Anton Dolin on the best film adaptation of the novel "Cursed"

Master and Margarita: A Daring Cinematic Rebirth. Step into the world of Master and Margarita, a novel that has long been considered both a cult classic and an unfilmable “cursed” masterpiece. For decades, filmmakers have tried and failed to capture its spirit, complexity, and wild mix of genres. Now, against all odds, a new adaptation has arrived that’s electrified audiences and critics alike, provoking both rapture and outrage across generations. This new film, directed by a cosmopolitan filmmaker with roots in both America and Russia, doesn’t so much adapt the novel as it reimagines it for a modern audience. What stands out is the film’s sense of freedom—its cinematic verve, its boldness in reshaping the narrative, and its refusal to be shackled by the reverence surrounding the novel. Instead of a literal, scene-by-scene recreation, the story is filtered through the fevered imagination of the Master himself, a writer battered by censorship and personal trauma. The result is a vision where reality and fantasy blur, each scene echoing with the anxieties and absurdities of both Stalinist Moscow and today’s Russia. The cast brings a striking international flavor. The enigmatic Woland is played by a renowned German actor, lending the devil a truly foreign, unsettling presence—a move that cleverly mirrors the way Soviet authorities always suspected “foreign agents” lurking in the shadows. Margarita and the Master, portrayed by a real-life couple, anchor the film emotionally, with performances that are both vulnerable and defiant. Their relationship, often underdeveloped in previous adaptations, here becomes the heart of the story, shifting the emotional center from the Master to Margarita as the film progresses—especially during the legendary Satan’s Ball sequence. Gone are some of the novel’s most outlandish comic scenes—there’s less slapstick destruction, and the magical cat Behemoth is more mysterious than mischievous. But what the film loses in literal adaptation, it gains in atmosphere and thematic resonance. The dialogue is trimmed for pace, but the film never feels rushed. Instead, it pulses with energy, moving fluidly between satire, horror, philosophical drama, and flights of magical realism. Visually, Moscow is rendered as an almost dreamlike city—a parallel reality, neither quite historical nor entirely imaginary. One of the film’s most provocative achievements is the way it mirrors the present. Scenes of censorship, artistic persecution, and public hysteria evoke not just the Stalinist terror but also contemporary debates about freedom and conformity. The infamous “housing question”—a motif in the novel—feels as urgent now as it did then. The director’s outsider-insider perspective allows him to see both the absurdity and the profundity of Russian reality, making the story feel uncannily timely. The curse of Master and Margarita’s adaptations—so many failed or compromised attempts—seems finally broken here, not by slavish fidelity to the text, but by a willingness to take risks, to embrace the novel’s wild spirit, and to speak to the anxieties of our own age. This is a version that understands the novel’s essence: its blend of freedom and fantasy, satire and sorrow, the eternal struggle between cowardice and courage, and the price of true artistic liberty. In the end, audiences aren’t just watching a beloved book come to life—they’re witnessing an audacious dialogue between past and present, fiction and reality, Russia and the world.