subtle barely audible music replacing the Miles Davis original soundtrack and the well known mid-century Gallic ballad "C'est si bon" , streaming playfully over the end titles as we see the blonde killer scot free smiling triumphantly amidst a crowd of anonymous people.
New Russian star Maxim Matveev (31) billed lately as "Russia's answer to Brad Pitt". is very convincing in the lead role as the scheming killer trapped in an elevator and actually looks a bit like Maurice Ronet, the French star of the original.
This film by the veteran Russian cult director Govorukhin (75), active in the USSR since the mid sixties, is a minor masterpiece in its own right but was not too well received in Russia itself. The director was particularly peeved when audiences at the annual review of Russian cinema in Sochi laughed at places where no humor was intended.
Malle's late fifties original is updated to the present and is set in an ultra modern Moscow that looks like any modern city anywhere in the west except for a few signs in Russian to tell you that you are not in New York or the Paris of La Défense. No Soviet wedding cake architecture or Kremlin turrets here -- nothing but spotless business offices, up to date parking structures and shiny sleek late model cars on neatly paved streets. The business apparel of the main cast is international to a T and all the good looking actors could be taken for Americans if they weren't speaking Russian.
Although the elevator shaft imagery is prominent throughout suggesting the original title "Elevator to the Gallows", director Govorukhin has named his version "Weekend" which not only suggests the weekend our anti-hero spends tapped in a company elevator, but also recalls another famous Nouvelle Vague film by Jean-Luc Godard which was also called "Weekend" and not "fin de semaine".
While at least partly meant as a homage to the new wave French films of the mid-century Govorukhin's Weekend is a glossy compact thriller that stands on its own two feet with no anterior references needed to make it work smoothly and flawlessly. Remakes of old classics tend to fall flat on their new faces (Van Sant's remake of Hitchcock's Psycho being a classic example) but this one is every bit as good -- in some ways better than the original -- hopefully marking a new direction in Russian cinema. Can't wait to see it again!
Audience was mostly Russian and the Q.A after the show with the director was quite lively. Most audience questions were in Russian, and fielded in high spirited good humor by the director in person with able translation where needed.
Viewed at Arlequin Cinema, Rue de Rennes, Paris V.
Thursday night, Nov. 14, 2013.
Other new Russian film notes to follow.
Alex, Café Royal, Clichy - Paris