The Presidential Library hosts film screening "Sea-buckthorn Summer" about Alexander Vampilov

The Presidential Library hosts screening of Viktor Alfyorov's biography drama "Sea-buckthorn Summer", dedicated to the last years of life and the tragic death of the famous Soviet playwright Alexander Vampilov. "The Elder Son", "Duck Hunting", "Last Summer in Chulimsk", "Provincial Anecdotes" - these and other of his plays became widely known after the writer's death. His talent was recognized by critics, but on the stage the works were not persistently allowed. For what reason the self-sufficient, witty person, the soul of the company, will suddenly write the most unsolved and tragic play of his time - "Duck Hunting"; where the breakdown in his characters - the answers to these questions are sought and found in many respects by the creators of the picture "Sea-buckthorn Summer", staged at the film studio "Lendok".

"The film is very atmospheric, with its own author's view of Vampilov's personality", -  Alexei Telnov, Director General of the “Lendok” film studio, said ahead of the preview. - The summer of 1967. Alexander Vampilov will soon turn thirty. The "Duck Hunting" was finished writing. It seems that the capital's theaters are realizing that they are dealing with "modern Chekhov" and will open their doors to a young "atypical" playwright. With this complete unspent hopes of the moment and the action of "Sea-buckthorn Summer" unfolds".

The film has several accurate actor hits. In addition to the external resemblance of Andrei Merzlikin with the protagonist of the film, the artist managed to convey the main features that his character, the son of provincial teachers possessed: introspection, impeccable intelligence, faith in the spiritual purity of his father - the "enemy of the people" who perished in the camps.

The film intersects two deeply personal lines of the protagonist: the search for documents that shed light on the fate of his father, and the need for official recognition. It was - but in the province, where the Vampilov premiere came with great success. Remember even the setting of "Elder Son" in the Omsk Drama Theater, when ten months were recorded about 100 posts. However, until the capital scene, these waves did not reach, the reviewers were averse to praise - they looked closely at the new author.

Alexander Vampilov was obsessed with the desire to find at least some traces of his father. All watched and looked at the pictures of the beautiful young mother, imbued with her drama, the understanding that she compensated her lifelong loneliness with the desire to invest as much as possible into a talented son - and again and again continued archival searches.

"We tried to show the hero, tormented by Hamlet's questions about the cause of his father's death, about the fairness of the arrangement of the world, which allows such things", - Olga Pogodina-Kuzmina said after the premiere of "Sea-buckthorn Summer" in the Presidential Library. - He was also overcome by questions about the competence of the authors of the works of young authors, because he was fully aware of the scale of his talent".

In the cinema there was a "shelf" for the most honest and talented films, the controversial films were even shown to the artistic councils, the rumors about them were filled with earth, and the works of playwrights were read in the quiet of the offices by "art officials". Or, as an exception, by the cult capital directors, their verdict was often decisive. In Alferov's film, there is an episode in which the literary director of the theater, sensitive to the talent, tries to bring the young playwright to Oleg Yefremov, and he does not have enough time to engage in the Siberian provincial - and he throws over his shoulder: "You would show Lelik", I mean Oleg Tabakov. And then - the next return with nothing home, to his wife (in the film she is played by actress Polina Chernyshova) and daughter, warm reliable rear. 

Another verdict in the capital was imposed on a person who worked at the level of artistic discovery, releasing the depicted life from the slightest raid of falsehood of the "social order", the faceless "production dramas" that the post-war scene was sinning. In his everyday, at first glance, plays, global questions were raised about the meaning of the "little man", one of many, on this earth. By his works Vampilov marked a new wave in the national drama, and his followers were no longer afraid to show the life of a deceased from the officialdom, such as it was in reality.

Once he wrote in his diary: "I laugh at old age, because I know I will not be old". In the film "Sea-buckthorn Summer" Vampilov's death is shown in the waves of Baikal, so beloved by him. His premonition did not deceive him; he died young. As he remained in his plays - reflexive and unyielding in search of that truth about the life he was carrying.