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The Nose of the Conspiracy of Mavericks (Нос, или Заговор нетаких) is a 2020 Russian traditional animation film. The film is created by the animation studio School-Studio "Shar". People's Artist of Russia animator, Andrey Khrzhanovskiy directed the film. The film is based on the Russian classic, The Nose by Nikolai Gogol. The script writers Yuri Arabov and Andrey Khrzhanovskiy adapted the 18th century prose of Gogol as well as the verses of the opera of the same name by Dmitri Shostakovich into an animated film featuring a mixture of drawings, cut-outs, live-action, and documentary style filming.

The film has been in production stages since 1969, and took over half a century of work. The film used the soundtrack from the opera. The Nose premiered in Russia at the Open Russian Film Festival Kinotavr on 11 September 2020. For the first time in Russian animation history, the prestigious Jury Prize at the 2020 Annecy International Animation Film Festival went to The Nose of the Conspiracy of the Mavericks.

Plot
Major Kovalev introduces himself. He is looking for the Nose that he lost. The Nose takes a life of its own, and is seen in a luxury car. An opera at the Bolshoi theater playing a Bulgakov piece is attended by Stalinist accomplices. However, cacophony starts a day later as Muddle Instead of Music editorial is written in the newspaper that intends to target Meyerhold and Shostakovich. Part 3 starts with the story of the Vsevolod Meyerhold and in general the many writers, scientists, and artists under an authoritarian government.

Development
The film is inspired by the short story The Nose by Nikolai Gogol and the opera The Nose by Dmitry Shostakovich. Their works presented avant-garde ideas that intrigued the public. However, the works especially the opera received meager publicity during the Stalinist government of the 1920s. By 1960s, Russia during the Krushchev Thaw, decided to adapt a cinematic rendition of the short story. Andrey Khrzhanovskiy was noted as the ideal director for such an adaptation and even the composer Shostakovich himself sent a postcard of approval. The first time Khrzhanovskiy heard of The Nose was at a 1974 play rendered by the composer Gennady Rozhdestvensky. Thereafter the director developed the concept of a film that is estimated as taking over half a century bringing in different creative thoughts and ideas. The director denoted Gogol's works are like natural-made storyboards for animated films.

The time at production was spent honing on the details of the script with collaboration by Russian screenwriter Yuri Arabov. The script describes the innovators and mavericks in arts and science from the twentieth and twenty-first century who came at the crossroads of authoritarian societies. Condensed into three parts, the script references an unprecedented meeting of such people as Sergei Eisenstein, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Bulgakov, Gogol and Stalin developed as a farcical drama. Allusions to other artists are made such as Surikov, Picasso, and Kazimir Malevich. By the end of the third act, the script became a tribute to the Soviet artists.

The inspiration for converging the the time periods of the two centuries that the film presented, came when the director was on a flight. Many bright screens of the airplane played different movies of different eras and countries despite the cabin room being closed off from light. The director was inspired by this event to create a multi-screen collage approach to edit and combine different fragments and stories with stylistic switching. An interview compared the film to the 2001 film Russian Ark.

Themes
The Nose developed the concept of Russian pictorial realism. As Khrzhanovskiy himself stated Gogol is one of the founders of realism and surrealism. Therefore, the creators of the film tried to evoke the Russian avant-garde semblance to the original work in the animated film. The director states the film is purely an artistic exposition and not a commercial film. The film is intended for a trained educated audience who understands the relations of the government and culture over the decades. The director also states the film has can't be limited to one genre. The film has the elements of drama, musical, and biographical film. The character Nose is developed as a totalitarian symbol depicted as a living monument.

Animation
The animation team drew the film using cut-outs, drawings, and live-action collages to bring to life the phantasmagoria sequences of the script. A review found animation was the only technique that can put to life The Nose. Collage animation is the main technique used for the film as the it juxtaposes anecdotes with a document or a newsreel with a painting. Character outlines are glued with daguerreotype faces.

Soundtrack
As news of a possible Andrey Khrzhanovskiy adaptation of The Nose reached the public media in 1969, composer Dmitry Shostakovich personally sent a postcard to the director stating authorization to use the opera as the soundtrack for the film. Compiled in 1920s, the opera was put on the shelves after censure from the Stalin authorities. However, in the year 1969, the opera at the Bolshoi theater as well as the literary novel by Gogol received critical acclaim again. The film that has been on the works for over half a century, finally saw the cinema halls in 2020 at Rotterdam. The soundtrack of the film is rendered under the operatic sopranos of Dmitry Shostakovich. A review found the musical aspect of the film became so convincing that it could be seen as a separate part of the film.

Theatrical
In 2020, the film debuted at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam. After a circuit of film festival expositions, the film was debuted in Russia on 11 September 2020 as the opener for the 31st the Open Russian Film Festival Kinotavr. The film received the Jury Prize, the second highest distinction at the 2020 Annecy International Animation Film Festival. The award became Russia's first such award in the history of Russian animation. In 12 December 2020, a jury of over three thousand members of the European Film Academy will decide on the film will be Europe's best animated film of 2020. The film is competing alongside only three other animated films.

Director Khrzhanovskiy states The Nose could be part of a future trilogy with the film being the sequel to A Room and a Half. A third installment is being planned with the script recently finished.

Reception
Stas Tyrkin states the film is a "symbiosis of cinematic genres." The review stated, "allowing the improbable to take place - creative alliances and human encounters-for example, Gogol, Meyerhold and Shostakovich. Khrzhanovskiy boldly mixes formats, painting genres and techniques - he comes out with a radical and cool collage that combines the seemingly incongruous - the aesthetics of Russian pictorial realism and revolutionary futurism."

Theatr.ru stated, "The musical side of the film becomes so winning that at some point it literally separates from the visual series and hovers over a slightly chaotic plot that mixes Imperial Petersburg and limousines, Naum Kleiman and Bratkov from the nineties, Stalin and his inner circle with Nabokov and Aeroflot planes, Anton Dolin and Volga boatmen in one cauldron."

Veronika Khlebnikova reviewed, "In Khrzhanovskiy's film, iconic figures of the Russian cultural code are placed in an eccentric collage. The latter, in turn, becomes an element of avant-garde theater and the principle of theatrical constructivism embodied by Meyerhold. In his play "The Earth Stands on End" (1923).

Anton Dolin believes the film isn't movie but is instead an exposition of music and literature: "Khrzhanovskiy's utopian plane, in which his friends and like-minded people gathered, where everyone has their own movie and their own freedom on the screen, soars in the air like a bird or an impossible machine with a perpetual motion machine. And it's not going to land."

French Annecy review by Mathieu Le Bihan remarked the film is a unique form of animation: "It deviates from the beaten path and plays with eras to better develop them on the screen."