The Republic of ShKID (film)

The Republic of ShKID
Directed by Gennadi Poloka
Written by Grigori Belykh
Leonid Panteleyev
Starring Sergei Yursky
Yulia Burygina
Pavel Luspekayev
Music by Sergei Slonimsky
Cinematography Dmitri Dolinin
Aleksander Chechulin
Production
company
Release date
  • 1966 (1966)
Running time
 103 min.
Country USSR
Language Russian

The Republic of ShKID (Russian: Республика ШКИД, translit. Respublika ShKID) is a 1966 Soviet comedy-drama directed by Gennadi Poloka. The premiere of "Republic ShKID" was held on December 29, 1966; in 1967, the film became a box-office leader - it was seen by 32.6 million viewers (12th place).[1][2]

Synopsis

The action takes place in St. Petersburg in the early 1920s. In the country as reported in the credits, 4 million children are homeless. Juvenile offenders are caught by the Cheka and distributed across boarding schools and gated colonies.

School leaders and colonies, teachers-enthusiasts choose their pupils themselves. Prison waits for those who are not taken into rehabilitation. Vikniksor, director of the school-commune named after Dostoevsky, prepares the teaching staff and personnel in welcoming the first set of students. They set the table for breakfast but no one comes to the dining room: after having breakfast in the dormitory as usual the street children take from janitor Meftahutdyn keys to the gate and leave the school.

At the same time they throw the keys into a tree so that it is difficult to lock the gates, and the tree is eventually cut down in order to get the keys. Having reveled enough, the homeless return on the evening of the same day to school and bully the staff. Most of their ire is received by the substitute of Vikniksora – Elanlyum, the German language teacher.

Then Vikniksor dramatically changes the style of communication: in the morning, rakishly transferring pupils from hand to hand, the teachers and the staff send them first into the shower, then into the dining room, where they are dismissed from the table for a slightest disobedience ( "you will have breakfast at dinner"), and finally are seated at their desks. Palvan, teacher of literature, has his own "method of education"; fawning before the disorderly street children, he sings them songs (mainly "urban folklore") during lessons, without burdening them with studies.

Two weeks after Vikniksor loses patience and dismisses Palvan. Disgruntled students start a row – they create their own independent state of hooliganism and declare war on teachers under the slogan "Beat the Chaldeans!". Teachers accept the challenge, but in the end are forced to negotiate peacefully. The main "Chaldean" finds a common language with the pupils when he writes the hymn for their state, but to change the habits of street children is not easy.

The senior students chastise the new ShKID member, Alexei Panteleyev, because he refuses to steal cakes with everyone from the half-blind mother of Vikniksor. At school there is the usurer Slayonov: making his bread business with younger groups, he with bread and saccharin bribes the senior companions and finds his defenders in this way. Senior leader Kupa Kupych "the Genius" cares for the new pupil, stunted one-eyed Kostya Fedotov nicknamed as "Mommy", like for a younger brother, but on the first night, after robbing comrades and especially Kupa, "Mommy" tries to escape from the school ...

Kupa's disappointment re-educates Mommy even more effectively than Vikniksor's anger, who shows him the door; it re-conditions him in such a manner that Vikniksor safely sends him to pick up an oxygen pillow and medicines for his sick mother, and so that he does not freeze he puts on him his own jacket. But on the way back Mommy meets his former comrades. Vikniksor's jacket and wallet is taken away from him, oxygen bag thrown into the fire, and not daring to go back to school empty-handed, Mommy is again on the street.

Cast

Production

The scenario was based on the autobiographical, though not devoid of fiction, story of former pupils of the school-commune for difficult teenagers named after Fyodor Dostoevsky (ShKID), Grigori Belykh (in the story - Chernykh, aka Yankel)[3] and Alexei Eremeev, who wrote under the pseudonym of "L. Panteleev. " Written in 1926 and published a year later, the story "The Republic ShKID" tells about the fate of homeless adolescents who for various reasons, find themselves in the school-commune, founded in 1920 by educator Viktor Nikolaevich Sorok-Rosinskiy, whose pupils, quite in the spirit of the time shortened the name to Vikniksor.[3]

The screenplay was written by one of the co-authors of the novel, Alexei Panteleyev, by then already a classic of children's literature.[3] Despite the fact that Panteleyev was already a famous writer, none of the eleven directors whom he contacted were interested in making the picture.[2] Gennady Poloka, according to his own testimony, was brought in as a literary assistant to work on the film, together with Eugene Mitko:

And then someone said: "He has a director's education. Let him film it!"[4]

Some homeless children depicted in the film were played by real juvenile delinquents, which gave the director an additional task of having to make sure that they would not break any laws.[5]

Although Poloka's film immediately gained popularity, Panteleev was rather disappointed; he wrote in 1967 in "Komsomolskaya Pravda":

In our school theft, card games, and usury flourished. There were violent fights. Not for a moment did the war between "ShKID" members and the "Chaldeans" abate. But there was something else ... We also read a lot with enthusiasm. Learned foreign languages. Wrote poems. There was a time when in our tiny republic of sixty people about sixty newspapers and magazines were released ... a museum existed. There was a theater where "Boris Godunov" and contemporary revolutionary plays were staged. None of this (or almost nothing) is depicted in the film. ... Life of ShKID on the screen looks poorer and rougher than it actually was.[6]

But in Poloka's movie, unlike the novel, the protagonist became Vikniksor and the storyline shifted its focus to his hard struggle against the evil inclinations which were acquired by the teenagers on the street.

Awards

References

  1. ↑ "Республика ШКИД" (in Russian). Megabook.
  2. 1 2 "Республика ШКИД" (in Russian). VokrugTV.
  3. 1 2 3 G. Antonova, E. Putilov. Briefly about author // Panteleev A.I. Works in 4 volumes. (in Russian). 4.. L.: Children's Books. 1984.
  4. ↑ Pavel Podkladov. "Человек вопреки" (in Russian). Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
  5. ↑ "Режиссёр "Республики ШКИД" смешил артистов голой ж…" (in Russian). eg.ru.
  6. ↑ Panteleev A.I. Where are you, heroes of "The Republic of ShKID"? // Works in 4 volumes. (in Russian). 3.. L.: Children's Books. 1984.
  7. ↑ "Республика ШКИД. Х/ф" (in Russian). Russia-K.
  8. ↑ "ВКФ (Всесоюзный кинофестиваль)" (in Russian). Archived from the original on 2011-01-07.

The Republic of ShKID on IMDb

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