“Noble Tramps” nice try, or One more step in the direction of comedy

In Ukraine there are certain cultural and geographical stereotypes – let’s call them this way. Well, for example – Odesa is the capital of humor. It has long been clear that the actual state of affairs differs from this template, nevertheless, a lot of people still think this way.

Lviv has also built around itself a sufficient number of myths. And any myth, stereotype, or ritual is an ideal material for a comedy.

While creating the “Noble Tramps” Taras Borovok and Dmytro Naumov built the script upon the Polish film of 1939, in which two hotheads were saving the girl from different kinds of troubles. However, as Borovok assures, the original source had left only its framework. So, we have:

– Two representatives of that Lviv mythology – batiars (specific Lviv subculture – translator’s note) Bodya (Ivan Sharan) and Mirek (Yuriy Khvostenko);

– One orphaned young beauty, an actress of the puppet theater named Khrystya (Iryna Hryshak);

– An enchanted bracelet that makes its owner invincible – one unit;

– Dictatorial regimes that are hunting for a bracelet and accordingly for Khrystya – two of them;

– Lviv city – one unit.

The action takes place at the end of the 1930s.

Director Oleksandr Berezan has built the story as a series of scenes with greater or lesser degree of comedy, stuck together with the help of a music (co-composers are Oleksandr Soshalskyi, rock veterans “Braty Hadiukiny”, as well as “Ray Band” and Myroslav Kuvaldin). Fights, drunkards, songs, absurd dialogues, charismatic characters – to cut short, all the necessary settings.

Another thing is that there’s too much of a caricature. It is clear that sane person has no reason to sympathize with thugs from NKVD, but it is not an excuse for the transformation of, let’s call it “Moscow episodes” with stupid red officers into a rude and not funny merry-go-round.

The same awkward way was made, for example, a drinking of hypocritical teachers with Bodya and Mirek: they wanted to show a party – instead, they made completely unrealistic mash-up; and the scene with fake Africa and painted like “aborigines” actors, in general, seems odd.

There are other pitiful moments, and there are a lot of them. Jokes often don’t hit the target. Regularly dialogues, situations, and acting are dominated by the simple wit of a TV show, the historical atmosphere is not felt either. On the screen, in spite of all the efforts of decorators and costumes, you can see a shiny touristic city with modern people.

Of course, these flaws are part of a global problem, which is that in Ukraine we can’t master the genre cinema at a satisfactory level. Comedy, on its part, is especially a complex one, according to the words of Berezan himself. You can somehow grab the spectator’s attention with a shootout on the screen or frighten him with the sudden appearance of a monster, however, to make the one laugh – you need a special talent for this.

That’s why numerous moments when I was laughing together with the audience prevented the “Noble Tramps” from being a total failure. In particular, I remember the hilarious appearance of Soviet saboteurs as a “nativity scene” with machine guns and wild surzhyk (way of talking when you mix Russian and Ukrainian words – translator’s note), an attack by the vicious nazi-dwarfs on a Lviv coffee shop or radio pigeons that transmit spy information by laying eggs. Sharan and Khvostenko play their heroes as convincingly as possible taking into account all circumstances they’ve made a pretty good team.

Finally, the one hundred percent successful component is music. “Braty Hadiukiny”, Soshalsky, “Ray Band”, and Kuvaldin created a soundtrack for the film, which can now be considered as a separate and a quite high-quality product.

Even bearing a burden of generic injuries of our film industry and the authors’ shortcomings, “Noble Tramps” will have their audience.

I will not call this picture the peak of the season. But here’s a good attempt (the one that Americans call “nice try”), a step towards a complete comedy.

Dmytro Desyateryk, The Day – specially for opinionua.com