With fireworks, political intrigue and massive hype, film director Nikita Mikhalkov welcomed 5,000 of Russia's political and artistic elite to the Kremlin Palace of Congresses on Saturday evening for the official premiere of his $ 45 million monstrosity, "The Barber of Siberia." As scalpers outside offered tickets for sale for up to $ 700, Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov rubbed shoulders with Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, Liberal Democratic chief Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Yabloko head Grigory Yavlinsky as they watched a film celebrating 19th-century Russia and its tsar.
An epic, three-hour tale of love between a young Russian cadet and a brash, chain-smoking American woman, played by Oleg Menshikov and British actress Julia Ormond. It is Russia's first real Hollywood-style blockbuster, obviously aimed at English-speaking audiences - and awards - overseas. But it has also been called the beginning of a domestic election campaign, due to speculation about a possible presidential bid by the director. The nationalist Mikhalkov, who has advocated a constitutional monarchy, appears briefly as the authoritarian Tsar Alexander III, riding into the Kremlin on a white stallion - a sight that made the audience cheer.
Mikhalkov insists that the film must not be seen as political, though its glorification of Russia's monarchy and 19th-century military traditions seemed to find an appreciative audience among assembled officials. "Please do not ask about our film as a political act," Mikhalkov said, "It's about our tradition. ... It must be viewed as it is, as a work of art." Mikhalkov has dabbled in politics before, winning a seat in parliament on the list of the Our Home Is Russia party and then turning it down.
Others say that his hinting at a possible presidential campaign is just a way of adding to the hype over the film, which was already intense. Mikhalkov has been omnipresent in the past week throughout the news media, and his film already has its own cigarettes, cigars, Hermes scarves, vodka and even eau de Cologne - supposed to contain the essence of the Mikhalkov's moustache. Television news showed perfume testers sniffing the great man's upper lip to make sure they got the scent just right.
But Mikhalkov was unusually circumspect about his political ambitions, trying to focus on the film instead. "My politics is my point of view. The only means of expressing it I know today is cinema. Tomorrow will be tomorrow," said the director on NTV television Sunday night.
Despite his protests, the film is already political, since around $ 10 million of government money was spent on making it at a time when the government has difficulty paying teachers, doctors and pensioners. It's real premiere was not Saturday but last month in Almaty at the height of the Kazakhstan presidential election.
Mikhalkov lent his support to Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, who won elections criticized by foreign observers as unfair for excluding leading opposition candidates.
Most of the funding for the film came from overseas investors, and the film must do well outside Russia to have a chance of making a profit for them. Lev Karakhan, a critic at Izkusstvo Kino magazine, said he believes it was more of a Hollywood blockbuster than a Russian movie and it will only do well abroad.
The film was shot mostly in English, in hopes of competing for a U.S. Academy Award, or Oscar, outside the foreign film category. It is expected to be entered into the Cannes Film Festival before making its North American premiere in the fall - timed, the makers hope, to make a run for the Academy Awards in 2000.
After the premiere Saturday, a slightly more select group of guests retreated to the Radisson Slavjanskaya Hotel for a Maslenitsa feast echoing the film's depiction of a huge, comic observance of the holiday.
A menu adorned with pictures of Mikhalkov as the tsar - but missing the real stars of the film, Menshikov and Ormond - presented traditional Russian dishes for gorging on before the start of Lent.
Actress Shirley MacClaine was overheard gushing over Ormond's acting and those well-known drama critics, Yavlinsky and Zhirinovsky, agreed that the film was a success. "I will support him for monarch," joked Yavlinsky.
The film was originally supposed to open last summer, but the timing still wasn't bad - during Maslenitsa, and three days before the most patriotic of drinking holidays, the Day of the Defenders of the Fatherland. The film is dedicated to the Russian officer corps.

Submitted by Sanochki