Courier (film)

The film is set in Moscow, 1986; it opens with the Miroshnikovs' divorce. Their son, Ivan, а 17-year-old high school graduate, stays with his mother. Having failed the entry exam for university, his mother finds him a job as a courier for the magazine Questions of Knowledge. On his first day at work, Ivan is sent to deliver a manuscript to Professor Kuznetsov, but instead goes skateboarding with his friend Bazin and ends up being very late in delivering the manuscript. At the professor’s home, Ivan meets his daughter Katya, and they quickly find a common language. During his next visit to pick up the manuscript, Ivan is invited to have lunch with the Kuznetsov family. Ivan’s direct and peculiar statements infuriate the professor, who yells at Ivan and kicks him out. As they say goodbye, Katya tells Ivan that she will call him later. Ivan and Katya start dating. They meet each other's friends, but neither of them manages to fit into the other's group. Ivan and his family are not rich and spend their time on "budget" entertainment, while Katya is a representative of the "" with corresponding interests and values. One day when Ivan is visiting Katya, they are playing with the piano and are caught by the professor. He pulls Ivan aside and insists he end all relations with his daughter, saying that Ivan is a bad influence on her, to which Ivan responds by lying that Katya is pregnant by him and asks the professor for her hand in marriage; the professor believes him. The next day, Ivan finds Katya near Moscow State University and tries to apologize for his behavior, but it turns out that Katya also told her parents that she is pregnant. The young people then hide in a nearby basement to conceive the child, but they are ultimately interrupted by a passerby. In the evening, Ivan comes to Katya's birthday party with flowers to apologize to her family. He unexpectedly joins the guests and the Kuznetsovs' inner circle. The guests' conversation guests turns to modern times and youth, then turns into a confrontation and Katya's awkward confession that her dreams are far from her parents' lofty aspirations. Breaking down, she rushes out into the street, away from the guests. Ivan runs out after her and finds her not far from home. Katya asks Ivan not to come to her or call her anymore. On the way home, Ivan meets Bazin and asks what he dreams about. Bazin reports that he dreams of buying a coat, because winter is coming soon and he only has a jacket which is too light. After thinking a little, Ivan gives Bazin his coat and advises him to dream about something greater. Ivan walks through the yard, stops, and sees a soldier with a burned face and military awards - a reminder that military service awaits Ivan himself. ==Cast==

• – Ivan Miroshnikov • Anastasiya Nemolyaeva – Katya Kuznetsova • Oleg Basilashvili – Semyon Petrovich Kuznetsov, Katya's father • Inna Churikova – Lidiya Alekseyevna Miroshnikova, Ivan's mother • Svetlana Kryuchkova – Zinaida Pavlovna, editorial secretary • Aleksandr Pankratov-Chyorny – Stepan Afanasevich Makarov, editor-in-chief • Vladimir Menshov – Oleg Nikolayevich, guest at Katya's birthday • – Maria Viktorovna Kuznetsova, Katya's mother • – Agnessa Ivanovna, Katya's grandmother • Vladimir Smirnov – Nikolai Bazin, Ivan's friend • – Fyodor Ivanovich Miroshnikov, Ivan's father ==Production==

The film's concept was originally written by Shakhnazarov as a short story he wrote in 1982 to be published in the Yunost magazine; it was published in the April issue, and proved a success with readers, but Shakhnazarov did not intend to go further with the concept. In April 1985, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev announced the beginning of Perestroika. Having assessed the changing situation, Borodyansky suggested that Shakhnazarov adapt Courier for the screen himself. Dunayevsky's upbringing was similar to his character: his parents divorced when he was in high school, he had run-ins with the police for getting involved in fights, and he refused to go to college and got a job as a janitor. Since the filming took place during the Perestroika era, the crew had difficulty finding fashionable and elegant clothes for Katya. Because of this, actress Nemolyayeva used her own clothes and the clothes of Shakhnazarov's wife, . The episode where Churikova and Dunayevsky sing together on a guitar was improvised: during filming, Dunayevsky often strummed on a guitar in his free time. The track "Rockit" (1984) by B.T. & The City Slickers (a cover version of Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" from 1983) was playing from a nearby tape recorder. The disco scene was filmed in the youth cafe-club "U Fontana" (popularly known as "Moloko") in the Olympic Village, a fashionable place at the time where breakers often gathered. Filming locations The hearing of the divorce case of Ivan's parents in court was filmed in , Leninsky District Court, now Khamovnichesky Court of Moscow. Ivan skateboarding with Bazin was filmed on the observation deck on Sparrow Hills. The house where Katya lived with her parents was a complex of . The sand quarry where Ivan imagined an African hunter is a quarry in the Lyuberetsky District. ==Reception==

On 7 April 1987, in the newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiya, critic emphasized that despite his modern emancipation and daring sociability, Ivan is lonely, partly because his father left the family, just when his son needed him so much. On 17 July, the film won the Special Jury Prize in the full-length feature film competition at the 15th Moscow International Film Festival. On 17 December 1988, the film was nominated for the Nika Award for Best Soundtrack (composer Eduard Artemyev). Jury chairman Robert De Niro wanted to award Fyodor Dunayevsky the "Prize for Best Actor", but Georgiy Daneliya vetoed this decision. Retrospective In 2014, host of the radio program Radiola Sergei Sychev noted that the film at the time "gained great popularity and introduced breakdancing to young people across the country." In 2016, the online publication Afisha Daily interviewed Fyodor Dunayevsky for the film’s 30th anniversary, calling his character “a kind of Brother of the late 80s.” In 2017, Mikhael Agafonov, a journalist for the English online publication The Calvert Journal, mentioned Courier in an article about Soviet b-boys, noting that several scenes that featured breakdancing served as a free dance master class for viewers. ==References==