MPAA (UR would be R) ChiTrib/Variety (2 1/2 Stars) RE.com (2 1/2 Stars) Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)
IMDb listing
FilmAffinity.com/es listing*
CineNacional.com listing*
CriticasDePeliculas.com listing*
Clarin.com (P.O. Scholz) review*
ElDia.com.ar (A. Castañeda) review*
LaNacion.com.ar (D. Batlle) review*
LeerCine.com.ar (S. Garcia) review*
Pandora-Magazine (M.J. Diaz-Maroto) review*
ProyectorFantasma.com.ar (M. Santillan) review*
TeLam.com.ar (P. Pécora) review*
Vos (R. Koza) review*
aVoir-aLire (G. Crespo) review*
CinemaObscura.com (T. Grégoire) review*
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review
Slant Magazine (C. Lund) review
The Hollywood Reporter (D. Rooney) review
Variety (P. Debruge) review
Ardor [2014] [IMDb] [FAes]*[CN]* (written and directed by Pablo Fendrik [IMDb] [FAes]*[CN]*) an Argentinian-Brazilian coproduction (with also Mexican and French support) set in the tropical jungle forest of Northwestern Argentina uses the conventions of the classic "Western" to tell its story. While this may seem surprising at first, I do believe it works pretty well:
A small Argentinian "homesteader" (played by Chico Díaz [IMDb] [FAes]*) who's worked hard to buy his little plot of land and has set-up his little subsistence farm (making a little tobacco on the side) with his daughter Vania (played by Alice Braga [IMDb] [FAes]*[CN]*) finds himself threatened by three toughs (played by Claudio Tolcachir [IMDb] [FAes]*[CN]*, Julián Tello [IMDb] [FAes]*[CN]* and Jorge Sesán [IMDb] [FAes]* [CN]*) sent out by some agro-business concern that wants to buy-out the small time farmers, raze the rest of the forest and set-up sort of a industrial scale cattle ranch / alfalfa business. (The quintessential North American Western would have a small town or rancher threatened by some corrupt big time ranger, mining interest or some railroad).
In their defense, arrives a mysterious forest dweller (played by Gael García Bernal [IMDb] [FAes]* [CN]*) who uses his acquired knowledge of the land (forest) to (minor spoiler alert) beat-back/defeat these minions of the faceless / distant corporate interest that wants to destroy this family and their land. (In a quintessential Western, a mysterious "cowboy" / "gunslinger" again, "one with the land" arrives to beat back / defeat the minions sent on behalf of the faceless / distant corporate interest (railroad, big time rancher, mining interest) on behalf of the threatened family / small town).
So I do believe that the Western metaphor works and Viewers get to enjoy often spectacularly beautiful jungle scenery as the story plays itself out. (Note to Readers: There have actually been several quite excellent recent films made around the world that have tried to apply the conventions of the Western to local circumstances. These have included the Austrian "Alpine Western" Dark Valley (orig. Das Finstere Tal) [2014] set in the "high Alps" of the late 19th century, and the contemporary Russian tale of one man trying to stand-up to corruption in a sleepy Siberian town today in A Long and Happy Life (orig. Долгая счастливая жизнь) [2013]).
I also think that Gael García Bernal [IMDb] [FAes]* [CN]* and Alice Braga [IMDb] [FAes]*[CN]* play probably the hottest Hispanic couple in a film like this since Antonio Benderas [IMDb] [FAes] and Salma Hayek [IMDb] [FAes] played similar roles in El Mariacchi [1992] / Desperado [1995] (where the setting was a previously sleepy desert Mexican town and the faceless corporate interest were Mexican drug lords).
Finally, the battles that have gone on in that Amazon rain forest have truly had a "Wild West character" (with the big-time / corporate interests doing most of the killing). Two famous cases of the murders of activists defending the small-time subsistence farmers / inhabitants of the Amazon against the big time ranchers / corporate interests have been that of Chico Mendez (organizer of the seringueros/rubber tappers of Acre) in 1988 and Sr. Dorothy Stang, S.N.D. in 2005.
My religious order, the Servants of Mary, knew and worked with Chico Mendes personally. In 2007, it published a book about the stories of a lot of the small time people (both indigenous and of European descent) who live and work in the Amazon. I helped translate the book and it is available in English at: The Amazonia that We Do Not Know (2012). Honestly, some of the stories recounted there could help Readers appreciate the current film here.
So honestly folks, good job!
ADDENDUM: This film which is currently (7/20/2015) playing the art-house circuit in the United States (including playing at Facets Multimedia here in Chicago) is also available on various streaming platforms including Amazon Online Video.
* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser.
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Reviews of current films written by Fr. Dennis Zdenek Kriz, OSM of St. Philip Benizi Parish, Fullerton, CA
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Ant-Man [2015]
MPAA (PG-13) CNS/USCCB (A-II) ChicagoTribune (3 Stars) RogerEbert.com (3 1/2 Stars) AVClub (B) Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)
IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review
Ant-Man [2015] (directed by Peyton Reed, story and screenplay cowritten by Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish along with Adam McCay and Paul Rudd based on the comic [wikip] [MCUniv] by by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby) surprised me, and perhaps I should have known better. I initially thought last year's Guardians of the Galaxy [2014], was going to be "one too many trips to the well," and I thought the same of the current film. YET ... I have to say that I left impressed ;-).
LIKE, last year's Guardians of the Galaxy [2014], the current film, Ant-Man [2015], is directed at a younger, pre-teen, perhaps 6-10 y/o, crowd.
Ant-Man's [2015] about Scott Lang [MCUniv] (played in the film by Paul Rudd) a former Bay Area / Silicon Valley electric engineer/computer-wiz/hacker, who spent time in jail for ripping-off credit card companies of ill-gotten gains, returning them (electronically) to the consumers who were (in his eyes) being shaken-down by them.
The film begins with him leaving prison. Swearing off his former "Robin Hood" antics of "defending the little people" against the "(corporate) predators of the world," he nonetheless finds that he can't get a job, WHICH IS A PROBLEM, because WHILE HE WAS IN JAIL, his wife Maggie (played by Judy Greer) divorced him, marrying instead, straight arrow SFPD Officer Paxton (played by Bobby Cannavale) who's going to be honest good-example father-figure to Scott and Maggie's 6-7 y/o daughter Cassie (played by Abby Ryder Fortson). Indeed, unless Scott can get a job, apartment and starts paying child-support, he's not gonna be able to much of cute-as-a-button Maggie at all. But how's he gonna get back on his feet / do all that when EVEN A BASKIN' ROBBINS ICE-CREAM SHOP won't hire him? ;-)
Well, as much as Scott hates the idea, his former cell-mate Luis (played by Michael Peña) finds him a "breaking and entering" (burglary) "job" that his "housekeeper cousin" discovered. "I'm done with crime," protests Scott, but with no other way to make some money, he gives in. And so Scott, along with Luis' rather sorry "out of their depth" crew composed of Luis himself (Mexican) driving, slavic sounding "computer geek" Kurt (played by David Dastmalchian) and African American Dale (played by T.I.) who I'm not sure what he does but he's there, decide to do the job -- breaking into a rather upscale San Francisco house who's owner was away, with a large safe in the basement.
Yet, after the breaking into the house and then two door of the safe, all without being caught, all that Scott finds behind the second door of the safe is ... a strange, astronaut looking suit. Just his luck: All that work, all that risk, for ... a stupid strange-looking suit.
Well, of course that suit had to do something ... it was the means by which Dr. Hank M. Pym [MCUniv] (played in the film quite well by Michael Douglas) was able to reduce and-or enlarge "the space between the atoms" of the wearer. So put on the suit, press a button and ... the wearer becomes reduced to the size of an ant ... press the button again and the wearer returns to his/her normal size.
And Dr. Pym actually set Scott up, through Luis' cousin / Luis, purposefully staging the circumstances of the break-in of his own house as something of "an audition" for Scott. Why? Because Dr. Pym, who used to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. [wikip] [MCUniv] before he became disenchanted with the whole business of "protecting the world from Evil Doers" (because it was becoming so hard to distinguish "the good guys" from "the bad"), had "a bigger job"for him -- A former colleague of his, Darren Cross (played by Corey Stroll) was rumored to have finally reproduced the serum that made "ant-suit" work and, of course, needed to be stopped. That involved breaking into Darren Cross' quite secure Silicon Valley company compound and destroying, completely, all his research. Only someone like Scott who knew how to both break-and-enter, as well as hack, could do such a job successfully ... So despite Dr. Pim's daughter Hope's (played by Evangeline Lilly) initial misgivings (she thought she could do the job more easily ... she's known her father and his work all her life, etc), Scott / Ant-Man takes the job, and much ensues ...
Part of what ensues is not merely Scott being able to reduce himself to the size of an ant by means of Dr. Pym's Ant-Man suit, but also, through means of a kind of telepathic transponder that Dr. Pym ALSO invented, Scott being able to COMMUNICATE WITH ANTS, tell them what to do, make them "work with him" in remarkable "ant-like" ways.
It all makes for a fascinating adventure, and the climactic scene involving a battle between Scott/Ant-Man and Darren Cross (wearing his "Yellow Jacket" suit ;-) takes place on the train-set and among the other toys in 6-7 year old of Cassie's room even as she and "step-dad" Paxton watch it all play out ;-)
Yes, it is a fun story for the little ones ... even as it could actually scare the daylights out of adults as they start to imagine the chaos can become possible with the development of "nanotechnology"
Honestly, a surprising film on a number of levels ;-)
<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here? If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation. To donate just CLICK HERE. Thank you! :-) >>
IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McAleer) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (G. Kenny) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review
Ant-Man [2015] (directed by Peyton Reed, story and screenplay cowritten by Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish along with Adam McCay and Paul Rudd based on the comic [wikip] [MCUniv] by by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby) surprised me, and perhaps I should have known better. I initially thought last year's Guardians of the Galaxy [2014], was going to be "one too many trips to the well," and I thought the same of the current film. YET ... I have to say that I left impressed ;-).
LIKE, last year's Guardians of the Galaxy [2014], the current film, Ant-Man [2015], is directed at a younger, pre-teen, perhaps 6-10 y/o, crowd.
Ant-Man's [2015] about Scott Lang [MCUniv] (played in the film by Paul Rudd) a former Bay Area / Silicon Valley electric engineer/computer-wiz/hacker, who spent time in jail for ripping-off credit card companies of ill-gotten gains, returning them (electronically) to the consumers who were (in his eyes) being shaken-down by them.
The film begins with him leaving prison. Swearing off his former "Robin Hood" antics of "defending the little people" against the "(corporate) predators of the world," he nonetheless finds that he can't get a job, WHICH IS A PROBLEM, because WHILE HE WAS IN JAIL, his wife Maggie (played by Judy Greer) divorced him, marrying instead, straight arrow SFPD Officer Paxton (played by Bobby Cannavale) who's going to be honest good-example father-figure to Scott and Maggie's 6-7 y/o daughter Cassie (played by Abby Ryder Fortson). Indeed, unless Scott can get a job, apartment and starts paying child-support, he's not gonna be able to much of cute-as-a-button Maggie at all. But how's he gonna get back on his feet / do all that when EVEN A BASKIN' ROBBINS ICE-CREAM SHOP won't hire him? ;-)
Well, as much as Scott hates the idea, his former cell-mate Luis (played by Michael Peña) finds him a "breaking and entering" (burglary) "job" that his "housekeeper cousin" discovered. "I'm done with crime," protests Scott, but with no other way to make some money, he gives in. And so Scott, along with Luis' rather sorry "out of their depth" crew composed of Luis himself (Mexican) driving, slavic sounding "computer geek" Kurt (played by David Dastmalchian) and African American Dale (played by T.I.) who I'm not sure what he does but he's there, decide to do the job -- breaking into a rather upscale San Francisco house who's owner was away, with a large safe in the basement.
Yet, after the breaking into the house and then two door of the safe, all without being caught, all that Scott finds behind the second door of the safe is ... a strange, astronaut looking suit. Just his luck: All that work, all that risk, for ... a stupid strange-looking suit.
Well, of course that suit had to do something ... it was the means by which Dr. Hank M. Pym [MCUniv] (played in the film quite well by Michael Douglas) was able to reduce and-or enlarge "the space between the atoms" of the wearer. So put on the suit, press a button and ... the wearer becomes reduced to the size of an ant ... press the button again and the wearer returns to his/her normal size.
And Dr. Pym actually set Scott up, through Luis' cousin / Luis, purposefully staging the circumstances of the break-in of his own house as something of "an audition" for Scott. Why? Because Dr. Pym, who used to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. [wikip] [MCUniv] before he became disenchanted with the whole business of "protecting the world from Evil Doers" (because it was becoming so hard to distinguish "the good guys" from "the bad"), had "a bigger job"for him -- A former colleague of his, Darren Cross (played by Corey Stroll) was rumored to have finally reproduced the serum that made "ant-suit" work and, of course, needed to be stopped. That involved breaking into Darren Cross' quite secure Silicon Valley company compound and destroying, completely, all his research. Only someone like Scott who knew how to both break-and-enter, as well as hack, could do such a job successfully ... So despite Dr. Pim's daughter Hope's (played by Evangeline Lilly) initial misgivings (she thought she could do the job more easily ... she's known her father and his work all her life, etc), Scott / Ant-Man takes the job, and much ensues ...
Part of what ensues is not merely Scott being able to reduce himself to the size of an ant by means of Dr. Pym's Ant-Man suit, but also, through means of a kind of telepathic transponder that Dr. Pym ALSO invented, Scott being able to COMMUNICATE WITH ANTS, tell them what to do, make them "work with him" in remarkable "ant-like" ways.
It all makes for a fascinating adventure, and the climactic scene involving a battle between Scott/Ant-Man and Darren Cross (wearing his "Yellow Jacket" suit ;-) takes place on the train-set and among the other toys in 6-7 year old of Cassie's room even as she and "step-dad" Paxton watch it all play out ;-)
Yes, it is a fun story for the little ones ... even as it could actually scare the daylights out of adults as they start to imagine the chaos can become possible with the development of "nanotechnology"
Honestly, a surprising film on a number of levels ;-)
<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here? If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation. To donate just CLICK HERE. Thank you! :-) >>
Trainwreck [2015]
MPAA (R) CNS/USCCB (O) ChicagoTribune (3 1/2 Stars) RogerEbert.com (3 Stars) AVClub (B+) Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)
IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McCarthy) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review
Trainwreck [2015] (directed by Judd Apatow, screenplay by Amy Schumer) is a well-written and very well-acted / directed romantic comedy that yes is exaggerated / crude (parents the R-rating is certainly deserved) but is certainly one that is full-of-heart in ways that other perhaps safer / cleaner comedies are often not.
As in the case of her show on the Comedy Central network Inside Amy Schumer [2013-], Amy Schumer plays a fictionalized persona, "Amy", that's clearly exaggerated for laughs -- a late 20-something boozer, smoker, and one who's had _so many sexual partners_ that clearly "the thrill is gone." Not that she doesn't still kinda like sex, it's just that by this point, she knows _exactly, exactly, exactly_ what she wants and once it's done, it's "Ay, GEEE... listen, I / you need to be going, I have a LOOONNG DAY tomorrow, and <patronizing smile> I have to get some sleep. It was nice, really, but ... good bye."
Yet, she is NOT evil. Indeed, a truly redeeming aspect of the film is her relationship with her (similarly in HIS DAY, horn-dog / drunk of a) father (played by Colin Quinn). But he's now older, indeed "in a home" and dependent on his two daughters, Amy and Kim (also played wonderfully by Brie Larson) for care. Here, Amy, the otherwise drunk / partying "irresponsible one," does most of the heavy lifting while, younger sister Kim, pregnant and with a (blended) family of her own, mostly complains how much her dad's nursing home care costs... I know cases almost exactly like this in my own life / work / ministry.
Further, when (minor SPOILER ALERT ...) her dad does die, Amy gives a remarkably funny yet POIGNANT eulogy to him that, I, as one who's performed some 300 funerals in my work as a priest simply have to appreciate: "My dad was a piece of work. Probably everybody here was insulted at least once or twice by him during their lives. Come on, raise your hand if you've been put down or insulted by him during his life (everyone raises their hand). Yet, most of us loved him anyway. Again raise your hand, if you loved this man (again everyone raises their hand. And I find this completely believably true)." And from there she continues ...
But this is a rom-com and so not really about her relationship with her father (though it was GREAT that this aspect of her character was shown and developed in the film).
Instead, the film becomes about her somewhat unlikely relationship with ... a nice guy, Aaron (played by Bill Hader), a sports-doctor (admittedly mostly to professional athletes), who she meets when she (whose character "knows nothing of sports") is sent to interview him for a piece for the über-glossy Maxim-style "men's magazine" with possibly the worst name ever -- it's called S'Nuff -- by her utlra-hip a-personality boss (played by Tilda Swinton). His life was supposed to wreak of testosterone, glamour (and the folks at S'Nuff could hope ... PERHAPS EVEN SCANDAL), and instead ... he's just a nice guy, fixing knees of superstar athletes like Lebron James [IMDb] (who plays a fictionalized version of himself) ... so that they could make a lot of regular people ... "happy" ... "build community," etc.
Again, A WONDERFUL ASPECT OF THIS FILM IS that ALMOST NOBODY is portrayed in the way that one would think that they are. Amy, promiscuous to the point of boredom / drunk, HAS A HEART. Dr. Aaron Collins, glamorous sports doctor to the rich and famous IS SURPRISINGLY UNCOMPLICATED / NICE. Lebron James, superstar athlete, who could have been really arrogant IS ALSO NICE, concerned for his friend, Aaron. Amy's dad, a jerk for a good part of his life, IS MUCH MORE THAN A JERK. And the list goes on ...
It's a surprising film. Yes, it's R-rated, and no 10, 12, 14 or 15 year old really "needs" to see it. But it's NOT a bad movie for a 20+ year old to see. Because a lot of times the way we judge / dismiss people is really not fair.
Anyway, good job Amy, et al, (surprisingly ;-) good job ;-).
<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here? If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation. To donate just CLICK HERE. Thank you! :-) >>
IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. McCarthy) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (C. Lemire) review
AVClub (J. Hassenger) review
Trainwreck [2015] (directed by Judd Apatow, screenplay by Amy Schumer) is a well-written and very well-acted / directed romantic comedy that yes is exaggerated / crude (parents the R-rating is certainly deserved) but is certainly one that is full-of-heart in ways that other perhaps safer / cleaner comedies are often not.
As in the case of her show on the Comedy Central network Inside Amy Schumer [2013-], Amy Schumer plays a fictionalized persona, "Amy", that's clearly exaggerated for laughs -- a late 20-something boozer, smoker, and one who's had _so many sexual partners_ that clearly "the thrill is gone." Not that she doesn't still kinda like sex, it's just that by this point, she knows _exactly, exactly, exactly_ what she wants and once it's done, it's "Ay, GEEE... listen, I / you need to be going, I have a LOOONNG DAY tomorrow, and <patronizing smile> I have to get some sleep. It was nice, really, but ... good bye."
Yet, she is NOT evil. Indeed, a truly redeeming aspect of the film is her relationship with her (similarly in HIS DAY, horn-dog / drunk of a) father (played by Colin Quinn). But he's now older, indeed "in a home" and dependent on his two daughters, Amy and Kim (also played wonderfully by Brie Larson) for care. Here, Amy, the otherwise drunk / partying "irresponsible one," does most of the heavy lifting while, younger sister Kim, pregnant and with a (blended) family of her own, mostly complains how much her dad's nursing home care costs... I know cases almost exactly like this in my own life / work / ministry.
Further, when (minor SPOILER ALERT ...) her dad does die, Amy gives a remarkably funny yet POIGNANT eulogy to him that, I, as one who's performed some 300 funerals in my work as a priest simply have to appreciate: "My dad was a piece of work. Probably everybody here was insulted at least once or twice by him during their lives. Come on, raise your hand if you've been put down or insulted by him during his life (everyone raises their hand). Yet, most of us loved him anyway. Again raise your hand, if you loved this man (again everyone raises their hand. And I find this completely believably true)." And from there she continues ...
But this is a rom-com and so not really about her relationship with her father (though it was GREAT that this aspect of her character was shown and developed in the film).
Instead, the film becomes about her somewhat unlikely relationship with ... a nice guy, Aaron (played by Bill Hader), a sports-doctor (admittedly mostly to professional athletes), who she meets when she (whose character "knows nothing of sports") is sent to interview him for a piece for the über-glossy Maxim-style "men's magazine" with possibly the worst name ever -- it's called S'Nuff -- by her utlra-hip a-personality boss (played by Tilda Swinton). His life was supposed to wreak of testosterone, glamour (and the folks at S'Nuff could hope ... PERHAPS EVEN SCANDAL), and instead ... he's just a nice guy, fixing knees of superstar athletes like Lebron James [IMDb] (who plays a fictionalized version of himself) ... so that they could make a lot of regular people ... "happy" ... "build community," etc.
Again, A WONDERFUL ASPECT OF THIS FILM IS that ALMOST NOBODY is portrayed in the way that one would think that they are. Amy, promiscuous to the point of boredom / drunk, HAS A HEART. Dr. Aaron Collins, glamorous sports doctor to the rich and famous IS SURPRISINGLY UNCOMPLICATED / NICE. Lebron James, superstar athlete, who could have been really arrogant IS ALSO NICE, concerned for his friend, Aaron. Amy's dad, a jerk for a good part of his life, IS MUCH MORE THAN A JERK. And the list goes on ...
It's a surprising film. Yes, it's R-rated, and no 10, 12, 14 or 15 year old really "needs" to see it. But it's NOT a bad movie for a 20+ year old to see. Because a lot of times the way we judge / dismiss people is really not fair.
Anyway, good job Amy, et al, (surprisingly ;-) good job ;-).
<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here? If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation. To donate just CLICK HERE. Thank you! :-) >>
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Dark World (orig. Темный мир / Temnyy Mir) [2010]
MPAA (UR would be R) Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)
IMDb listing
KinoNews.ru listing*
KinoPoisk.ru listing*
Kino-teatr.ru listing*
Megacritic.ru listing*
Afisha.ru (P. Favorov) review*
Filmz.ru (A. Yushchenko) review*
Gazeta.ru (X. Rozhdestvenskaya) review*
Kino.ru (A. Strelkov) review*
KinoKadr.ru (R. Korneev) review*
KinoNews.ru (D. Zhigalov) review*
Kino-Teatr.ru (Leonid Marantidi) review*
MyJane.ru (L. Lavrushina) review*
NewIzv.ru (V. Matizen) review*
NewsLab.ru (S. Mezenov) review*
ProfiCinema.ru (I. Perun) review*
RusKino.ru (S. Stepnova) review*
Tramvision.ru (E. Chekulaeva) review*
Vedomosti.ru (O. Zintsov) review*
IMDb listing
KinoNews.ru listing*
KinoPoisk.ru listing*
Kino-teatr.ru listing*
Megacritic.ru listing*
Afisha.ru (P. Favorov) review*
Filmz.ru (A. Yushchenko) review*
Gazeta.ru (X. Rozhdestvenskaya) review*
Kino.ru (A. Strelkov) review*
KinoKadr.ru (R. Korneev) review*
KinoNews.ru (D. Zhigalov) review*
Kino-Teatr.ru (Leonid Marantidi) review*
MyJane.ru (L. Lavrushina) review*
NewIzv.ru (V. Matizen) review*
NewsLab.ru (S. Mezenov) review*
ProfiCinema.ru (I. Perun) review*
RusKino.ru (S. Stepnova) review*
Tramvision.ru (E. Chekulaeva) review*
Vedomosti.ru (O. Zintsov) review*
Note (April 30, 2020): this film is available w English subtitles on Vimeo.com.
Dark World (orig. Темный мир / Temnyy Mir) [2010] [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* (directed by Anton Megerdichev [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]*, screenplay by Aleksey Sidorov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* and Aleksandr Dorbinyan [IMDb] [KP.ru]*[KT.ru]*) is a spectacularly good (and fun) Russian young-adult oriented film that I included in my 2015 Russian Film Tour that would be immediately recognizable to American/Western audiences as a conflation of some of the the conventions of a 1980s-era "mad slasher" film ("a group of rambunctious college students go for a weekend to ... and ...") with the more recent more developed heroine-driven Twilight / Beautiful Creatures / Mortal Instruments genre.
Add then a little LOTR / Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon [2000] magic / fight scenes (the presence of the "Eastern stuff" is fascinating BUT Russia is "Eastern Europe / EURASIA" after all ;-), some pretty cool/fascinating and arguably subversive "X-Files-style" conspiracy stuff, and a LOT of Russian (Eurasian, specifically Finno-Ugric) folklore ... and this becomes one honestly fascinating "soup" for both magic / horror-anticipating young adults and "pop culture" folklorists / enthusiasts to see.
In the story, a group of Russian college students (presumably from Saint Petersburg, though the famous edifice of Moscow State University is shown at the film's end) go with their philology/cultural anthropology professor (played by Vladimir Nosik [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) on a trip to the deep woods of (nearer to Saint Petersburg than to Moscow) Karelia on an "folkloric" (ethnographic) expedition.
The scenery itself is spectacular, filmed largely in and around Ruskeala Mountain Park outside of the town of Sortovala in Karelia. To get to their destination, the student group first travels by train, then by bus, and finally for some time by foot through a deep ever-misty, moss covered forest, arriving at a woodland hut of an old, indeed ancient-looking but definitely impression-making woman (played wonderfully by Tatyana Kuznetsova [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) ever dressed in white, with her auburn hair ever braided and under a veil with a snow-white husky (her familiar?) at her side. Folks, if one is serious about doing cultural anthropology, this is EXACTLY the kind of person that one would seek-out to talk to. So good job Professor Sergey Rudolfovich!
However, we're talking about a student trip here. So ... :-)
... Well, there's this red-haired Goth girl named Marina (played by Svetlana Ivanova [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*). She's kind of a loner, likes to freak-out her room-mates with loud headbanging music and weird gothic looking art, and while not terrible as an athlete (apparently all the students have to play at least some kind of intramural sport) it's clear that she doesn't really give a damn. AS A GOTH, folklore / mythology would kinda be her thing (so she's in the right class / on the right trip). Yet, AS A GOTH, she can't really show that she's particularly "interested" in that either ... (it kinda sucks being _intentionally_ moody ;-).
Now what (or more to the point WHO) she's really into (and yes it's kinda a contradiction, but SHE'S YOUNG / IN COLLEGE, so she can still be a PILE OF CONTRADICTIONS ;-) is "a really hot guy" on campus, named Artur (played by Ilya Alekseev [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*).
... Now Artur objectively HOT as he is, and while not entirely ill disposed to a pretty "exotic" / in her own right HOT-looking red-headed "Goth" classmate like Marina who's into him, HAS THIS DROP-DEAD GORGEOUS "Model Material" (in the U.S. we would say CHEERLEADER CLASS") BLONDE named Vika (played by Mariya Kozhevnikova [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) "hanging on him" as well. So ... what's Artur supposed to do? Here he has these TWO beautiful, both arguably "higher maintenance" (in their own ways) young women interested in him -- one perhaps "deeper" / "a little more exotic", the other, drop-dead gorgeous with a "Vogue magazine looks" interested in him. Ah ... it's awesome being awesome ;-) And "ripped" as he is, he's probably the school's star hockey player as well...
Well ... so there they are at this woodland hut, after dinner. Marina decides to "step outside for a bit," sits herself down on a lovely rock some 50 feet from the cabin, overlooking a beautiful mountain stream ... in the moonlight ... and ... Artur, rip-muscled and shirtless, "comes by." They start chit-chatting, then making-out, then ...
"HEY! What you doing there!" the old lady in white, coming out the door with a pale of water from the evening's dishes calls out, more than a little-irritated that she's run into two half-naked city-slicker college students making-out 50 feet from her otherwise pristine fair-tale home, admittedly illuminated by shimmering moonlight as the mountain stream rippled down the cascade behind them with ever present mist gliding all around them. Yes, this would have been one magical place to ...
Anyway, interrupted there by the old lady, with jealous drop-dead gorgeous Vika rushing-out two steps behind her ... Marina, embarrassed, gathers herself together, straightens herself out a bit, and then runs-off into the woods to catch her breath ... and cry. Shirtless yet ever awesome, Artur, like a stag trapped between two gorgeous headlights, Vika throwing daggers at him with her eyes and Marina running off into the forest to cry, doesn't know what to do. So he just stays there, shirtless but in the moonlight, perhaps a bit confused but still looking awesome ... while the class "good guy" / nerd (in Russian they dismissively call him "a botanist" as in studying for a hard but utterly irrelevant degree) Kostya (played by Ivan Zhidkov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*), "Nikon digital SLR"-like camera ever around his neck, runs out after Marina ... to see if she's alright.
Kostya soon catches up with her, and of course she's not entirely alright, but as they walk / talk, she progressively "gets better" ... But then the find that they walked quite a ways ... and ... begin to see that they are lost.
Though initially all discombobulated, "Were they about to do what we think they were about to do?" after a while, the rest of the group settles down at the cabin. But when Kostya and Marina don't seem to be coming back, they start getting worried, now about them. So ... after a while, they all go out as a party to look for them, good-natured Prof included (ever smiling, though he's had a busy day / evening, no doubt spending the past 1/2 hour apologizing to the still possibly pagan or perhaps now Christian but certainly rather conservative old lady at whose home they are all staing, for his two randy :city-slicker" charges who apparently were going to go at it, there right, in front of her doorstep ... "Well you know, hormones ...").
So now _the whole party_, Marina and Kostya, and then the rest of the group, Prof included, were out there in the moss covered woods, at night, ever present mist, swiring all about. So this could not be good ... And it soon, wasn't ...
Out there, at night, in the misty, shimmering moonlight, Marina and Kostya come to what appears to be an ancient cemetery, with some kind of a woodland chapel beside it. 'Cept the cemetery seems to be so old that the grave markers don't seem to be Christian and the chapel itself seems to be of a pagan or at least syncretic stripe. When they enter and look around, Marina falls through the rotting floor ... into a subterranean level opens into a cave, which now clearly seems to be some sort of a ancient pagan shrine, with all sorts of petroglyphs painted on the walls.
As Marina walks along the looking for a way back up, Kostya drops down to her level to try to help her get out as well. He's astounded by the petroglyphs and starts snapping pictures left and right. Marina then enters a chamber in which at its center is seated the mummy of some ancient warrior (woman?) with a spear and shield in her hands. Startled, Marina trips, crashes into the mummy. And as she falls to the ground, the mummy falling-upon her appears to breathe on her whereupon Marina passes out. Kostya, with his trusty camera in hand, captured it all on video. But of course he doesn't save her from passing out.
What now? Placing the passed out, and otherwise now strangely sickly looking Marina on the shield, he starts to drag her out, and starts to call out for help. The rest of the group, not too far behind them, arriving at the ancient cemetery hears him, and in quick order (Artur, after all, is "ripped") get Marina out of the chapel, carrying her out on that shield.
But she's still passed out, so they need to call for help. Now mind you, this is summer and they're located in Karelia, north of St. Petersburg, so if it was ever really dark, light would come soon. The question was to simply get her to a clearing and have the good natured Prof Sergey Rudlofovich to call on his satellite phone for help. They get her to a clearing ... he calls for help ... help arrives ...
'Cept ... the "help" that arrives with a BLACK HELICOPTER, with these black uniformed skin-heady "special forces" types jumping out of it. RUSSIAN they are, BUT they DON'T exactly look like regular "Russian Army." Who the heck are they? And are they there really to help? No ... having intercepted the Prof's call for help, and having heard "pagan chapel," "mummy" and "shield," they called "up the(ir) command" and were ordered by their HIGHER-UP to GET THE SHIELD.
The rest of the film follows ... ;-)
Now again, who were they? Well their "higher up" becomes a wonderfully drawn character. Nominally, he was Alexander (played by Sergey Ugryumov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) and even a Russian government official, the Minister of Mining or something or another. Indeed, when HE arrives on the scene after his special forces men in black uniforms with their black helicopters took custody of the shield (along with this group of cultural anthropology students...) one of the students, perhaps, "the nerd" Kostya exclaims: "Hey aren't you ... the Minister of ..." to which Alexander answers, "Yes, yes, I do that as a hobby ..." No, Alexander's more than just a random government minister in a random Russian government existing in a random Epoch of time. Alexander is actually a 2500 year old Uralic wizard named Ylto Vallo who has spent the better part of those 2500 years _looking for that shield_ because the soul of his father a grand wizard of his tribe was trapped within the labyrinth imprinted on its (the shield's) face. He was trapped there as a consequence of a battle between his people and that of the Finnic warrior witch whose mummy they had stumbled upon.
Well he now has the shield, but he needs the precise incantation to set him free. Learning that when Marina literally stumbled upon the mummy of that warrior witch, the witch apparently "breathed on her" (causing her to pass out), he becomes convinced that she'd "know the magic words." But ... she doesn't ... or else it's hazy.
What she needs to do is _become a witch_ to come to understand what she was told. Well, how would one _become a Finnic witch_ in the current day??
Well, "the old lady ever dressed in white with her snow white dog as a familiar" that they had met COULD HELP. And ... she does ... but she tells her/them ... "Look, I'm just a guardian here, you really need to find the 'witches of the lake'" and then points them in the general direction of where, if they are (Marina is) worthy, she could find them ...
Much, in often spectacularly beautiful / imposing scenery still ensues ...
And then all the while the question becomes: Is it REALLY "a good idea" to liberate the soul of a wizard trapped in a shield for 2500 years, when the wizard's son, doesn't seem to exactly be a "prince of goodness and light"? He operates a secret army out of a secret Bond Villain / Area-51 like compound out there in the Karelian wilds with his disciplined skin-heady troops in black special forces-like uniforms flying black helicopters after all ...
Anyway, it all makes for one heck of a story, and ... like the Twilight Saga, produced two sequels ;-)
HOW TO FIND THE FILM? The film as well as the two sequels are all quite easily available, in Russian, on the internet and the English subtitles for them can be found on the subs.com.ru website.
Folks, especially young adults, this is one spectacularly good / fun contemporary Russian "Twilight Saga-ish" story, well worth the effort to find ;-)
* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser.
<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here? If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation. To donate just CLICK HERE. Thank you! :-) >>
Dark World (orig. Темный мир / Temnyy Mir) [2010] [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* (directed by Anton Megerdichev [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]*, screenplay by Aleksey Sidorov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* and Aleksandr Dorbinyan [IMDb] [KP.ru]*[KT.ru]*) is a spectacularly good (and fun) Russian young-adult oriented film that I included in my 2015 Russian Film Tour that would be immediately recognizable to American/Western audiences as a conflation of some of the the conventions of a 1980s-era "mad slasher" film ("a group of rambunctious college students go for a weekend to ... and ...") with the more recent more developed heroine-driven Twilight / Beautiful Creatures / Mortal Instruments genre.
Add then a little LOTR / Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon [2000] magic / fight scenes (the presence of the "Eastern stuff" is fascinating BUT Russia is "Eastern Europe / EURASIA" after all ;-), some pretty cool/fascinating and arguably subversive "X-Files-style" conspiracy stuff, and a LOT of Russian (Eurasian, specifically Finno-Ugric) folklore ... and this becomes one honestly fascinating "soup" for both magic / horror-anticipating young adults and "pop culture" folklorists / enthusiasts to see.
In the story, a group of Russian college students (presumably from Saint Petersburg, though the famous edifice of Moscow State University is shown at the film's end) go with their philology/cultural anthropology professor (played by Vladimir Nosik [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) on a trip to the deep woods of (nearer to Saint Petersburg than to Moscow) Karelia on an "folkloric" (ethnographic) expedition.
The scenery itself is spectacular, filmed largely in and around Ruskeala Mountain Park outside of the town of Sortovala in Karelia. To get to their destination, the student group first travels by train, then by bus, and finally for some time by foot through a deep ever-misty, moss covered forest, arriving at a woodland hut of an old, indeed ancient-looking but definitely impression-making woman (played wonderfully by Tatyana Kuznetsova [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) ever dressed in white, with her auburn hair ever braided and under a veil with a snow-white husky (her familiar?) at her side. Folks, if one is serious about doing cultural anthropology, this is EXACTLY the kind of person that one would seek-out to talk to. So good job Professor Sergey Rudolfovich!
However, we're talking about a student trip here. So ... :-)
... Well, there's this red-haired Goth girl named Marina (played by Svetlana Ivanova [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*). She's kind of a loner, likes to freak-out her room-mates with loud headbanging music and weird gothic looking art, and while not terrible as an athlete (apparently all the students have to play at least some kind of intramural sport) it's clear that she doesn't really give a damn. AS A GOTH, folklore / mythology would kinda be her thing (so she's in the right class / on the right trip). Yet, AS A GOTH, she can't really show that she's particularly "interested" in that either ... (it kinda sucks being _intentionally_ moody ;-).
Now what (or more to the point WHO) she's really into (and yes it's kinda a contradiction, but SHE'S YOUNG / IN COLLEGE, so she can still be a PILE OF CONTRADICTIONS ;-) is "a really hot guy" on campus, named Artur (played by Ilya Alekseev [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*).
... Now Artur objectively HOT as he is, and while not entirely ill disposed to a pretty "exotic" / in her own right HOT-looking red-headed "Goth" classmate like Marina who's into him, HAS THIS DROP-DEAD GORGEOUS "Model Material" (in the U.S. we would say CHEERLEADER CLASS") BLONDE named Vika (played by Mariya Kozhevnikova [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) "hanging on him" as well. So ... what's Artur supposed to do? Here he has these TWO beautiful, both arguably "higher maintenance" (in their own ways) young women interested in him -- one perhaps "deeper" / "a little more exotic", the other, drop-dead gorgeous with a "Vogue magazine looks" interested in him. Ah ... it's awesome being awesome ;-) And "ripped" as he is, he's probably the school's star hockey player as well...
Well ... so there they are at this woodland hut, after dinner. Marina decides to "step outside for a bit," sits herself down on a lovely rock some 50 feet from the cabin, overlooking a beautiful mountain stream ... in the moonlight ... and ... Artur, rip-muscled and shirtless, "comes by." They start chit-chatting, then making-out, then ...
"HEY! What you doing there!" the old lady in white, coming out the door with a pale of water from the evening's dishes calls out, more than a little-irritated that she's run into two half-naked city-slicker college students making-out 50 feet from her otherwise pristine fair-tale home, admittedly illuminated by shimmering moonlight as the mountain stream rippled down the cascade behind them with ever present mist gliding all around them. Yes, this would have been one magical place to ...
Anyway, interrupted there by the old lady, with jealous drop-dead gorgeous Vika rushing-out two steps behind her ... Marina, embarrassed, gathers herself together, straightens herself out a bit, and then runs-off into the woods to catch her breath ... and cry. Shirtless yet ever awesome, Artur, like a stag trapped between two gorgeous headlights, Vika throwing daggers at him with her eyes and Marina running off into the forest to cry, doesn't know what to do. So he just stays there, shirtless but in the moonlight, perhaps a bit confused but still looking awesome ... while the class "good guy" / nerd (in Russian they dismissively call him "a botanist" as in studying for a hard but utterly irrelevant degree) Kostya (played by Ivan Zhidkov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*), "Nikon digital SLR"-like camera ever around his neck, runs out after Marina ... to see if she's alright.
Kostya soon catches up with her, and of course she's not entirely alright, but as they walk / talk, she progressively "gets better" ... But then the find that they walked quite a ways ... and ... begin to see that they are lost.
Though initially all discombobulated, "Were they about to do what we think they were about to do?" after a while, the rest of the group settles down at the cabin. But when Kostya and Marina don't seem to be coming back, they start getting worried, now about them. So ... after a while, they all go out as a party to look for them, good-natured Prof included (ever smiling, though he's had a busy day / evening, no doubt spending the past 1/2 hour apologizing to the still possibly pagan or perhaps now Christian but certainly rather conservative old lady at whose home they are all staing, for his two randy :city-slicker" charges who apparently were going to go at it, there right, in front of her doorstep ... "Well you know, hormones ...").
So now _the whole party_, Marina and Kostya, and then the rest of the group, Prof included, were out there in the moss covered woods, at night, ever present mist, swiring all about. So this could not be good ... And it soon, wasn't ...
Out there, at night, in the misty, shimmering moonlight, Marina and Kostya come to what appears to be an ancient cemetery, with some kind of a woodland chapel beside it. 'Cept the cemetery seems to be so old that the grave markers don't seem to be Christian and the chapel itself seems to be of a pagan or at least syncretic stripe. When they enter and look around, Marina falls through the rotting floor ... into a subterranean level opens into a cave, which now clearly seems to be some sort of a ancient pagan shrine, with all sorts of petroglyphs painted on the walls.
As Marina walks along the looking for a way back up, Kostya drops down to her level to try to help her get out as well. He's astounded by the petroglyphs and starts snapping pictures left and right. Marina then enters a chamber in which at its center is seated the mummy of some ancient warrior (woman?) with a spear and shield in her hands. Startled, Marina trips, crashes into the mummy. And as she falls to the ground, the mummy falling-upon her appears to breathe on her whereupon Marina passes out. Kostya, with his trusty camera in hand, captured it all on video. But of course he doesn't save her from passing out.
What now? Placing the passed out, and otherwise now strangely sickly looking Marina on the shield, he starts to drag her out, and starts to call out for help. The rest of the group, not too far behind them, arriving at the ancient cemetery hears him, and in quick order (Artur, after all, is "ripped") get Marina out of the chapel, carrying her out on that shield.
But she's still passed out, so they need to call for help. Now mind you, this is summer and they're located in Karelia, north of St. Petersburg, so if it was ever really dark, light would come soon. The question was to simply get her to a clearing and have the good natured Prof Sergey Rudlofovich to call on his satellite phone for help. They get her to a clearing ... he calls for help ... help arrives ...
'Cept ... the "help" that arrives with a BLACK HELICOPTER, with these black uniformed skin-heady "special forces" types jumping out of it. RUSSIAN they are, BUT they DON'T exactly look like regular "Russian Army." Who the heck are they? And are they there really to help? No ... having intercepted the Prof's call for help, and having heard "pagan chapel," "mummy" and "shield," they called "up the(ir) command" and were ordered by their HIGHER-UP to GET THE SHIELD.
The rest of the film follows ... ;-)
Now again, who were they? Well their "higher up" becomes a wonderfully drawn character. Nominally, he was Alexander (played by Sergey Ugryumov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) and even a Russian government official, the Minister of Mining or something or another. Indeed, when HE arrives on the scene after his special forces men in black uniforms with their black helicopters took custody of the shield (along with this group of cultural anthropology students...) one of the students, perhaps, "the nerd" Kostya exclaims: "Hey aren't you ... the Minister of ..." to which Alexander answers, "Yes, yes, I do that as a hobby ..." No, Alexander's more than just a random government minister in a random Russian government existing in a random Epoch of time. Alexander is actually a 2500 year old Uralic wizard named Ylto Vallo who has spent the better part of those 2500 years _looking for that shield_ because the soul of his father a grand wizard of his tribe was trapped within the labyrinth imprinted on its (the shield's) face. He was trapped there as a consequence of a battle between his people and that of the Finnic warrior witch whose mummy they had stumbled upon.
Well he now has the shield, but he needs the precise incantation to set him free. Learning that when Marina literally stumbled upon the mummy of that warrior witch, the witch apparently "breathed on her" (causing her to pass out), he becomes convinced that she'd "know the magic words." But ... she doesn't ... or else it's hazy.
What she needs to do is _become a witch_ to come to understand what she was told. Well, how would one _become a Finnic witch_ in the current day??
Well, "the old lady ever dressed in white with her snow white dog as a familiar" that they had met COULD HELP. And ... she does ... but she tells her/them ... "Look, I'm just a guardian here, you really need to find the 'witches of the lake'" and then points them in the general direction of where, if they are (Marina is) worthy, she could find them ...
Much, in often spectacularly beautiful / imposing scenery still ensues ...
And then all the while the question becomes: Is it REALLY "a good idea" to liberate the soul of a wizard trapped in a shield for 2500 years, when the wizard's son, doesn't seem to exactly be a "prince of goodness and light"? He operates a secret army out of a secret Bond Villain / Area-51 like compound out there in the Karelian wilds with his disciplined skin-heady troops in black special forces-like uniforms flying black helicopters after all ...
Anyway, it all makes for one heck of a story, and ... like the Twilight Saga, produced two sequels ;-)
HOW TO FIND THE FILM? The film as well as the two sequels are all quite easily available, in Russian, on the internet and the English subtitles for them can be found on the subs.com.ru website.
Folks, especially young adults, this is one spectacularly good / fun contemporary Russian "Twilight Saga-ish" story, well worth the effort to find ;-)
* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser.
<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here? If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation. To donate just CLICK HERE. Thank you! :-) >>
Inadequate People (orig. Неадекватные люди / Neadekvatnye Lyudi) [2010]
IMDb listing
KinoNews.ru listing*
KinoPoisk.ru listing*
Kino-teatr.ru listing*
Megacritic.ru listing*
Variety (R. Scheib) review
Afisha.ngs.ru (E. Polyakova) review*
Cinemateque.ru (V. Matizen) review*
Ekrana.ru (Mor) review*
Exler.ru (A. Eksler) review*
Ivi.ru (H. Wolly) review*
ObzorKino.ru (Z. Nikoleava) review*
RusKino.ru (S. Stepnova) review*
TimeOut.ru (D. Ruzaev) review*
Zhurnal.lib.ru (A.O. Valentinovna) review*
Inadequate People (orig. Неадекватные люди / Neadekvatnye Lyudi) [2010] [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* (written and directed by Roman Karimov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]*) is a surprising, gentle, both pointed and poignant, viewer acclaimed Russian "small indie" film (made for budget of less than $100,000) that while unsurprising (read on...) won _no awards_ (and wasn't even nominated for any) has nonetheless appeared _repeatedly_ on critics' lists as one of the best Russian films made since the turn of the new century (Hence why I included it as part of my 2015 Russian Film Tour). Why? Why the praise for this film?
Well, it's a gentle plea for compassion / freedom that would probably scare / "unstettle" most "authority figures." And I'm not talking here of "big shot" Authority Figures like "Putin" or "Obama" ... I'm talking about parents, teachers and clergy (and let's face it I'm a Catholic priest, so I have to count myself in this list) ... arguably the authorities that _really count_ in day-to-day life.
The story centers on two very average people:
The first is 30-something Vitaly (played by Ilya Lyubimov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*), who at the beginning of the film appears to be returning (from some kind of incarceration / institutionalization) to "normal" life, somber / chastened, after a terrible tragedy that, like it or not, he's come to accept was of his own doing:
One random night, waiting in a bar for his girlfriend who he loved and by all accounts loved him, he had gotten drunk. Then when she arrived with "another man," he took a swings at him before being stopped and explained to that the "other man" was his girlfriend's cousin ... Finally at evenings' end, Vitaly, again drunk, set-out to drive his girlfriend home, and got into an accident ... in which he lived, and she ... did not (was killed). It was "just one night, one awful random night, where _everything_ that could have gone wrong, did." But ... he also knew or had come to appreciate during his subsequent "time away" (again during his institutionalization / incarceration) that this was _also_ his fault, that he did have both anger and alcohol issues that needed to be dealt with.
So in the opening scene of the film, we see Vitaly, recently returned from "where-ever" at a young amiable "hot shot" Moscow psychologist's office (played by Evgeniy Tsyganov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*). Was Vitaly bitter that he was there? Not really. He even asked for a few of the psychologist's business cards, which throughout the film he gave to others who he thought could use some help.
The second protagonist of the story was the initially ever-in-a-funk, moody, eye-rolling 16-year-old daughter, Kristina (played by Ingrid Olerinskaya [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) of Vitaly's (new) neighbor a 40-something professional-of-some-kind / single-mom named Yulia (played by Marina Zaytseva [IMDb] [KT.ru]*). Note that Vitaly himself was no "blue-overalls wearing, hammer, blow torch or pick-axe carrying prol." Instead, he had made a living as a copy-writer / translator working for one-or-another / random Moscow magazine or publishing house, and was seeking to return to that line of work now that his "time away" was over. He had originally been from Serpukhov, a town of some 100,000, south-west of Moscow. Now that he was "rebuilding his life" / "starting over" and had no attachments back in his hometown (indeed, arguably he was "fleeing" his home town and with some shame), he had decided to move closer to Moscow, hence to a still quite random apartment, in a still quite random apartment complex, still at the edges of Moscow somewhere, just not "where he was from." And so then also ... the new neighbors ...
Okay, Kristina was not an _uncommonly_ eyes-rolling / moody 16-year old who had "difficulty" with her mother (or whose mother had difficulty with her). But Kristina's behavior did increasingly wear on her mother BOTH because it would probably wear on _any mother_ AND because Yulia "was a professional after all" and this didn't necessarily "fit in her plan (for her daughter)." So eventually, Vitaly gives Yulia one of the business cards that he asked of the psychologist and Yulia / Kristina go to see him.
However, this story is not really about the psychologist, or even about Kristina's mother. It's about Kristina and Vitaly, and ... unsurprisingly, with no father figure in her life Kristina begins "to fall" for Vitaly.
The rest of the movie is (quite uncomfortably) about ... what does Vitaly do about Kristina.
This is, of course, WHY the film, LIKED by (often not particularly critical) viewers and (more grudgingly) by critics, NEVERTHELESS GOT NO AWARDS (and wasn't even nominated for any). It's a quite uncomfortable film, the second half of it.
And it isn't that Vitaly (or the film's maker) did not know that it was wrong (on all kinds of levels) for a 30-something y/o man to get into a relationship with a 16-y/o girl, both Vitaly (and the film's maker) do. Vitaly repeatedly walks away from the precipice throughout most of the film and the film-maker keeps the story in PG-13 territory throughout.
But in a key dialogue near the end of the film, Kristina asks her (ever concerned and perhaps domineering) mother: Have you ever made a mistake?
It's an interestingly damning question. If her answer was "Yes," then Kristina would respond: "Then why won't you let me make one?" And if her answer was "No," then Kristina would respond: "So how has perfection worked out for you?" (Not well, it was clear that Yulia herself was quite unhappy).
So the film becomes a plea for tolerance of imperfection / failure. For with Freedom comes the possibility to Choose Poorly / Make Mistakes. But yes, it's a very uncomfortable movie to watch for all kinds of (even well-meaning) authority figures who'd like to protect their charges from mistakes / failure. So good job there, on the part of the film-maker, good job!
ADDENDUM: How to find this film? The film listed on the Art in Russia website as "One of the 17 Best Russian Films of the 21st Century" is quite widely available, in Russian, on the internet. English subtitles for the film can be found on the subs.com.ru website.
* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser.
<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here? If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation. To donate just CLICK HERE. Thank you! :-) >>
Monday, July 13, 2015
White Tiger (orig. Белый тигр / Belyy Tigr) [2012]
MPAA (UR would be PG-13) Fr. Dennis (2 Stars)
IMDb listing
KinoNews.ru listing*
KinoPoisk.ru listing*
Kino-teatr.ru listing*
Megacritic.ru listing*
Film.ru (P. Pryadkin) review*
Gazeta.ru (S. Sinyakov) review*
KinoNews.ru (R. Volokhov) review*
NewsLab.ru (S. Mezenov) review*
OVideo.ru (A. Trunov) review*
RIA Novosti (M. Ganiyants) review*
RusKino.ru (S. Stepnova) review*
THR.ru (V. Ramm) review*
White Tiger (orig. Белый тигр / Belyy Tigr) [2012] [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* (directed and screenplay cowritten by Karen Shakhnazarov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* along with Aleksandr Borodyanskiy [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* based on the novel [GR]*[WCat] [Amzn]* by Ilya Boyashov [ru-wikip]*[GR-eng] [GR-rus]*[Amzn] [IMDb]) was Russia's submission to the 2013 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. Additionally, it was nominated for (but did not win) three Nika Awards (the Russian equivalent of the Oscars). Though the most "conventional" of the contemporary Russian movies that I viewed / reviewed as part of my 2015 Russian Film Tour, I did feel that it did have the official acclaim to include it in my tour.
The film (fictional, of course) plays like a Russian adaptation of Herman Melville's classic novel Moby Dick set in the context of World War II: In the closing months of the war, Soviet tank formations come to be terrorized _occasionally_ by a mysterious (ghostly) WHITE Tiger Tank, that appears out of the mists, destroying many tanks, causing havoc in their ranks, before disappearing into the mists / swamps once more.
ALTERNATIVELY, the film could be understood as something of a Russian X-Men / Captain America style superhero movie, because the Russian tank commander Ivan Nadeynov (played by Aleksey Vertkov [IMDb] [KT.ru]*) who comes to be chosen to lead the crew of a specially designed/souped-up T-34 "super tank" to find / battle this white/mystical Tiger Tank, had battled it before and had been severely wounded, suffering burns over 90% of his body. YET, at every step of the way in his recovery when superiors / medical personnel were content to dismiss him first as dead, then as hopelessly mortally wounded ("why waste time on him when he's going to die in a few hours anyway?") and finally as destined to be a severely wounded invalid, HE PROVED THEM (almost miraculously) WRONG, EVENTUALLY BECOMING (save for a few scars) COMPLETELY HEALED. Indeed, he came to be something of a "tank whisperer" claiming to his superiors that "tanks talked to him" and were helping him to hunt down this white, mechanical abomination.
And so with his tank crew, he encounters and battles this tank at least two more times. And yet, when the War ends, neither he nor his superiors, from his immediate superior Major Federov (played by Vitaliy Kishchenko [IMDb] [KT.ru]*) up all the way to Field Marshall Zhukov (played in the film by Valeriy Grishko [IMDb] [KT.ru]*) are convinced that the "White Tiger" tank was ever really destroyed. Instead, they feared that Ivan right, that after his last battle with it, having faught it to a draw, it simply disappeared once again into the mists / swamps, WAITING to RISE AND CAUSE THE RUSSIANS HAVOC AGAIN.
Parallel to their concern is the closing boast of captured (and eventually executed at Nuremburg) former Nazi German General Chief of Staff Keitel (played by Christian Redl [IMDb] [KT.ru]*) after signing the formal orders of surrender that "Though yes, the world will hate us now, we're only guilty of actually doing what the rest of Europe always wanted to do but never had the courage: Nobody liked the Jews or the Russians for that matter. Everybody feared 'the hoards' from the steppes. We tried to take them on and all that we're guilty of is failing to defeat them."
This is actually a rather frightening closing piece of dialogue in the film because it seems to equate EUROPE (today???) with the Nazis of the past ... and suggests that the "ghostly White Tiger tank" may one day "rise again."
How to talk the Russians down from that frightening assessment? I suppose that the Russian government could invent reasons to fear us (and yes both we and they could still blow each other up) but there's NOBODY in Europe / the U.S. who would seriously consider an offensive war against Russia. Yet it must be noted that _Russia itself_ is currently scaring a lot of the smaller European countries along its borders. They too have still fairly recent experience / fears of tanks (mostly Russian) running across their lands ...
To them, the ghostly tank lurking in the forests / swamps ... would be a Russian one ... Heck, I'm 3/4 Czech ... I know something of tanks too ...
ADDENDA:
(1) How to see the movie? The film is quite widely available, in Russian, on the internet. Then subtitles in multiple languages are also quite easy to find on opensubtitles.org (thanks Nashi / FSB ...)
(2) How'd the film actually do? Not too well, not even in Russia. It did not break even financially (kinopoisk.ru) and did not score high among viewer responses (megacritic.ru). Indeed, both recent Russian family-oriented (Moms [2012]) and young adult oriented films (rom-com My Boy Friend is an Angel [2012] / and the Twilight-Saga-ish Dark World [2012]) faired much better both in the box office and with viewer and even critical response.
* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser.
<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here? If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation. To donate just CLICK HERE. Thank you! :-) >>
IMDb listing
KinoNews.ru listing*
KinoPoisk.ru listing*
Kino-teatr.ru listing*
Megacritic.ru listing*
Film.ru (P. Pryadkin) review*
Gazeta.ru (S. Sinyakov) review*
KinoNews.ru (R. Volokhov) review*
NewsLab.ru (S. Mezenov) review*
OVideo.ru (A. Trunov) review*
RIA Novosti (M. Ganiyants) review*
RusKino.ru (S. Stepnova) review*
THR.ru (V. Ramm) review*
White Tiger (orig. Белый тигр / Belyy Tigr) [2012] [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* (directed and screenplay cowritten by Karen Shakhnazarov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* along with Aleksandr Borodyanskiy [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* based on the novel [GR]*[WCat] [Amzn]* by Ilya Boyashov [ru-wikip]*[GR-eng] [GR-rus]*[Amzn] [IMDb]) was Russia's submission to the 2013 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. Additionally, it was nominated for (but did not win) three Nika Awards (the Russian equivalent of the Oscars). Though the most "conventional" of the contemporary Russian movies that I viewed / reviewed as part of my 2015 Russian Film Tour, I did feel that it did have the official acclaim to include it in my tour.
The film (fictional, of course) plays like a Russian adaptation of Herman Melville's classic novel Moby Dick set in the context of World War II: In the closing months of the war, Soviet tank formations come to be terrorized _occasionally_ by a mysterious (ghostly) WHITE Tiger Tank, that appears out of the mists, destroying many tanks, causing havoc in their ranks, before disappearing into the mists / swamps once more.
ALTERNATIVELY, the film could be understood as something of a Russian X-Men / Captain America style superhero movie, because the Russian tank commander Ivan Nadeynov (played by Aleksey Vertkov [IMDb] [KT.ru]*) who comes to be chosen to lead the crew of a specially designed/souped-up T-34 "super tank" to find / battle this white/mystical Tiger Tank, had battled it before and had been severely wounded, suffering burns over 90% of his body. YET, at every step of the way in his recovery when superiors / medical personnel were content to dismiss him first as dead, then as hopelessly mortally wounded ("why waste time on him when he's going to die in a few hours anyway?") and finally as destined to be a severely wounded invalid, HE PROVED THEM (almost miraculously) WRONG, EVENTUALLY BECOMING (save for a few scars) COMPLETELY HEALED. Indeed, he came to be something of a "tank whisperer" claiming to his superiors that "tanks talked to him" and were helping him to hunt down this white, mechanical abomination.
And so with his tank crew, he encounters and battles this tank at least two more times. And yet, when the War ends, neither he nor his superiors, from his immediate superior Major Federov (played by Vitaliy Kishchenko [IMDb] [KT.ru]*) up all the way to Field Marshall Zhukov (played in the film by Valeriy Grishko [IMDb] [KT.ru]*) are convinced that the "White Tiger" tank was ever really destroyed. Instead, they feared that Ivan right, that after his last battle with it, having faught it to a draw, it simply disappeared once again into the mists / swamps, WAITING to RISE AND CAUSE THE RUSSIANS HAVOC AGAIN.
Parallel to their concern is the closing boast of captured (and eventually executed at Nuremburg) former Nazi German General Chief of Staff Keitel (played by Christian Redl [IMDb] [KT.ru]*) after signing the formal orders of surrender that "Though yes, the world will hate us now, we're only guilty of actually doing what the rest of Europe always wanted to do but never had the courage: Nobody liked the Jews or the Russians for that matter. Everybody feared 'the hoards' from the steppes. We tried to take them on and all that we're guilty of is failing to defeat them."
This is actually a rather frightening closing piece of dialogue in the film because it seems to equate EUROPE (today???) with the Nazis of the past ... and suggests that the "ghostly White Tiger tank" may one day "rise again."
How to talk the Russians down from that frightening assessment? I suppose that the Russian government could invent reasons to fear us (and yes both we and they could still blow each other up) but there's NOBODY in Europe / the U.S. who would seriously consider an offensive war against Russia. Yet it must be noted that _Russia itself_ is currently scaring a lot of the smaller European countries along its borders. They too have still fairly recent experience / fears of tanks (mostly Russian) running across their lands ...
To them, the ghostly tank lurking in the forests / swamps ... would be a Russian one ... Heck, I'm 3/4 Czech ... I know something of tanks too ...
ADDENDA:
(1) How to see the movie? The film is quite widely available, in Russian, on the internet. Then subtitles in multiple languages are also quite easy to find on opensubtitles.org (thanks Nashi / FSB ...)
(2) How'd the film actually do? Not too well, not even in Russia. It did not break even financially (kinopoisk.ru) and did not score high among viewer responses (megacritic.ru). Indeed, both recent Russian family-oriented (Moms [2012]) and young adult oriented films (rom-com My Boy Friend is an Angel [2012] / and the Twilight-Saga-ish Dark World [2012]) faired much better both in the box office and with viewer and even critical response.
* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser.
<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here? If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation. To donate just CLICK HERE. Thank you! :-) >>
My Boyfriend's an Angel (orig. Мой парень - ангел / Moy Paren Angel) [2012]
MPAA (UR would be PG-13) Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)
IMDb listing
KinoNews.ru listing*
KinoPoisk.ru listing*
Kino-teatr.ru listing*
Megacritic.ru listing*
New Russian Cinema (A. Forman) review
FanLife.ru (G. Mukhametshin) review*
Film.ru (P. Pryadkin) review*
OVideo.ru (V. Kavalevich) review*
RusKino.ru (S. Stepnova) review*
My Boyfriend's an Angel (orig. Мой парень - ангел / Moy Paren Angel) [2012] [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* (directed by Vera Storozheva [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]*, screenplay by Natalya Nazarova [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* based on the novel A Christmas Angel (Рождественский ангел / Rozhdestvenskyy Angel) [LiveLib]* by Mark Aren [LiveLib]*[WCat]) is a Russian Christmas err New Years' romcom that while dismissed by some more heavy-handed Russian critics (above), was embraced by others (also above) and especially viewers [Ivi.ru]*[KN.ru]*[MC.ru].* I viewed / reviewed the film here as part of my 2015 Russian Film Tour.
RusKino's Svetlana Stepnova (review above),* who did actually generally like the film, nevertheless did duly note (quite importantly IMHO...) the vestiges of Soviet Era ideology in the otherwise light Hollywood style romcom:
In the 1920s, the Communists banned the celebration of Christmas in the Soviet Union. Yet how can one _ban_ Christmas, especially even the various purely cultural aspects of it? So in the 1930s, the Communist leadership reinstated various trappings of the holiday, moving it over a week to New Years (Dec 31st) from the the traditional Christmas celebration (Dec. 24-25). So Stepnova notes that in the post-Communist era, by-and-large ONLY IN RUSSIA is a "Christmas Tree" still called a "New Years Tree" and gifts are exchanged by many on New Years rather than on Christmas, and so forth. Here, and to the point, while the original (contemporary Russian) novel on which the current film is based places the events of the story clearly within the context of the celebration of Christmas (Dec 24-25), the film still shifts them to New Years (Dec 31-Jan 1). Still viewers of the film will note that other (far more positive) references to Christianity / the Russian Orthodox Church which remained. (Sigh ... the place of Christianity / the Russian Orthodox Church in contemporary Russian society and especially among contemporary Russia's elite remains somewhat dicey / ambiguous. See my review of Leviathan [2014]).
Still, aside from the above mentioned concessions to Soviet era ideology and then recognizing that there still remain elements in Russian (Putinesque?) film circles for whom apparently the very idea of a happy little romance remains a putdown-able "petite bourgeois" concern ;-) ... the film is about as happily / positively rated (by Russian viewers [Ivi.ru]*[KN.ru]*[MC.ru]*) as I have seen ;-).
So what's the setup to the story?
An angel named Saraphim (played by Artur Smolyaninov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) arrives on Earth (in Moscow) on the night of Dec 30th. He doesn't even quite know why he arrived there, 'cept that he's "there to help." Who? He's not sure either, but it doesn't seem to bother him 'cause he's pretty certain that "God's will, will be done." He does seem, _slightly odd_ though. An older woman noticing him passing through a park notes: "You foreigners never wear seem to wear a hat and then complain that Russia is cold." ;-). He kindly acknowledges her comment, perhaps advice, and just keeps strolling on his way.
The next morning, a 20-something Moscow college (geology) student named Sasha (played by Anna Starshenbaum [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) is woken-up by a phone call, "What time is it?" she asks as she picks up the phone. "5 PM," the voice on the other end answers. "OMG!" she thinks she's slept through the day, "In Kamchatka ;-)," the voice continues. It's her dad (played by Sergey Puskepalis [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*). He, who's out there in Kamchatka as a volcanologist, tells her that he's going to be flying through Moscow later that evening, New Years (presumably for some conference in Europe somewhere), and that it'd be nice to meet-up. Besides, he tells her that he has a guy, fellow geologist, traveling with him, that he'd like her to meet. "But dad, I already have a boyfriend." "Gr8 then bring him along, I'd like to meet him!" "Argh dad, okay ..." (She would have had other plans, but when dad's passing though, all the way from Kamchatka, one accomodates ;-).
So getting-up, she skype's her boyfriend Valery (played by Nikita Efremov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) to tell him of the change of plans. But by skyping him rather than calling him, she gets to see more than she wants, "Who's the girl in nothing but the red ... who just walked past you to the bathroom?" "No one." "Valery, I'm not blind. I just saw a young woman in nothing but red ... walk right behind you to your bathroom." "Oh, her. She's a cousin from ..." "Valery, you're an idiot, and ... we're done." She clicks end to the conversation.
But what now? She's just told her father that she has a boyfriend, who he's said then he wants to meet. And three minutes later, she's broken-up with ... said boyfriend. While she's quickly thinking through alternatives, she notices that her lovely (and lively) presumably INDOOR cat has found her way somehow out her window and is now standing on the ledge of said window. Sasha goes to grab her from her perch on the window, but ... the cat gracefully jumps to the ledge of the next (neighbor's) window. The only way not to get her is to reach from her window to the ledge of the next. Seeing that this would be difficult, Sasha does something stupid (but then lots of things are going on ..., so she's not thinking clearly....): She climbs onto the ledge of her window in an attempt to catch her cat ... and ... Sasha falls from her window ... 3 stories down ... and ... guess who's there right there on the sidewalk below her window to break her fall? ... ;-) ... and until Sasha comes crashing down on him, Serephim doesn't know why he'd be there, at that exact point at that exact time, either ... The rest of the story follows ;-)
This is just a really cute story. Yes, Svetlana Stepnova of RusKino.ru (review above) notes that it'd be hard to believe that a humble geology student with a mere volcanogist as her father would have been able to afford the apartment in the center of Moscow where she finds herself, but I would note that most people in New York don't necessarily live like Jerry Seinfeld and his friends did in his TV series either ;-).
What follows is a lovely Russian rom-com that perhaps showcases the trappings of upper-middle class life in Moscow today (glitzy shopping malls, very nice "Starbucks style" cafes, etc). But honestly, it's not bad to see _occasionally_ a movie like this coming from Russia, or else we in the West would only imagine Russia to be covered by soot-covered snow with grey, dour / utterly joyless prols simply wielding pick-axes / welders'-torches, standing in bread-lines. Yes, I do understand: Downtown Chicago _also_ looks far better than much of the rest of my city, but it does exist as well, and as in most cities, people travel from one section of town to another in the course of their day-to-day business.
So good job folks, good job. If this would be the only kind of movie coming out of Russia, then that'd be one thing. But in the absence of films like this (showing generally happy young people with typical young people's concerns), many Westerners would honestly think that there'd be no reason for any sane Russian to want to remain Russian at all.
ADDENDUM:
How to see this film? As with the other films in the series of recent Russian films that I've chosen to write about here, this film is quite widely available, in Russian, on the internet. The challenge is finding the subtitles for it. I found the subtitles for the current film on subs.com.ru. Note that sometimes the subtitles file has to be synchronized to the video. This can be done using a freeware program called Easy Subtitles Synchronizer.
* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser.
<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here? If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation. To donate just CLICK HERE. Thank you! :-) >>
IMDb listing
KinoNews.ru listing*
KinoPoisk.ru listing*
Kino-teatr.ru listing*
Megacritic.ru listing*
New Russian Cinema (A. Forman) review
FanLife.ru (G. Mukhametshin) review*
Film.ru (P. Pryadkin) review*
OVideo.ru (V. Kavalevich) review*
RusKino.ru (S. Stepnova) review*
My Boyfriend's an Angel (orig. Мой парень - ангел / Moy Paren Angel) [2012] [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* (directed by Vera Storozheva [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]*, screenplay by Natalya Nazarova [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KP.ru]*[KT.ru]* based on the novel A Christmas Angel (Рождественский ангел / Rozhdestvenskyy Angel) [LiveLib]* by Mark Aren [LiveLib]*[WCat]) is a Russian Christmas err New Years' romcom that while dismissed by some more heavy-handed Russian critics (above), was embraced by others (also above) and especially viewers [Ivi.ru]*[KN.ru]*[MC.ru].* I viewed / reviewed the film here as part of my 2015 Russian Film Tour.
RusKino's Svetlana Stepnova (review above),* who did actually generally like the film, nevertheless did duly note (quite importantly IMHO...) the vestiges of Soviet Era ideology in the otherwise light Hollywood style romcom:
In the 1920s, the Communists banned the celebration of Christmas in the Soviet Union. Yet how can one _ban_ Christmas, especially even the various purely cultural aspects of it? So in the 1930s, the Communist leadership reinstated various trappings of the holiday, moving it over a week to New Years (Dec 31st) from the the traditional Christmas celebration (Dec. 24-25). So Stepnova notes that in the post-Communist era, by-and-large ONLY IN RUSSIA is a "Christmas Tree" still called a "New Years Tree" and gifts are exchanged by many on New Years rather than on Christmas, and so forth. Here, and to the point, while the original (contemporary Russian) novel on which the current film is based places the events of the story clearly within the context of the celebration of Christmas (Dec 24-25), the film still shifts them to New Years (Dec 31-Jan 1). Still viewers of the film will note that other (far more positive) references to Christianity / the Russian Orthodox Church which remained. (Sigh ... the place of Christianity / the Russian Orthodox Church in contemporary Russian society and especially among contemporary Russia's elite remains somewhat dicey / ambiguous. See my review of Leviathan [2014]).
Still, aside from the above mentioned concessions to Soviet era ideology and then recognizing that there still remain elements in Russian (Putinesque?) film circles for whom apparently the very idea of a happy little romance remains a putdown-able "petite bourgeois" concern ;-) ... the film is about as happily / positively rated (by Russian viewers [Ivi.ru]*[KN.ru]*[MC.ru]*) as I have seen ;-).
So what's the setup to the story?
An angel named Saraphim (played by Artur Smolyaninov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) arrives on Earth (in Moscow) on the night of Dec 30th. He doesn't even quite know why he arrived there, 'cept that he's "there to help." Who? He's not sure either, but it doesn't seem to bother him 'cause he's pretty certain that "God's will, will be done." He does seem, _slightly odd_ though. An older woman noticing him passing through a park notes: "You foreigners never wear seem to wear a hat and then complain that Russia is cold." ;-). He kindly acknowledges her comment, perhaps advice, and just keeps strolling on his way.
The next morning, a 20-something Moscow college (geology) student named Sasha (played by Anna Starshenbaum [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) is woken-up by a phone call, "What time is it?" she asks as she picks up the phone. "5 PM," the voice on the other end answers. "OMG!" she thinks she's slept through the day, "In Kamchatka ;-)," the voice continues. It's her dad (played by Sergey Puskepalis [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*). He, who's out there in Kamchatka as a volcanologist, tells her that he's going to be flying through Moscow later that evening, New Years (presumably for some conference in Europe somewhere), and that it'd be nice to meet-up. Besides, he tells her that he has a guy, fellow geologist, traveling with him, that he'd like her to meet. "But dad, I already have a boyfriend." "Gr8 then bring him along, I'd like to meet him!" "Argh dad, okay ..." (She would have had other plans, but when dad's passing though, all the way from Kamchatka, one accomodates ;-).
So getting-up, she skype's her boyfriend Valery (played by Nikita Efremov [IMDb] [KN.ru]*[KT.ru]*) to tell him of the change of plans. But by skyping him rather than calling him, she gets to see more than she wants, "Who's the girl in nothing but the red ... who just walked past you to the bathroom?" "No one." "Valery, I'm not blind. I just saw a young woman in nothing but red ... walk right behind you to your bathroom." "Oh, her. She's a cousin from ..." "Valery, you're an idiot, and ... we're done." She clicks end to the conversation.
But what now? She's just told her father that she has a boyfriend, who he's said then he wants to meet. And three minutes later, she's broken-up with ... said boyfriend. While she's quickly thinking through alternatives, she notices that her lovely (and lively) presumably INDOOR cat has found her way somehow out her window and is now standing on the ledge of said window. Sasha goes to grab her from her perch on the window, but ... the cat gracefully jumps to the ledge of the next (neighbor's) window. The only way not to get her is to reach from her window to the ledge of the next. Seeing that this would be difficult, Sasha does something stupid (but then lots of things are going on ..., so she's not thinking clearly....): She climbs onto the ledge of her window in an attempt to catch her cat ... and ... Sasha falls from her window ... 3 stories down ... and ... guess who's there right there on the sidewalk below her window to break her fall? ... ;-) ... and until Sasha comes crashing down on him, Serephim doesn't know why he'd be there, at that exact point at that exact time, either ... The rest of the story follows ;-)
This is just a really cute story. Yes, Svetlana Stepnova of RusKino.ru (review above) notes that it'd be hard to believe that a humble geology student with a mere volcanogist as her father would have been able to afford the apartment in the center of Moscow where she finds herself, but I would note that most people in New York don't necessarily live like Jerry Seinfeld and his friends did in his TV series either ;-).
What follows is a lovely Russian rom-com that perhaps showcases the trappings of upper-middle class life in Moscow today (glitzy shopping malls, very nice "Starbucks style" cafes, etc). But honestly, it's not bad to see _occasionally_ a movie like this coming from Russia, or else we in the West would only imagine Russia to be covered by soot-covered snow with grey, dour / utterly joyless prols simply wielding pick-axes / welders'-torches, standing in bread-lines. Yes, I do understand: Downtown Chicago _also_ looks far better than much of the rest of my city, but it does exist as well, and as in most cities, people travel from one section of town to another in the course of their day-to-day business.
So good job folks, good job. If this would be the only kind of movie coming out of Russia, then that'd be one thing. But in the absence of films like this (showing generally happy young people with typical young people's concerns), many Westerners would honestly think that there'd be no reason for any sane Russian to want to remain Russian at all.
ADDENDUM:
How to see this film? As with the other films in the series of recent Russian films that I've chosen to write about here, this film is quite widely available, in Russian, on the internet. The challenge is finding the subtitles for it. I found the subtitles for the current film on subs.com.ru. Note that sometimes the subtitles file has to be synchronized to the video. This can be done using a freeware program called Easy Subtitles Synchronizer.
* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser.
<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here? If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation. To donate just CLICK HERE. Thank you! :-) >>
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