According to the director, starting working on the film, everything was important for him, right up to the smallest details. Improvisation in the historical drama is inappropriate, so the creators of the picture had to work a lot to pass the details of the era of the XIX century exactly. For a reliable image of the peasant life, a village was built for ten yards, including a blacksmith, chapel and even a bridge. On the replacement of straw, which were covered with huts in the villages of that time, found a reed. It was specially collected and made about three thousand sheaves. Artists-decorators in the grains were collected by authentic tubs, pots and other peasant utensils. "In such a work, any trifle in the background matters," says Anton Sivers. - For example, there is a peasant, and it is necessary to clearly represent how it goes, which and as it carries. If the rocker is what if the buckets are what. And it turns out, in the scarf must be! " By order of the artist in the costumes of Asi, the White famous master of Yelets made a hundred pairs of the lapes, which many artists wished to keep themselves after filming. And in order for the image on the screen is the most realistic, it was decided to remove without the use of electrical lighting. It was replaced by a thousand candles with three wicks, made at the Candle Plant of St. Petersburg.
"For me, this role is a certain challenge, and I accepted it," says the performer of the role of Vasilisa Svetlana Khodchenkova. - Previously, all my heroines were fragile and wounded. Now I started a new story in the cinema - I began to play strong, bold, desperate, ruthless to the enemy of women. The film has a very strong scene when Vasilisa runs through the rye field to people who are discussing - to issue or not their fellow villagers. The heroine breaks into this conversation with the words: "What are you forgotten, we lived one family? How good they did for everyone! Eh, you! "In these words, all the love and pain of fragile woman, her suffering for their people, is expressed in these words. In my heroine there is a rod, which sometimes does not always have in men. "
In one of Svetlana Khodchenkova scenes had to work with cold weapons for the first time - to wave heavy sabers. .
The role of the charming villain, the French officer, was approved by the actor Zherom Kuzan, who was chosen from more than twenty applicants. "The director specifically flew to Paris to Casting," says Zher. - After reading the script, I was fascinated by this story. This is such a "Russian Jeanne d'Ark." For the first time he worked in Russia, and for me, the memory of filming in this film is connected only with positive emotions. And in order to communicate with the Russian directors without a translator in the future, I began to slowly study the language. I have plans to make a career here. "
Batal scenes, which in the picture a premil set, partially starred with a dubler, but mostly the actors tried to do everything themselves. "I had to wave heavy sabers for the first time in Vasilisa. It was not easy, but the work was fascinated, "Khodchenkova shared. But the actor Dmitry Solomykin, who played the role of Ivan Ryazanov, the experience of communicating with cold weapons was already. "In my childhood, I was engaged in a sports shooting from Luka, and when it became older - sports fencing," recalls Dmitry. - It was hard for it when in a 30-degree heat on me there was a dense woolen doloman, under it - a linen shirt, Samovled on her neck, and from above - a mentor (fur cape. - Ed.). Yes, a saber in the sheath, which weighs a few kilograms, Cyver forty centimeters in height, woolen pants and boots ... I even lost weight during filming! " Khodchenkova could easily "make" his partner in riding matters, since it has long been fond of equestrian sports. But according to the scenario, such an opportunity was not provided for her - her heroine spends very little time in the saddle. "Of course, I would have shown the class - Laugh Svetlana. "But most of all in the frame on horseback, my men will jump - Ryazanov and Brica."
For a reliable image of the peasant life of the XIX century, a village was built for ten yards, artists-decorators on the grains were collected by genuine utensils of the time, and the master of Yelets made more than a hundred pairs of the lapes, which many artists took themselves
Historical objects were selected with special care. "I remember, there were shooting of the winter block in the royal village," the executive producer Mikhail Vavilov shared. - There we recreated the scene of the inglorious retreat of the French army from Moscow in the Smolensk tract. Random witnesses of this picture literally stopped and began to be baptized - it was so really happening what was happening: thousands of morally broken, french soldiers were tired of the rags and emaciated from hunger, and the abandoned calls were lying on her side, which were no one to carry - All horses are eaten by these distraught warriors. "
By the way ...
Vasilisa Kozyin was the wife of the head of the farm Gorshkov Sychevsky County of Smolensk province. In 1812, the French farm killed the husband of Vasilisa right in her eyes. After that, the woman organized a partisan detachment. Armed with pools and axes, the partisans attacked the calls and retired Napoleonic detachments, and the prisoners were transferred to the regular Russian army. For this feat, Vasilisa Skein was awarded a medal and cash benefit. In 2012, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation released a 2-ruble coin, which was depicted by this woman entered into history.