Pirates of the 20th Century

The partisan attitude towards 'popular cinema' is something unhealthy which should bother any genuine cinéphile. It is the lack of interest to appreciate unknown films especially if they belong to 'popular cinema' genre. This lackadaisical attitude of disinterestedness compels many viewers to denigrate popular cinema. This is an extremely unhealthy trend which is detrimental to the growth as well as appreciation of popular cinema. Russian film "Pirates of the 20th century" can also be said to be a victim of this bizarre syndrome as most viewers tend to associate Russian filmmaking to author films, films which are made by cinéastes with their own ideas about the whole process of filmmaking. What makes this film by director Boris Durov interesting is that it came at a time when advanced technology was not available in Russia to shoot adventure films. Despite this obstacle, this film has managed to be recognized as a thriller which reveals the goodness of Russian people. 'Pirates of the 20th century' was shot on an idyllic location with some good shots of underwater photography. Its success was replicated by other national cinemas too. For example : A Hindi language film "Samrat" with some famous actors was released in 1982. When it was shown during a prime time slot on India's sole television network 'Doordarshan' in 1985, according to a rough estimate "Pirates of the 20th century" managed to garner a total of more than 5 million viewers.