A loose remake of 12 Angry Men (1957), set in a Russian school in the war-torn republic of Chechnya. 12 jurors are struggling to decide the fate of a Chechen teenager who allegedly killed his Russian stepfather. The jurors: a racist taxi-driver, a suspicious doctor, a vacillating TV producer, a Holocaust survivor, a flamboyant musician, a cemetery manager, and others represent the fragmented society of modern day Russia. Amidst the battle between Chechens and Russians outside, a stray bird (a touch of New Age cinema) is flying above the jurors’ heads, alluding to tolerance.
A remake of a famous praised film is always a high-risk project, because a director takes risks to lapse into blind imitation. Fortunately Mikhalkov has enough talent and experience to rethink "12 Angry Men" by Sidney Lumet, to pass it through his own identity and produce an absolutely new and fresh film. This thought-provoking film surpassed all my expectations. Though it is a remake of an American movie, its plot is rooted in Russian reality. It reflects a lot of society’s ills and nation’s fears. I was deeply moved and fully satisfied with totally naturalistic dialogues. To my mind all-star cast played with miraculous virtuosity. The characters are true to life and I am sure that any Russian will be able to recognize himself in one of these 12 men. "12" is a stunning and intense drama with a large pool of talented actors, which leaves a lasting impression with you.
From Sony Classics:
Remake of the motion picture 12 Angry Men, which was awarded Golden Bear in Berlin in 1957 and three Oscar nominations. The picture by Lumet was shot based on the play by Reginald Rose, which Nikita Mikhalkov already staged once at Shchukinsky Theater School. The original film told about 12 jurors who were deciding the fate of a Latin American youth accused of murdering his father. First they all voted death sentence, and only one suggested that the case should be reviewed in every detail and swung the verdict as a result.
In Mikhalkov’s version the story unveils in the snow bound Moscow where, in a conventional gym, 12 Jurors are deciding the fate of a young boy accused of the 1st degree murder. That is the first work of the director over the last 8 years. The two months shooting period was preceded by a long time of rehearsals and detailed analysis of scenes and episodes. Mikhalkov was shooting his picture step by step following the logic of story development in the process. The final stage of work was in the setting of Aberbeevka village in Krasnodar Region. There, battle engagements in Chechyna were being shot for a few days in a row. According to Director, those are flashbacks of the youth’s memories as he is accused of murder of his stepfather. Those episodes will be cut into the main action of the film.
Chechen youth is played by actor-debutant Apti Magamaev; his younger brother Abdi was trusted with a role of his brother as a child. The seven year old Abdi stoically endured shooting under pouring rain and in an ice cold cellar under a barrage of a machinegun rounds. At the end he was to play an episode when he escapes bullets of the militants, but his parents are shot as he watches. For crowd scenes local villagers were enrolled. Music for the film was written by Nikita Mikhalkov’s friend Edward Artemiev. The psychological drama is developing accompanied by a piercing symphony of music with augmenting and fading rhythms at critical moments, lyrical deviations and a solemn gala finale. A thriller and a symphony, Chechen melodies and the sound of machinegun rounds, sobbing melodies which get to one’s heart and a philosophical rendition of what life is all about – those are the main musical themes underlying the canvas of the cinematographic artistry of “12” motion picture.
