History WebOriginal / Goncharov

->'''Katya:''' Of course we’re in love. That’s why i tried to shoot you.\\

[[caption-width-right:350:The Greatest Mafia Movie (N)Ever Made.\\

[[caption-width-right:350:The Greatest Mafia Movie Never Made.\\

''Goncharov'' is a piece of collaborative {{Alternate Reality|Game}} fiction created on Tumblr in 2022. It consists of various imaginary posters, fanart, fanfiction, and reviews of a nonexistent movie from 1973, supposedly directed by Martin Scorsese.

* {{Tragedy}}: Most viewers agree that the movie is a tragedy, as [[spoiler:A good deal of main characters end up dying by the end of the film]]

# Ice Pick Joe is played by John Cazale, making this his 6th movie. He has a famous 10-minute scene with Katya, and at some point dies, also possibly at the hands of Katya.

Some details of the fictional film vary, but most agree that it is a mafia movie about the rise and fall of Goncharov, a member of the Russian mafia living in Naples. Other characters include his cold and cunning wife Katya and his friend/ally/rival Andrey.

* Tragedy: Most viewers agree that the movie is a tragedy, as [[spoiler:A good deal of main characters end up dying by the end of the film]]

# Valery Michailov in Katya's sister. He may resent Goncharov due to his relationship with his sister and due to Goncharov being wanted by the Russian government. He is somewhat patriotic, possibly a former government worker or soldier.

[[caption-width-right:350:The Greatest Mafia Movie (N)ever Made[[note]]Poster by Beelzeebub on Tumblr[[/note]]]]

->'''''Katya:''' Of course we’re in love. That’s why i tried to shoot you.''\\
'''''Goncharov: If we really were in love you wouldn’t have missed.''
-->-- ''allegedly a quote from the film''

''Gonchorov'' is a piece of collaborative {{Alternate Reality|Game}} fiction created on Tumblr in 2022. It consists of various imaginary posters, fanart, fanfiction, and reviews of a nonexistent movie from 1973, supposedly directed by Martin Scorsese.

# Goncharov was forgotten and was actually difficult to acquire for many years. This may have been due to corporations hoarding rights and access, the actually mafia targeting distribution of the film, other factors, or a combination of these. This led to pirating of the film, which allegedly led to pirating discourse surrounding the film.

* EarlyBirdCameo: a pre-WWWF Andre the Giant appears, guarding a piece of high tech equipment for one brief scene.

Some details of the fictional film vary, but most agree that it is a mafia movie about the rise and fall of Goncharov, a member of the Russian mafia living in Naples. Other characters include his cold and cunning wife Katya, his friend/ ally/ rival Andrey.

The project began as a {{meme}} a based on an Optical Character Recognition program's misreading of the film ''Film/{{Gomorrah}}'', resulting in a pair of shoes advertising a non-existent film and a bunch of film fans [[PlayAlongMeme pretending a film like this exists]]. This didn't stop the film from trending at #1 on Tumblr only a few days after a fake poster was created in November 2022, with Martin Scorsese trending at #2. On top of this, the film quickly gained a (removed) Letterboxd and (removed) IMDB page, as well as getting its own tag on Archive of Our Own, and having the 'main theme' from the film uploaded to both Tumblr and Spotify. The 'plot' of the film has so-far managed to avoid major contradiction, which may have contributed to the popularity of the meme.

* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Ice Pick Joe's full name is 'Joseph Morelli', but most agree the film only calls him "Ice Pick Joe".

The project began as a {{meme}} a based on an OCR misreading of the film ''Film/{{Gomorrah}}'', resulting in a pair of shoes advertising a non-existent film and a bunch of film fans [[PlayAlongMeme pretending a film like this exists]]. This didn't stop the film from trending at #1 on Tumblr only a few days after a fake poster was created in November 2022, with Martin Scorsese trending at #2. On top of this, the film quickly gained a (removed) Letterboxd and (removed) IMDB page, as well as getting its own tag on Archive of Our Own, and having the 'main theme' from the film uploaded to both Tumblr and Spotify. The 'plot' of the film has so-far managed to avoid major contradiction, which may have contributed to the popularity of the meme.

* TheSeventies: The setting for most of the action, including the original release of the film.

* YaoiFanGirl: Many of the writers and artists position themselves as shippers who want to pair two of the male characters.

* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Ice Pick Joe's full name is Joseph Morelli but most agree the film only calls him Ice Pick Joe.
* OnlyOneName: Goncharov's first name is not part of widely agreed on canon

* VillainProtagonist: Goncharov. Mind you, [[BlackAndGrayMorality there's a lot of that going around]].

%%
%% In case you aren't aware yourself, Goncharov is not a real film, and this is Just For Fun.
%% (Or, if you're still in November 2022, you can probably just search #goncharov on Tumblr.)
%%

->''"It is true. I am Goncharov."''

''Goncharov'' is a 1973 film written and possibly directed by Matteo [=JWHJ0715=] ([[EmbarrassingLastName yes, that was his legal name]]... [[MysteriousPast maybe]]), produced and directed by Creator/MartinScorsese, and starring Creator/RobertDeNiro, Creator/GeneHackman, Creator/HarveyKeitel and Creator/CybillShepherd, with Creator/JohnCazale and Creator/AlPacino. It's been called "the greatest Mafia movie ever made." It follows the story of Goncharov, a former discotheque owner who comes to Naples, and begins to work his bloody way up through the ranks of organized crime. In the process, Goncharov becomes entangled with the lives of Andrey, a familiar face from home, and the Neapolitan mafioso Mario. All the while, his ambitions clash with that of his cunning wife, Katya.

The movie is very loosely based on the obscure 1961 speculative fiction novella ''Jestem Goncharov'' by Irma M. Schuss. The novella itself is now out of print. The film was similarly difficult to obtain for many years, due to distribution following its initial limited theatrical run being tied up by [[ScrewedByTheLawyers conflicting translation rights]], the existence of at least seven [[ReCut alternate cuts]] of the film, rumored interference from the actual mafia, and a very... unorthodox advertising campaign which involved putting the ads not on billboards or movie theater walls, but on the tags for ''[[https://manywinged.tumblr.com/post/701431544322080768 boots]].'' For over two decades, many even considered it to be the MissingEpisode of Scorsese's canon, with Scorsese himself famously quipping that "We'll probably see ''Film/TheDayTheClownCried'' before we see ''Goncharov'' again." The film was finally released on DVD and VHS in 1998, and has seen several re-releases since, bringing renewed appreciation for this long-forgotten masterpiece.

Well, that's what the Internet would tell you.

In reality, and in case you weren't aware, ''Goncharov'' doesn't exist, [[MemeticMutation and is in fact an internet meme]] based on an OCR misreading of the film ''Film/{{Gomorrah}}'',[[labelnote:To summarize]]Basically, somewhere presumably in the Slavic region of the world there was an off-brand shoe company which used an OCR, or Optical Character Recognition program to scan various popular logos to put onto their shoes, ostensibly to pass their products off as a larger name brand such as Gucci or Puma. This specific OCR was programmed to recognize Cryllic and Latin alphabets, but, for whatever reason (likely due to being in a country where English was not common) the program was not properly set up to recognize English language. At some point during the production, the program came across an ad or poster for the Matteo Garrone film ''Gomorrah'', but, being unable to properly recognize the English wording, improperly transcribed it, and the owners of the program either did not understand enough English to see the errors, or didn't care anyways and left it in the system.[[/labelnote]] resulting in a pair of shoes advertising a non-existent film and a bunch of film fans [[PlayAlongMeme pretending a film like this exists]]. This didn't stop the film from trending at #1 on Tumblr only a few days after a fake poster was created in November 2022, with Martin Scorsese trending at #2. On top of this, the film quickly gained a (removed) Letterboxd and (removed) TMDB page, as well as getting its own tag on Website/ArchiveOfOurOwn, and having the "main theme" from the film uploaded to both Tumblr and Spotify. The "plot" of the film has so far managed to avoid major contradiction, which may have contributed to the popularity of the meme. The following article is, in tandem, troping the story as it's commonly pretended to be, though given the nature of the film as being entirely made-up, it's unclear if some tropes are applicable or even ''exist'' in extreme cases.
----
!!I guess these tropes ''are'' Goncharov:

* AbnormalAmmo: Goncharov loads his Thompson with unusual explosive bullets with a "tantalum jacket".
* AbusiveParents: Implied. Katya tells Sofia she was glad to ShedTheFamilyName, as it severs a connection to her father.
* AgentPeacock: In an otherwise fairly-grounded film with typical Scorsese-style gangsters, Ice Pick Joe stands out, dressing and behaving like a Film/DickTracy villain that hatched from a disco ball.

* AlternativeForeignThemeSong: For the film's Japanese release, the original end credits song was replaced by a rather bizarre NoiseRock cover of [[Music/JerryLeeLewis "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On"]] by Music/LesRallizesDenudes. The cover is now considered lost media.
* AmbiguouslyGay:
** Whilst the film never confirms Goncharov's sexuality, he claims he could never get close to Katya. [[HideYourLesbians Katya and Sofia]] also have a few scenes which very heavily imply they share an interest in women, but like Goncharov, they never explicitly confirm this. There's also a scene where Sofia very blatantly flirts with a (male) taxi driver, but she admits when she gets out of the car that she was just trying to get out of the fare.
* ArcSymbol:
** Clocks, stopped clocks specifically.
** Birds in flight, which seem to crop up whenever someone makes a confession. Even if the birds are not visible, such as the rainy night scene where Goncharov admits his true feelings about Katy, they can be heard ruffling their feathers in the background.
* ArtisticLicenseGeography: At one point, Ice Pick Joe talks about his fantasy of partying with [[RaceFetish "Bolivian beauties"]] on their beaches. Given that UsefulNotes/{{Bolivia}} is a landlocked country, it's definitely a fantasy. Though it's possible that Joe's simply ignorant of this and that it's meant to be seen as humorous.
* ArtisticLicenseGunSafety:
** Pretty much ''any'' Katya's suggestions regarding concealment of a firearm. You'd be wise not to follow and of those, particularly if using an older sidearm like she was.
** Ice-Pick Joe claims that the grip safety on Goncharov's M1911 is a hazard, because pressing on it too hard could cause the gun to discharge in the holster. This is exactly the ''opposite'' of how the M1911's patented grip safety works, which was designed to ''prevent'' the gun from firing the holster.
* AssholeVictim: It's hard to criticize Katya for shooting Celestino InTheBack, given his history of DomesticAbuse. Extends to a lesser extent to almost everyone that dies, given that this is a film about organized crime.
* AssShove: Implied. During the stakeout scene, Ice-Pick Joe mentions that he can't sleep without an unloaded gun under his pillow. Why unloaded? "Been strip-searched seven hundred forty six times. They never found my lucky bullet."
** This may have been intended to be a ChekhovsGun, but difficulties surrounding the filming of Joe's final scene required most of the action to be cut.
* BedlamHouse: Icepick Joe was institutionalized as a young man, and from what we hear, it was ''awful'', with unsanitary living conditions and an abusive staff.
* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The "Feast of a Thousand and Seven Fishes" dream sequence following Katya's near-death during the boat scene. From Katya's feverish POV we see various ghostly gangsters sat at an underwater table, grabbing at aquatic creatures that swim by and swallowing them whole; when Katya moves around them she can see that they are all victims of impromptu execution, their feet encased in concrete. She exchanges a look of recognition with an unnamed ghost (often mistaken as a young Creator/JoePesci, but both Pesci and Scorsese deny this), who winks at her, only to have his arm violently broken by a roving octopus. While Katya wakes up mumbling about it, she does not mention her dream in subsequent scenes, and it does not appear to affect the otherwise sombre plot.
* BizarreAlienLocomotion: Discussed. Valery at one point posits that if mankind ever discovers alien life, said aliens walk by bouncing around on their bulbous ears.
* BlackAndGrayMorality: It's a movie about organized crime. Even the people we're cheering for are scheming, drug-dealing murderers.
* {{Bookends}}: The film begins and ends with a shot of a train arriving in/leaving Naples. However, at the end, no one is on it, and there is just a lonely ticking sound.
* {{Catchphrase}}: Ernesto has "Nice one, boss!"
* ClusterFBomb: Goncharov, upon realizing [[spoiler:Katya's assumed treachery]]. Edited out for most Russian cuts of the movie.
* CoolCar: Katya's LMX Sirex is definitely treated as such in-universe.
* TheConsigliere: A sombre cameo by Creator/TonyShalhoub as Nicolai "Herb" Fyodorovsky, Andrey's former childhood best friend, who now rarely sees him. It is implied his exile from Goncharov's circle was caused by his poor advice leading to a botched territory takeover.
* DisabledMeansHelpless: Subverted. While Katya does worry after finding out Sofia's right leg is a prosthetic, it's only because she speculates that it's a result of the mafia's more "explosive" criminal activities. Sofia herself is quite capable of handling a gun and being just as tough as the other characters.
* EroticEating:
** The anchovy scene, where Katya slowly eats a tin of anchovies. Her lipstick slowly smears across the fish.
** Also, arguably, the "Feast of a Thousand and Seven Fishes" scene. Goncharov devours a whole fish like he's going down on a woman.
* EverybodyDiesEnding: [[spoiler:By the end of the film, almost all the characters are dead.]]
* EyepatchOfPower: Andrey Daddano wears an eyepatch over his left eye. Famously, however, there are several mistakes where a shot appears to have been reversed, and it appears on his right.
* FaceDeathWithDignity: [[spoiler:Mario Ambrosini, and Andrey. The same cannot be said for the other characters in the movie.]]
* FemmeFatale: Katya's arc infamously deconstructs the archetype. She's a very broken woman whose lost her will to live.
* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** In an early scene Goncharov is seen reading a book with the poems of Russian poet Aleksandr Blok and then cites one to Katya, emphasizing the line: ''Go on and live another quarter century -- nothing will change''. [[spoiler:When Katya apparently dies, the song heard is the full poem sung in Russian.]]
*** The last images in the film are also referring to the poem, showing Vinnie's drugstore, then the street and finally a street lamp.
** Valery Michailov says that the duke that funded the building of the church died because his wife betrayed him. [[spoiler:Guess what happens to Goncharov?]]
** Ice Pick Joe mocks Stalin because he died when no one dared to enter his office during his heart attack, while he likely would have fully recovered if he had received help at once and not laid on the floor for hours. [[spoiler:Joe ends up bleeding out slowly because nobody wants to disturb him in the cuts of his film where his fate isn't uncertain.]]
** Goncharov muses in one scene that he got out of the discotheque business just in time, and that every business has a lifespan. [[spoiler:Two scenes later, we see the cracks starting to form in his business with Andrey.]]
* FreezeFrameBonus: And a BilingualBonus to boot. In the Matteo cut, the paper Andrey is reading at the newsstand has an article on the back on how the police are tightening the focus of an investigation into local drug smuggling rings.
* FreudianExcuse: As the orphanage flashback reveals, [[spoiler:Icepick Joe has this in spades. Narrowly escaping a lobotomy as a child changes a person.]]
* JustForFun/FamousLastWords: Mario Ambrosini: [[spoiler:"And so I come to the end of my life. A great man. A good man. I have no regrets. Make sure they don't serve tortellini at my ceremony."]]
* GrowlingGut: Katya insists to Sofia that she's not hungry... only to be undermined when her stomach audibly rumbles.
* HandsOnApproach: Katya gives Sofia a very... friendly lesson in shooting.
* HellIsThatSound: In-universe, the ticking of clocks has become this for Andrey by the end of the movie. [[spoiler:No points for guessing what [[LastNoteNightmare the last sound is in the movie before the end credits hit...]]]]
* HistoricalCharactersFictionalRelative: The title character is implied to be the descendant of novelist Ivan Goncharov.
* HomoeroticSubtext: Occurs between both Katya and Sofia, and Goncharov and Andrey.
* IndirectKiss: Goncharov and Andrey via cigarette. [[spoiler: Andrey does it again to the (now dead) Goncharov, lighting his cigarette off the one in Goncharov's mouth, right before he kills himself.]]
* InstantExpert: Sofia claims to have no firearms experience, but after one lesson from Katya, she's shooting like a pro. This has led to speculation that Sofia is lying for some reason, especially given what we know of her background.
* KosherNostra: Goncharov is stated to be half-Jewish.
* LikeADuckTakesToWater: Goncharov and Katya are outsiders to both Italy and the criminal underworld at the start of the movie, but manage to adapt quickly during their rise to power.
* MaleFrontalNudity: Ice Pick Joe towards the middle, after washing the blood off of himself from a recent kill.
* ModestyTowel: Katya wears one after having an offscreen bath in one scene. Though it has been rumored that the scene originally had Katya naked after a DeletedScene showing her in said bath, Shepherd has denied that such a scene was ever shot.
* MurderSuicide: [[spoiler:The film's ending features Andrey killing both himself and Goncharov with a knife. Given that Goncharov had come to Andrey's villa in the first place to kill him, it's ambiguous whether Andrey had planned the act out in advance, or had attacked and killed Goncharov in self-defense, and only killed himself after he [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone realized what had happened.]]]]
* MysteriousPast: We know very little of Sofia's past, except that she was orphaned at a young age and "had to take care of herself". She seems fairly unfazed by a lot of the other characters' sketchy situations, suggesting she has a connection to the Mafia, or is at least from a rough enough background that it doesn't really bother her.
* NextSundayAD: The film is set in a vague future some time after the fall of the Soviet Union, which hadn't yet happened when the film was written, but the clothing, technology, and cultural mores are clearly those of TheSeventies.
** The only hints that this is, indeed, supposed to be a near future rather than an alternate 70s are Goncharov's comment that he got out of the disco business just as it was starting to crash, and [[{{Zeerust}} the newsstand selling "15 MB" floppy discs]] in the Matteo cut.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Senator Milburn (Joseph Cotten) is clearly akin to Senator Joseph [=McCarthy=] had he lived. He even boasts that 'Tail-Gunner Joe was like a father to me'.
* NoFullNameGiven: Goncharov's first name is never revealed.
* NoSparks: Katya and Goncharov seem to care about each other to some extent, but whether or not they ''love'' each other is a whole other matter. They share very little romantic or sexual tension, and both are far more invested in their relationships with Sofia and Andrey, respectively. However, they make a good team and don't seem to be wholly ''un''happy, either.
* NothingButHits: The soundtrack, beyond the original score, features The Rolling Stones and Bobby Winton as well as a great number of artists which were popular in Italy in the late 60s and early 70s like I Camaleonti, Domenico Modugno, Dalida and Aphrodite's Child. Averted with the Russian cut, which removes everything but the original score and one Dalida track.
* OneSceneWonder:
** Creator/LeonardNimoy as the nameless ex-KGB agent with the cracked wristwatch. All he does is offer Goncharov a drink and a monologue about the nature of our relationship to time and the past, but afficionados are ''obsessed'' with the guy — probably because we know so little about him.[[note]]The role was originally much larger but most of his scenes were cut for time (and also due to Nimoy being unable to go to Italy for reshoots) and can only be seen in the hard-to-find Matteo cut.[[/note]]
** Creator/JohnCarradine as The Premier of the USSR in the flashbacks.
** Lionel Stander as the New York boss, Lino 'the Big Fish' Pescegrande.
** To a lesser extent, Herb Fyodorovsky as mentioned below.
** Creator/{{Lynda Carter}} appeared [[https://at.tumblr.com/reallyndacarter/me-and-the-fonz-at-premiere-of-goncharov-1973/7i2vhbtu2yab briefly]] as [[https://at.tumblr.com/reallyndacarter/dancer-2/lf54wofhpkvn Dancer #2]].
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Ice Pick Joe's full name is never revealed. It's only the credits that list his real name as Joseph Morelli.
* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Subverted in-universe. Goncharov's Italian accent isn't feigned, it's just not particularly pronounced, as it's come from living in Naples for some years. It tends to fall away when he's upset in favor of his native Russian accent. The same cannot be said, however, for Andrey's Russian accent.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Herb Fyodorovsky directs one of these at Andrey, delving into the pathetic failure of a human being he's become since their parting. However, Andrey delivers one right back to Herb's face, telling him that at least he didn't [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere flee Naples at the first sign of trouble]] and leave his business partner with the can of worms they ''both'' opened.
-->'''Andrey:''' You left me here, knee deep in shit, without even pausing to offer a fucking shovel, and then you have the balls to come back and complain about the smell?!
* RedBaron: Ice Pick Joe. Mind you, he will [[ObfuscatingStupidity do what he can to downplay this...]]
* RedOniBlueOni: Andrey and Goncharov. While Andrey seems as put-together as Goncharov is, he's also quicker to act in more violent ways, while Goncharov favors a more measured response. Illustrated beautifully when [[spoiler:Andrey has a failed smuggler shot when he's caught by the police, while Goncharov has a go-between tell another smuggler (who didn't actually know who he was working for) that he'll be dead if the police discover he's smuggling drugs for the ''Romanian mafia'', knowing that the smuggler will tell the police and that'll give them a little breathing room.]]
* ReluctantPsycho: Icepick Joe is aware he's not sane or safe to be around, but isn't happy with that, and actually tries to stop the senseless cycle of violence he and the other characters are in. [[spoiler:He fails. Miserably.]]
* RunningGag: Goncharov keeps forgetting which pocket his lighter is in throughout the film. [[spoiler: Comes back dramatically in the end, where Andrey asks for a light specifically to distract Goncharov long enough to draw knife and stab him.]]
* ShedTheFamilyName: Katya gladly took Goncharov's surname for this reason.
-->'''Katya:''' What is marriage but a way to escape the names of our fathers?
* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Is it "Icepick Joe", "Ice-Pick Joe" or "Ice Pick Joe"? Even the official materials can't keep it consistent!
* StandardSnippet: To go along with the Naples setting, Music/EnnioMorricone's score features a searing guitar rendition of "Santa Lucia" (by [[Music/LedZeppelin Jimmy Page]]) at several points.
* StockingFiller: Sofia used to draw a line up the back of her calves to imitate stockings, as she could not afford real ones.
-->'''Katya:''' Wasn't it obvious?\\
'''Sofia:''' You don't realize it that much when you're thirteen.
* StoppedClock: Stopped clocks (and clocks in general) are recurring motifs throughout the film, representing the film's overarching theme of the inability to control the passage of time.
-->'''Goncharov:''' Oh, it's six already?
-->'''Katya:''' The clock's broken. It's been six for hours.
* SwanSong: Promising young director Matteo [=JWHJ0715=] died shortly before the release of the movie in a tragic Ferrari accident.[[labelnote:*]]On an even more tragic note, the same accident also led to the decline and eventual extinction of the Antarctic Woodcock.[[/labelnote]] This only adds to its cult following.
* ToxicFriendInfluence: Katya obviously cares for Sofia, but lies to her constantly, is manipulative towards her, and gets her to [[spoiler:kill a man. Sofia is ''not'' happy to realize Katya hasn't been honest with her. Katya does seem to regret it, but she's too proud to apologize.]]
* TranquilFury: Goncharov's stock in trade.
-->'''Goncharov:''' I watched too many bezumnyj fools charge face-first into a beating because they got too hot-blooded. You take a moment to cool down, your head stops bubbling... then you decide how you're going to hit him. It works better.
* UnabashedBMovieFan: Implied. Sofia mentions experiencing the ''Percepto: "Scream for your lives!'' gimmick while fondly recounting a previous, dead-end friendship. ''Percepto!'' was famously used in screenings of ''Film/TheTingler''. Although, since she watched ''The Invisible Man Returns'', and Katya gives her a signed poster of ''Film/TheLastManOnEarth'', she might just be an unabashed fan of Creator/VincentPrice (who played the main character of all three films).
* UncertainDoom:
** [[spoiler:Mario Ambrosini's wife, Mariella, gives her speech comparing herself to the younger Katya, and then leaves for the Ambrosini house, presumably dying in the ensuing massacre, but we never see her body and no one mentions her again.]]
** In some cuts of the movie, Ice Pick Joe, whose fate after being dragged into the church is ambiguous.
** Similarly, Katya [[spoiler:is shot in every version of the film. Most show her unambiguously dying, but one shows her managing to stumble outside and flag down a ride, implying she'll survive and is now on the run, and yet another shows a blonde woman with her back to the camera who ''might'' be her at the train station at the end. Katya's survival or lack thereof is one of the biggest debates in the fandom.]]
** We never find out what happens to Sofia after [[spoiler:she and the dead (or badly wounded) Katya are separated.]]
* VillainProtagonist: Goncharov. Mind you, [[BlackAndGrayMorality there's a lot of that going around]].
* VisualPun: Katya eating Neapolitan ice cream in one scene.
----

%% Please refer to the "Except..." labelnote on the article itself for further details.

In reality, and in case you weren't aware, ''Goncharov'' doesn't exist, [[MemeticMutation and is in fact an internet meme]] based on an OCR misreading of the film ''Film/{{Gomorrah}}'',[[labelnote:To summarize]]Basically, somewhere presumably in the Slavic region of the world there was an off-brand shoe company which used an OCR, or Optical Character Recognition program to scan various popular logos to put onto their shoes, ostensibly to pass their products off as a larger name brand such as Gucci or Puma. This specific OCR was programmed to recognize Cryllic and Latin alphabets, but, for whatever reason (likely due to being in a country where English was not common) the program was not properly set up to recognize English language. At some point during the production, the program came across an ad or poster for the Matteo Garrone film ''Gomorrah'', but, being unable to properly recognize the English wording, improperly transcribed it, and the owners of the program either did not understand enough English to see the errors, or didn't care anyways and left it in the system.[/labelnote]] resulting in a pair of shoes advertising a non-existent film and a bunch of film fans [[PlayAlongMeme pretending a film like this exists]]. This didn't stop the film from trending at #1 on Tumblr only a few days after a fake poster was created in November 2022, with Martin Scorsese trending at #2. On top of this, the film quickly gained a (removed) Letterboxd and (removed) TMDB page, as well as getting its own tag on Website/ArchiveOfOurOwn, and having the "main theme" from the film uploaded to both Tumblr and Spotify. The "plot" of the film has so far managed to avoid major contradiction, which may have contributed to the popularity of the meme. The following article is, in tandem, troping the story as it's commonly pretended to be, though given the nature of the film as being entirely made-up, it's unclear if some tropes are applicable or even ''exist'' in extreme cases.

In reality, and in case you weren't aware, ''Goncharov'' doesn't exist, [[MemeticMutation and is in fact an internet meme]] based on an OCR misreading of the film ''Film/{{Gomorrah}}'', resulting in a pair of shoes advertising a non-existent film and a bunch of film fans [[PlayAlongMeme pretending a film like this exists]]. This didn't stop the film from trending at #1 on Tumblr only a few days after a fake poster was created in November 2022, with Martin Scorsese trending at #2. On top of this, the film quickly gained a (removed) Letterboxd and (removed) TMDB page, as well as getting its own tag on Website/ArchiveOfOurOwn, and having the "main theme" from the film uploaded to both Tumblr and Spotify. The "plot" of the film has so far managed to avoid major contradiction, which may have contributed to the popularity of the meme. The following article is, in tandem, troping the story as it's commonly pretended to be, though given the nature of the film as being entirely made-up, it's unclear if some tropes are applicable or even ''exist'' in extreme cases.