Wolf Messing: Who Saw Through Time () is a Russian TV series about fate of Wolf Messing, based on the novel of the same name by the screenwriter Eduard Volodarsky. by the Russia-1 TV channel. The series premiered on the Russia-1 on November 15, 2009.
Plot
Messing was born in the last year of the nineteenth century and became one of the most mysterious and fateful personalities of the twentieth century. A boy from a poor Jewish family, he was forced to start an independent life early. After leaving for Germany, he took on the most menial work. His supernatural telepathic abilities were discovered quite accidentally, by two Jews, under almost mystical circumstances (one of them, the doctor, discovered that the "dead" boy was not dead). They also begin to promote him as an artist, and Messing spends his first public performances in the Berlin Panopticon. The audience remains in awe. Weimar Germany, scarred by the consequences of the First World War, was a place that attracted charlatans and mystics, great scientists and maniacs.
Soon the chaos of the Weimar Republic is replaced by the iron system of Nazi Germany. And here Messing is in demand as never before. In 1937, when the Third Reich is at the height of its glory, Messing predicts a swift and inglorious end to the "millennial Reich" in the event of an attack on the East. Believing in their own prediction, with Hitler's capture of Poland Messing crosses the border The Soviet Union. So life for him was divided into two equal halves.
In the Soviet Union, Wolf Messing is listed as a hypnotist and magician, being both an experimenter and a test subject, and unofficially becomes an astrologer of Stalin. He holds secrets that no one can share, secrets that will die with him.
Cast
Yevgeny Knyazev as Wolf G. Messing
Alexander Khinkis as Wolf Messing as a child
Roman Grechishkin as Wolf Messing in his youth
Alexander Klyukvin as Ilya Petrovich
Tara Amirkhanova as Aida Mikhailovna Messing-Rappaport, Messing's wife
Veronika Itskovich as Sarah, Messing's mother
Vasily Savinov as Gregory, Messing's father
Mikhail Gorevoy as Erik Jan Hanussen
Vladimir Dolinsky as Peter Zellmeister, Messing's impresario
Andrey Ilyin as Albert Einstein
Boris Plotnikov as Sigmund Freud
Vitaly Kudryavtsev as Konstantin Kovalev, pilot
Yuri Nifontov as Dr. Karl Abel
Ivan Agapov as Dr. Lev Kobak
Roman Pechersky as Paul Vogt
Viktor Rakov as Wilhelm Canaris
Mark Rudinstein as Osip Yefremovich
Aleksei Petrenko as Joseph Stalin
Georgy Teslya-Gerasimov as Vasily Stalin
Vladimir Shcherbakov as Lavrentiy Beria
Vladimir Chuprikov as Nikita Khrushchev
Oleg Chernihiv as Leonid Brezhnev
Sarkis Amirzyan as Anastas Mikoyan
Sergey Klanovsky as Mikhail Suslov
Dmitry Yachevsky as Adolf Hitler
Vasily Belokopytov as NKVD agent
Yuri Shlykov as Viktor Abakumov
Lyubov Rumyantseva as Raisa Andreyevna
Pyotr Yurchenkov Jr. as cadet of the intelligence school
Alexander Luchinin as Military
Edita Herbus as Anna Vogt
Andrey Podubinsky as episode
Film crew
The author of the script: Eduard Volodarsky
Directors: Vladimir Krasnopolsky, Valery Uskov
Director of Photography: Timur Zelma
Composer: Yevgeny Shiryaev
Artists: Ivan Rogoten Vladislav Travinsky Producers: Anatoly Chizhikov Sergey Danielyan Aram Movsesian Ruben Dishdishyan
Criticism
In general, the plot of the film is completely based on the legendary and not reliably confirmed biography of Messing. Shows meetings (which most likely didn't happen in reality) with Einstein, Freud, Hanussen, By Hitler and Stalin, shows Messing's alleged escape from a German prison by hypnotizing the guards, etc., which was noted by many critics of the film. In addition, there are many historical and visual inaccuracies in the film, including Messing's date of birth itself.
"In 2009, unexpectedly good ratings were given to the artistically insignificant series Wolf Messing: Who Saw Through Time. Venerable screenwriter Eduard Volodarsky collected all the legends and myths about the Honored Artist of the RSFSR Wolf Grigoryevich Messing-a mentalist who performed in the USSR with psychological experiments "on reading the thoughts" of the audience. Directors Uskov and Krasnopolsky put all the crazy stories up to Messing's acquaintance with Freud, Einstein, Hitler and Stalin on the screen. They swindled the "mentalist" almost to the scale of a biblical prophet..." (Alexander Kondrashov, Leningrad State University, 2013)