The NTV channel has released a series of films by TV journalist Andrei Loshak “Russia. Full eclipse . Immediately after the broadcast of the first episodes, the Internet exploded with a variety of comments, from enthusiastic to indignant. And this alone suggests that the project was successful.
Project “Russia. Total Eclipse”consists of five episodes:“Bluebeard from Rublyovka”,“The Shock of Immortality”,“Killer Carpets”,“Mutant Nazis”and“Telesombi”. Many viewers probably did not pay attention to the mention in the announcement of the project that the films were shot in the documentary genre. This is a Russified version of the English term mockumentary, which, in turn, consists of to mock - "to mock", "fake" and documentary - "documentary". The name of the genre suggests that these are fake films, banter, mockery.
The first episode released produced the effect of an exploding bomb. Many people are accustomed to the fact that on television everything is presented in an extremely chewed form; in comedy series, laughing off-screen, they are even prompted when to laugh. And when such a viewer starts watching films of the project “Russia. Total eclipse”, he begins to get nervous, as he feels that something absurd is happening in front of his eyes. Understanding the state of the viewer, the author of the film gives in it numerous hints that you should not believe everything that is told in the frame. But comments on the Internet show that not everyone understood the clues, many viewers took the stories told at face value.
As conceived by the author, after each episode, the program “NTVshniki” was to start on the air, in which the film would be discussed, the answers to the questions of the audience would be heard. But everything turned out differently - the films lay on the shelf for a long time, the author himself learned about their broadcast from the news. Having received no explanations and mistaking the films for real journalistic investigations, the audience did not skimp on comments. Some fiercely criticized the author, others defended him just as passionately. The management of "NTV" was satisfied - the project received a high viewer rating.
Why were these films made at all - to make fun of the viewer? Of course not, the author had very different goals. Much of what is happening now on Russian television, in itself, resembles the theater of the absurd. And worst of all, the audience is already so used to it that they stop noticing the absurdity of what is happening. It is possible to knock them out of their drowsy state only if the absurdity of the situation is brought to the limit, which Andrei Loshak did with his films.
