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# Konstantin Khudyakov’s 1984 film “Success” about a new director at a provincial theatre
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/v-provintsialnyi-teatr-priezzhaet-novyi-rezhisser-s-pervykh-minut-s-ego-litsa-ne-skhodit-samodovolnoe-nadmennoe-vyrazhenie-uzh-ia-to-znaiu-kak-tut-vse-dolzhno-byt/
- Published: 2021-09-21T08:51:09.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T19:04:33.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Cinema, Observations

A new director arrives at a provincial theatre, and from the first minutes a smug, haughty expression never leaves his face: I, of course, know how everything here should be done. Gennady Fetisov is neither shallow nor stupid, and he wants to stage a "Seagull" the like of which has never been seen, but his first steps among a company long since settled before his arrival are like the weightless pas of an elephant in a pink ballet tutu and pointe shoes a size too small, in a smallish display case full of crystal. The young director is ambitious but hard-hearted; his asceticism and lack of attachments are heavily underlined, save for one: he cares only for art, and only for success in art, while the sentimental price of it is simply written down to nothing. He really is capable of revealing a great deal even to actors who have seen life, capable of giving the audience unheard-of revelations, but on the way to his goal Fetisov forgets something lasting and important, plunging his company into yet another instalment of Russian classical hopelessness.

I want to share a film that is not the best known but is very much to the point and thoughtful, about life in the theatre and the eternal race for success, which, who knows, may turn out not to be needed at all.

[The film "Success"](https://youtu.be/DJUrIbdtHu8?ref=theparnassian.com) (1984) by Konstantin Khudyakov assembled a starry cast: Lev Durov, Alisa Freindlikh, Leonid Filatov, Alexander Zbruev, Larisa Udovichenko, Vaclav Dvorzhetsky...

In its day the picture won a number of far from minor prizes at international film festivals, but never became known to the whole nation, remaining somewhere on the second row of the dusty shelves of the state film archive.

Let us watch it together.