The Assassin of the Tsar, on OVID.tv

It is highly unlikely Timofeyev, a mild-mannered Soviet mental patient, could have assassinated both Tsar Alexander II in 1881 and the final Tsar, Nicholas II along with his family in 1918, but the Soviet government heavily censored discussion of such events. As a result, most Russians knew very little about their respective deaths, even as late as 1991. Russian filmmaker Karen Shakhnazarov really had to scrounge for background information while preparing this film. However, he had a big international star in Malcolm McDowell. Maybe he was not as hot as he was in the early 1970s, but the Caligula thesp still carried a good deal of cachet during the era of Glasnost. Regardless, McDowell convincingly makes Timofeyev’s delusions contagious in Shakhnazarov’s The Assassin of the Tsar, which premieres today on OVID.tv.

Assassin of the Tsar was produced at a time when Shakhnazarov was still an artist. Today, he is a propagandist, whom Putin regularly trots out to endorse his war crimes in Ukraine. Apparently, he forgot writing and directing this film, because its critiques of violent extremism could apply just as well to Putin’s regime.

The exact time period is hard to pin down, but references suggest Stalin is still in power. Perhaps that is one reason Timofeyev politely declined his previous doctor’s offers of increased freedom. As long as he remains an inmate of the asylum, he is safe from the outside world and provided sufficient food. Dr. Aleksandr Yegorovich has stepped back into a quasi-emeritus role, conceding day-to-day responsibilities to his younger colleague, Dr. Smirnov, who was specially recruited from the big city.

Smirnov is struck by Timofeyev, particularly the way his body exhibits signs of psychosomatic injuries on dates related to the assassinations. Of course, he assumes Timofeyev could not possibly have committed either murder, so he decides to cure his patient through confrontational role play therapy. However, instead of snapping Timofeyev back to reality, the patient pulls his doctor into his delusional visions of the past. Shakhnazarov realizes these scenes so subtly, they first seem like historical flashbacks for context. Yet, the treatment steadily takes a physical and emotional toll on Smirnov.

As the film progresses, it grows steadily clearer how the abject horror of the Romanov regicide hangs over the characters and Soviet society, like an evil curse. It is sort of like the regime’s original sin and Timofeyev is the holy fool, pointing out Banquo’s ghost at the banquet.

Two versions of Assassin were produced, one featuring an undubbed McDowell performing with the Russian actors phonetically delivering their lines in English and a Russian version, in which the Yorkshire-born thesp is overdubbed. This review is based on the subtitled Russian option, but OVID.tv offers both. Regardless, McDowell is perfectly weird as Timofeyev. He can be suitably twitchy, but somehow his moments of serene calm are more disconcerting.

ND/NF ’24: Grace

The sleazy truck stops and lonely highways of the remote Karachay-Cherkessia region are not fit places to raise a teen girl, but is there anyplace in Russia where it is safe for families? At least the father and his daughter keep moving, screening DVDs in their makeshift projected cinema. Inevitably, she starts to realize it is not much of a life in Ilya Povolotsky’s Grace, which screens during this year’s New Directors/New Films.

Evidently, this area of Russia is so economically depressed, people cannot even afford names. The end credits simply refer to her as “Daughter,” him as “Father,” and the rest as “Characters.” Clearly, there is no mother, leaving all parental duties to the father.

Unfortunately, her father is stuck on auto-pilot, unable to envision anything else but their hardscrabble nomadic life. She is starting to question him, just as boys are beginning to notice her.

The central father-daughter relationship would ordinarily be relatable across cultures, but Povolotsky depicts it in such an emotionally reserved manner, it will freeze out the vast majority of viewers. Instead, the audience mostly takes a slow cinema tour of the Balkar-speaking Russian boondocks. The film thoroughly establishes the economic stagnation, environmental degradation, infrastructure decay, and police corruption of provincial Russia. Of course, most people over the age of twelve years-old not named Tucker Carlson were already reasonably cognizant of this reality.

It is really hard to understand who this film was programmed for, beyond a small circle of Slow Cinema devotees. Povolotsky is admirably committed to immersing the audience in the circumstances of the Daughter’s life, but his esthetic approach is distancing, to put it diplomatically. However, it can safely be screened without violating any institutional sanctions against Russia, post-Putin’s invasion, because it was clearly produced far outside the state cinema establishment.

Victor Ginzburg’s Empire V

Even before Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Russia was a metaphorical nation of blood-suckers. It has no manufacturing base and an anemic service economy. All the money comes from natural resources and goes straight to the oligarchs and the corrupt politicians and gangsters, who serve their interests. Those elites turn out to be very real vampires in Victor Ginzburg’s Empire V, which had its American premiere at this year’s Screamfest.

Just so viewers feel safe watching Empire V without implying support the Putin regime, keep in mind the film has been banned in Russia and co-star rapper Miron Fedorov (a.k.a. Oxxxymiron) has been branded a “foreign agent” for his opposition to Putin’s war against Ukraine. Maybe it’s highly class-conscious analogies could apply elsewhere too, but Putin (or his flunkies) clearly thought it reflected the reality in Russia, only too faithfully.

Technically, the vamps are not really vamps. They are the (mostly) willing hosts of a parasite known as “The Tongue.” A tiny drop of blood (the vampires insist on calling it “red liquid”) is enough to sustain the Tongue, but a Theranos-sized drop can give the vampires the memories and knowledge of the blood-donors.

It is a lot for the new Rama to take in. He succeeded the old Rama, whose Tongue chose him, after his predecessor lost a duel to the sleazy Mithra, who is perversely supposed to be Rama II’s mentor, in accordance with the traditions of Empire V (so named to distinguish it from the Third Reich and the Fourth Roman Empire). Mithra is much more interested in his other mentee, the waifish Hera—and so is Rama. Their rivalry for Hera (you wouldn’t really call it “romantic” for these vampires) reignites Mithra’s rivalry with the Rama line.

Like his last film, Generation P, Ginzburg adapted Empire V from a novel written by Victor Pelevin. This time around, he focuses far more on the sociological world-building than on the undead sucking and swooning. It is fascinating, but after about seventy minutes, you start to realize how little has actually happened.

The Pencil, on OVID.tv

The humble pencil is a symbol of freedom. It is an instrument of a free press and Milton Freidman famously used it to illustrate the benefits of a market economy and the division of labor. He is right, no one person can make a pencil, but there is a grim looking pencil factory in the Russian Karelian village Antonina Zolotareva moves to, in order to be closer to her imprisoned activist husband. Zolotareva is no Jaime Escalante, but she is the most conscientious teacher her new students have ever had in Natalya Nazarova’s The Pencil, which premieres today on OVID.tv.

Zolotareva’s husband was a prominent artist, whose work often criticized the Putin regime (maybe that part is not explicitly stated, but it is clearly implied). Unfortunately, it is all too evident during Zolotareva’s first visit, his spirit has been broken. Nevertheless, she has already committed to living in the nearby industrial town. She too is a trained artist, so she obtains employment at the local under-staffed public school.

Much to her surprise, some of Zolotareva’s students have talent, but the school bully, Misha Ponomarev, does his best to disrupt her classes. Since his brother is a local gangster soon to be released from prison, most of Zolotareva’s colleagues turn a blind eye to his thuggery. Perhaps foolhardily, Zolotareva challenges Ponomarev’s authority, so he responds with greater violence, particularly against the under-sized Dima Demkin, her most promising pupil.

As a side note, I will no longer cover commercial releases from China, Hong Kong, or Russia, because the established film industries have been so thoroughly compromised by the CCP and Putin regimes. That clearly does not apply to this film. It might have had a domestic Russian theatrical release, but it paints a very different picture that what RT propaganda projects. In fact, it depicts a profoundly corrupt society, in which people regularly ignore the violence around them. Watching The Pencil, it is easy to understand why so many Russians blandly accepted Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Son, on OVID.tv

Some of these graduating Spetsnaz recruits have likely gone on to commit war crimes in Ukraine, or died as cannon fodder. Dima Ilyukhin, the filmmaker’s cousin, was already the latter, having been killed during one of Putin’s black ops in Dagestan. Alexander Abaturov contrasts the Spetsnaz militarist indoctrination with the grief and despair of Ilyukhin’s family in The Son, which premieres this coming Tuesday on OVID.tv.

There is no commentary on Dagestan or the related operations in Chechnya and Crimean Ukraine, so Abaturov never directly criticizes Putin’s fascist military campaigns. However, he captures the tragic results for Ilykhin’s family in scenes of unvarnished intimacy, which definitely would not be good for Putin’s business, if more Russians had the opportunity to watch it.

Frankly, the training sequences do not look particularly extraordinary or damning. Yes, the process is physically and emotionally demanding. That is what military discipline is like. Still, I hope someone in the U.S. military eventually watches this film, in case they pick up on something lost on us civilians.

Regardless, anyone can see the anguish of Ilykhin’s parents. Surprisingly, his mom seems to be handling it better. She even seems to be settling into the role of grieving military mother and the minor leadership status it entails. However, his father appears to be literally and profoundly inconsolable.

DOC NYC ’21: F@ck This Job

State media really isn’t media. It is PR for their regime masters. They do not reporter the news, they slant it and spike it if necessary. Putin thought he had rid himself of the last vestiges of an independent media until Natalya Sindeyeva founded Dozhd. Originally, she had something more pop culture-ish in mind, but she discovered her calling when Dozhd started reporting stories no other Russian outlet would touch. Vera Krichevskaya documents the struggle to keep Dozhd on the air in F@ck This Job, which screens as part of this year’s DOC NYC.

In the 2000s, the hard-partying Sindeyeva married Aleksandr Vinokurov, a blue-blooded financial tycoon, who could buy her anything. She decided she wanted a TV station. Initially, Dozhd was probably intended to be something like post-music video MTV, but when they covered a mysterious explosion all the other networks ignored, a lightbulb clicked on.

A flirtation with “President” Medvedev led to a temporary break with Krichevskaya (yet ironically, the figurehead comes out of the doc looking relatively moderate compared to Putin). However, coverage of the subsequent election protests and disavowed Russian military incursions into Ukraine soon re-established Dozhd as Russia’s independent media voice. In the process, they earned millions of viewers and a concerted harassment campaign orchestrated by the Kremlin.

At times, Sindeyeva can be her own worst enemy. There is no question her privileged background sometimes renders her a bit tone deaf. However, that is also what makes her a compelling figure. She could have partied the years away in comfort, but instead she and Vinokurov have dedicated their fortune and risked their liberty to expose the truth.

Chernobyl 1986: The Abyss

Ironically, the heroes of this big Russian patriotic tearjerker are Ukrainian. That is what you call people who were born in Ukraine and subsequently lived there. Of course, at the time of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, but not by choice. Regardless, a Ukrainian fireman saves the USSR from utter and complete catastrophe in Danila Kozlovsky’s Chernobyl 1986 (a.k.a. Chernobyl: Abyss), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Played by the director himself, Alexey Karpushin was a hot-shot Tom Cruise-ish fire-fighter, who just resigned from Pripyat fire department, so you know what that means. He hoped to finally figure out his relationship with local hairdresser Olga Savostina and the son he only recently learned he had. Instead, he rushes to extinguish the fires at Chernobyl reactor #4, in what turns out to be a doomed effort.

Unfortunately, the little Savostina ragamuffin was passing by the plant just when the initial explosions happened, so he received a dangerous dose of radiation. Karpushin tries to be there for the family that is not ready to acknowledge him, but he soon decides the best thing he can do is leverage his expertise to secure a place for his son in the special charter to Switzerland, for advanced radiation treatment. Wait a minute, the USSR sent priority patients to Switzerland instead of their close ally, the medical Mecca of Cuba? Surely, that can’t be right?

Kozlovsky’s 1986 absolutely pales in comparison to HBO’s gripping Chernobyl miniseries, in which writer-creator Craig Mazin masterfully documented every corrupt and incompetent step that led to the disaster and the iffy response, as well as the subsequent cover-up. In this case, co-screenwriters Elena Ivanova and Aleksey Kazakov call out some of the Party malfeasance (because how could they not?), but ignore the Soviets’ systemic efforts to obscure the truth.

Instead, we get plenty of the torturous (to watch) Karpushin-Savostina romance. It takes a full half-hour before disaster finally strikes, which is way too long in a disaster movie. Kozlovsky and Oksana Akinshina are both big-name Russian romantic leads, but they share less sexual chemistry than Trump and AOC (who are obviously both turned on by raw power). By the way, according to wiki, Akinshina referred to feminism as “the destiny of ugly women,” so it sounds like she got the memo from Russia’s boss of bosses.

Superdeep, from Russia on Shudder

Ever since Christian Nyby’s The Thing from Another World, snowy research facilities have not fared well in movies. The real-life Kola Superdeep was ostensibly a bore-hole, but according to this film, it was really a dodgy Soviet-era bio-lab. Unlike the snowbound locales of movies like The Last Winter and Black Mountain Side, its super-secret lab work is conducted miles below the permafrost. The deeper you go, the hotter it gets. Whatever is down there should stay down there in Arseny Syuhin’s Superdeep, which premieres Thursday on Shudder.

Anya’s training is in microbiology, but she works for high-placed Kremlin officials. Her masters dispatched her to the troubled subterranean installation not to conduct a rescue operation, but to recover sensitive samples. Grigoryev, the director had been denounced by his ambitious deputy, whom she instinctively distrusts. However, Grigoryev goes rogue as soon as the team arrives, changing passwords and hiding samples. Anya’s military escorts focus on the elusive director, but she suspects there is something more profoundly dangerous afoot. Maybe her first clue was the deranged lab worker, who tried to blow them apart with a grenade when they initially landed.

In a way, Superdeep is releasing at a timely moment. Bio labs are definitely a topic on top-of-mind right now. After a year of the partisan media telling us there is absolutely, positively no way the Covid-19 virus came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, they have now grudgingly admitted it is a distinct possibility. The parasitic monster Anya finds in Kola Superdeep looks very different from Covid, but watching Superdeep is still the closest we will probably ever get to seeing inside the Wuhan institute.

The Soviet era setting also adds an intriguing dimension to Superdeep. It pretty clearly implies Kremlin hardliners are hoping the Superdeep virus can be weaponized against the West, presumably after their anticipated coup, in a final gambit to win the Cold War. That is indeed a terrifying proposition—and a recklessly irresponsible one. Yet, judging from the CCP’s Covid cover-up, it is impossible to dismiss their scorched earth villainy as unthinkably unbelievable.

Russian Film Week ’21: In Deep Sleep

Is Russia finally waking up to Putin? Maybe, judging from the huge Navalny protests. Regardless, the Russian economy has been asleep for years and the nation’s institutions of civil society have been corrupted by the former KGB agent in charge. Can we therefore interpret this art-house fantasia of a Russia mysteriously stuck in a state of unnatural slumber as a commentary on Putin’s authoritarian regime? Viewers certainly have the time and space to develop their own interpretations while watching Maria Ignatenko’s In Deep Sleep, which screens as part of the online Russian Film Week USA.

Viktor was always prone to anti-social behavior, but the death of his wife made him even worse. He is not expressive, but he is definitely hurting inside. We know he comes to a bad end from the prologue, but we will see from flashbacks how he reached this point—sort of.

The centerpiece of the film is the long, eerie passage of the commercial fishing vessel crew-member returning to his hardscrabble industrial port, only to find the entire town asleep in their cars, places of business, or out in the open, exposed to the elements. Viktor even tries to save one elderly sleeper from the harsh Russian winter.

The weird nocturnal sleeping scenes are indeed quite striking, but Ignatenko’s use of flashbacks is often confusing. In Deep Sleep looks haunting yet gritty, but the intended takeaways remain obscure. Obviously, Viktor’s isolation and loneliness are a symbolic product of grief-related depression, but the hard-bitten protagonist is a difficult figure to embrace or even fully understand.

Russian Film Week ’21: Sententia

During the Soviet era, the underground Samizdat literary tradition required true courage and painstaking devotion. Those who spread the work of banned writers risked banishment to the gulags themselves, yet they spent hours hand-copying censored works. Anatoly had that kind of dedication to Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov, who spent 17 years in Stalinist work camps. He was eventually released and partially rehabilitated, but the last three years of his life were spent in a Soviet nursing home with a comparable reputation. It is there that Anatoly records the finishing lines of Shalamov’s last, posthumous publication in Dmitry Rudakov’s Sententia, which screens as part of the online Russian Film Week USA.

Back in the days of the USSR, a visitor in the night was always bad news. In this case it is Vsevold (some sort of ambiguous KGB figure), dropping off Shalamov, whom he treats like a pack animal. It is a long scene that almost plays like an absurdist Beckett drama, except it carries very specific and significant meaning. Eventually, Anatoly and his young protégé arrive to record Shalamov’s final, dying verses, after collecting the fragments of his last manuscript hidden with friends and family.

Aesthetically (but not ideologically), Sententia (which takes its title from the mantra Shalamov created while at risk of succumbing to fatal sleep during sub-zero Siberian temperatures) shares a kinship with classic avant-garde Soviet cinema. The pace is slow, but the tension is high. Alexey Filippov’s harsh black-and-white cinematography and the unsettling white-noise-ish soundscape further evoke a Lynchian vibe. However, the sense of dread is very concrete and unmistakably rooted in power dynamics of the Soviet system.

Aleksandr Ryanzantsev does not say much as Shalamov, but it is an incredibly brave and physical performance. His emaciated, battered body is exposed for viewers to see—and it is indeed a disturbing sight to behold. Yet, he also projects astonishing dignity in the midst of his degradation.

Russian Film Week ’21: Tsoy

Rock & roll just works better with an outsider attitude. Take two very different films about the short-lived Soviet rocker, Viktor Tsoi (or Tsoy depending on the film). Kirill Serebrennikov, who was arrested on trumped on charges and confined to house arrest for several months after criticizing the “annexation” of the Crimea, helmed the gritty and powerful Leto, which definitely reflects the uncompromising spirit of Tsoi’s music. On the other hand, Tsoi hardly appears in the new film directed by Alexei Ushitel, officially proclaimed a “People’s Artist of Russia” in 2002. Instead, it focuses (with little sympathy) on those he left behind, as they accompany his coffin on a final round trip from Latvia to St. Petersburg in Uchitel’s Tsoy, the opening film of this year’s online Russian Film Week USA.

Tragically, bus driver Pavel Shelest collided with “Tsoy,” but Uchitel makes it clear it was the distracted singer’s fault. Nevertheless, Shelest has a record, so the media and the Russian authorities are determined to scapegoat him. However, his lover happens to be the Latvian cop investigating the incident (which seems like a minor conflict of interest). Ironically, Shelest is stuck driving the bus chartered to convey Tsoi and his entourage back to St. Petersburg. Awkwardly, the passengers include his widow, her current boyfriend, the lover Tsoi had been living with, and his mercenary producer. There is also a mysterious photographer, who might know more about events leading up to the accident than she lets on.

Tsoi only appears briefly in archival concert and documentary footage, which is problematic, considering the film is titled Tsoy. Arguably, it makes him look rather reckless and it portrays his widow as an emotionally distant ice queen. Only Tsoi’s young son, who inevitably befriends Shelest, shows any signs of human warmth.

Andrei Konchalovsky’s Dear Comrades!

By definition, there can't be a strike in the socialist workers’ paradise, so there must have been something deeply amiss in the provincial industrial town of Novocherkassk. Of course, the Soviet authorities dealt with dissent the way Communists always have. The result was a massacre and a cover-up. Andrei Konchalovsky dramatizes this formerly redacted episode of Soviet history in the searing Dear Comrades!, which releases virtually tomorrow, in conjunction with Film Forum.

Loyal Party apparatchik Lyuda Syomina keeps assuring townspeople they have never had it so good, even though the Party just increased food prices and slashed wages at the local munitions factory. Despite the local Party’s propaganda campaign, the factory workers have had enough. Awkwardly for her, this includes her modestly rebellious daughter, Svetka. The mere notion of a strike is enormously embarrassing, but when the striking workers barricade the Novocherkassk committee headquarters, Khrushchev dispatches the military, under the command of a trigger-happy loyalist.

Even though Syomina and her colleagues manage to sneak out, the shooting inevitably starts and it continues until the strikers are utterly broken. The unofficial death toll is high, but officially, the incident never happened, leaving worried parents no recourse when they realize their children are missing. That also includes the panicked Syomina, but at least her Party status gives her some limited latitude to search for Svetka, or her body. She finds a surprising ally in Loginov, a cautiously disillusioned KGB agent.

You probably never heard of the Novocherkassk Massacre, because the Party tried to whitewash it from history. Yet, it most certainly did happen. To ensure accuracy, Konchalovsky enlisted Yuri Bagrayev, the chief military prosecutor in charge of the frustrated 1992 inquiry, as a technical advisor. Years after the regime’s fall, this film still feels radioactive. Initially, the tone is somewhat akin to the absurdism, particularly with respect to the petty bureaucratic rivalries, but it soon turns deadly serious. Frankly, Konchalevsky’s depiction of massacre maelstrom is frighteningly realistic and the subsequent crack-down and cover-up are absolutely chilling to witness. Absurdity, confusion, and brutality—that pretty much covers the Soviet Socialist experience.

Regardless, you cannot look away as this tragedy unfolds. Without question, Dear Comrades is Konchalovsky’s late-career masterpiece. There is so much to parse and analyze in the film, but it is always gripping on an immediate, human level. Julia Vysotskaya’s portrayal of the conspicuously flawed Syomina is wonderfully complex and messily human. (In many ways, her compromises represent all the compromises the Soviet people had to make, in order to live under an immoral system.) Vladislav Komarov provides an effectively understated counterbalance to her, as the slightly out-of-step Loginov.

Sputnik: The Soviets Brought Back a Passenger

There were good reasons why the Soviets placed their cosmodrome on the Baikonur steppe in Kazakhstan. The flat plains allowed for unobstructed radio signals and the dry climate was good for launch windows. The remote location was also far from observing eyes. The last point will be particularly key when cosmonaut Konstantin Veshnyakov is brought to a secret facility Kazakhstan to supposedly rehab after his “heroic” mission. However, Veshnyakov brought back a surprise “passenger” in Egor Abramenko’s Sputnik, which releases on VOD and in very select theaters this Friday.

Veshnyakov and his co-pilot are anticipating their heroes’ welcome when they hear something on the outer hull of their capsule. Next thing we see, a Kazakh herder finds Veshnyakov and an unsightly mess at the capsule’s crash site.

Supposedly, it will be Dr. Tatyana Klimova’s job to determine what happened to the cosmonaut, in physical and psychological terms. Like House M.D., she is better at tricky diagnoses than consent paperwork. As a result, she was awkwardly available for Semiradov’s proposition. He is in charge of the remote lab, so he is probably something like GRU, as well as military. Regardless, he is most definitely not telling Dr. Klimova the full story. He knows there is something symbiotic inside Veshnyakov that is decidedly deadly—and consequently, potentially valuable.

Set in 1983, the absolute nadir of Soviet Socialist hopelessness, Sputnik has an appropriately grungy look and oppressive vibe. You can certainly understand why cosmonauts would want to spend months in a tin can. The different setting and context help set Sputnik apart from the classic Alien, a tough but inevitable comparison just about every horror-from-outer-space movie has to contend with. In fact, Sputnik is probably the most successful film in the sub-genre to create its own identity since Tobe Hooper’s Life Force.

Why Don’t You Just Die: Death and Death in Russia

Andrei Gennadievitch is a Russian cop, but he is nothing like Arkady Renko in Martin Cruz Smith’s novels or Inspector Rostnikov from Stuart Kaminsky’s mystery series. Gennadievitch is a big bull of a man, but he is a thoroughly corrupt, shameless excuse for a human being. He is not the sort of person you want to tangle with, but the hapless Matvei will try to kill him anyway. A whole lot of bloody mayhem will ensue in director-screenwriter Kirill Sokolov’s Why Don’t You Just Die!, which releases today on VOD (theatrical distribution planned for earlier in the month was cancelled due to the CCP-virus, so forward all your complaints to Xi Jinping in Beijing).

Poor Matvei has been played rather badly by his girlfriend, Olya. Her father is a thug with a badge, but her allegations of sexual abuse were pure fabrication. She wound-up Matvei and sent him off after her father, armed only with a hammer. He wasn’t expecting Olya’s emotionally-deadened mother to be home as well, but she is. Nevertheless, he and Gennadievitch are soon engaged in vicious combat, using as weapons whatever they might find throughout the apartment.

Inevitably, Gennadievitch gains the upper hand, but Matvei keeps bouncing back. The title definitely refers to him. However, more people will get involved in the madness when Gennadievitch invites over his daughter for answers and Yevgenich (the partner he double-crossed) to help clean-up the mess. Instead, the wreckage just gets messier.

Although WDYJD is not explicitly political, it might just be the perfect representation of police work and criminal justice as it is currently practiced in Putin’s Russian tsardom. Corruption begets violence, which begets even more escalating violence. Press materials make the old Tarantino comparison, but watching the film gives us a hunch Sokolov has inhaled plenty of Takashi Miike as well. He has an eye for absurdly disgusting details, but more importantly, there is a dark logic to the way it all unfolds.

Beanpole: The Tall Thin Girl from Leningrad

It is the post-war Stalin years, when nearly all Soviets were thin and emaciated from malnutrition. Average comrades would stay that way for the next forty-four years, while the privileged apparatchiks enjoyed the fringe benefits of a classless society. Iya Sergueeva is definitely classless and ordinary. Only her tall thin frame and her brief bouts of catatonia distinguish her from the faceless proletariat. Even though the war is over, she will still suffer acutely in Kantemir Balagov’s Beanpole, which opens this Friday in Los Angeles and extends its New York run at Film Forum.

Beanpole is inspired by, but not adapted from Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich’s oral history, The Unwomanly Face of War. Naïve, suffering from PTSD, and probably somewhat on the spectrum to begin with, Iya is hardly even aware of Stalin’s existence, but the proof is in the poverty and privation all around her. Frankly, Iya is even less worldly than people assume, because her son Pashka is actually the child of her friend Masha.

There is an unspeakably heartbreaking tragedy less than fifteen minutes into the two-hour-plus film. Yet, the characters will have to soldier on, because they don’t have a choice, so the audience will as well. When Masha is demobbed, we start to get a sense of their relationship’s dysfunctional codependency. It might be emotionally unhealthy, but in Stalin’s Russia, you have to forge alliances to survive. For Masha, a bit of salt and some matches are a preferable substitute for foreplay, so she is handy to be close to.

This is a tough film, but a powerful film. Iya is the title character, but Masha is the true protagonist. She makes some highly questionable decisions, but she survives. In fact, the distributor really should have supplied to the Academy clips of Masha’s big scene explaining the reality of what it meant to be a woman “serving” in the Red Army, because it probably could have earned the Oscar shortlisted film an International feature nomination.

Vasilisa Peerelgina is absolutely riveting as the fierce but vulnerable Masha. Her big scene is a haymaker, but she also has plenty of quietly potent and poisonous moments. In contrast, Viktoria Miroshnichenko plays Iya with eerie detachment. Yet, it is not a one-note performance like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. She yearns for something to fill her emptiness and stews in her confusion and resentment when she fails to get it.

Kirill Serebrennikov’s Leto

Viktor Tsoi was the Clifford Brown of Soviet rock & roll. He was immensely talented and generally well-liked, but died far too young in an auto accident. Although he was not really a dissident rocker, like the legendary Plastic People of the Universe, he never received much support from the official cultural apparatus. Tsoi’s live-fast-die-young rock & roll story is impressionistically chronicled in Kirill Serebrennikov’s Leto, which opens this Friday in New York, less than two months after the director was released from house arrest, for the crime of being an artist in Putin’s Russia (technically, the charge was embezzlement, but nobody really believed it).

By the 1980s, the Communist Party realized they could no longer prohibit rock music outright, but they still deeply distrusted everything about it, particularly the musicians that played it. The Leningrad Rock Club was one of the few officially sanctioned performances spaces, but audiences were expected to sedately sit on their hands, like they were attending a government hearing. Mayk “Mike” Naumenko was one of the few established rockers, who had credibility with both the fans and the apparatchiks. He could usually get a new act stage time there, as long as they said the right things. Viktor Tsoi has trouble doing that.

Tsoi is Naumenko’s great, yet-to-be-discovered protégé, but their relationship gets rather more complicated when his wife Natasha (a.k.a. Natalia, the mother of his young child) starts developing feelings for Tsoi. There is a certain degree of openness to their marriage, but her feelings run deeper than mere physical attraction. Likewise, Tsoi feels genuine gratitude and esteem for his mentor, which makes it awkward for everyone. Plus, just being a rock musician in Soviet Russian is difficult in its own right.

Watching Leto (meaning “Summer,” for reasons that are not immediately obvious) in conjunction with Rocket Man, the latest big studio rock bio-pic is an interesting compare and contrast exercise. Sadly, Tsoi’s career would be drastically shorter. While Elton John might have experienced social resistance to his lifestyle choices, Tsoi’s very means of expression were effectively curtailed and he often risked explicit censorship.

Both films also incorporate flights of fanciful fantasy, but they are rather brief exaggerations of the subject’s emotional states in Rocket Man, whereas Leto features long, wildly surreal interludes that even include stylized animated passages. Sometimes, these fantastical visions seem to herald great victories in Tsoi’s career, until Serebrennikov pans to a bystander holding a sign that says: “this never happened.”

Some have compared Serebennikov’s use of black-and-white cinematographer with occasional splashes of dramatic color to Schindler’s List, but films like Absolute Beginners, Purple Rain, and even The Wall are more influential touchstones. Of course, there is a lot of rock music and rock references throughout the film, from the likes of Lou Reed, David Bowie, and somewhat surprisingly T.Rex.

Teo Yoo does a terrific job humanizing Tsoi and he bears a strong likeness to the rock icon (whose father was ethnic Korean). Roma Zver (Bilyk) also nicely sidesteps all those over-shadowed-mentor clichés as the not-as-aloof-as-he-pretends Mike Naumenko. However, Irina Starshenbaum really anchors the film emotionally as the conflicted Natasha.

Early in the film, we see Natasha and her friends sneaking into the Stalingrad Rock Club through and open bathroom window and hiding in stalls to evade the old fuddy-duddy security guard. It is scenes like this that express the spirit of rock & roll better than just about any film since A Hard Day’s Night (Rocket Man is nice too, especially depicting the relationship between Elton John and Bernie Taupin, but it won’t surprise you like Leto). Very highly recommended, Leto opens this Friday (6/7) in New York, and June 21^st in LA, at the Laemmle Ahrya Fine Arts.

Fantaspoa ’19: The Last Warrior

We do not really think of Disney in the context of Tolkienesque fantasy, but the Mouse House produced The Sword in the Stone, The Black Cauldron, and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice sequence in Fantasia. This film does not deserve to be mentioned in the same breath, but it is still a fantasy and it is sort of Disney—the Russian arm of the company. Enchantments are made to be broken in Dmitriy Dyachenko’s The Last Warrior (a.k.a. The Last Knight), which screens during this year’s Fantaspoa in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Ivan Naydenov thinks he is an orphan, but he is actually the son of Ilya Muromets, the legendary knight, or rather Bogatyr, who was hidden away in our dimension to protect him from the evil forces that assumed power in the fantasy realm of Belogorye. It turns out the Sorceress Varvara and her lover, Prince Dobrynya Nikitich hunted down and turned to stone all the other bogatyrs, much like Dark Vader and Emperor Palpatine’s massacre of the Jedi Knights. This is all quite a lot for Naydenov to take in when he is suddenly whisked away from our world to Belogorye.

Obviously, Varvara and Nikitich want him dead too, but he manages to escape with the help of the immortal Koschei, Vasilisa the Wise (a.k.a. the Frog Princess), and Baba Yaga. To fight the evil duo, Naydenov will have to find the enchanted sword Kladenets, the Slavic Excalibur, but he really just wants to go home. They will get seriously sidetracked fooling around with Vodyanoy the merman (who sort of looks like the cow that wants to be eaten in the BBC version of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy), before Varvana and Nikitich restart the plot be recapturing everybody.

Naydenov is a thoroughly annoying character (when we first meet him, he is working as a cheap con artist and fake magician (under the title, “The White Mage”), whom Viktor Khorinyak portrays completely without charm or charisma. His chemistry with Mila Sivatskaya’s Vasilisa is completely non-existent, even though she is nearly as boring. By far, the most interesting character is Konstantin Lavronenko as the Richard O’Brien-looking Koschei. Ekaterina Vilkova (who some might have seen in Hipsters and PyraMMMid) also has some villainous presence and flair as Varvara. However, far too many characters a shticky stick figures.

This is one of two recent Russian films known internationally as “The Last Warrior.” The other, which screened at Fantasia as The Scythian is considerably grittier and better. There is just too much mugging and slapstick humor from Khorinyak/Naydenov. Still, Dyachenko crafts some spectacular fantasy imagery, especially during the third act. It is sort of interesting to see Russian myth and folklore mashed up into a greatest hits narrative package, but it is hardly essential. Lifechanger, Seder-Masochism, and Violence Voyager are all better films screening soon at Fantaspoa. Just sort of “eh,” The Last Warrior screens tomorrow (5/30), during Fantaspoa 2019 in Porto Alegre.

Russian Film Week ‘18: Sobibor

It was hard being a hero of the Soviet Motherland. Alexander Pechersky’s service during WWII was indeed truly heroic. The Jewish Red Army officer-conscript was instrumental leading the mass escape from the Sobibor concentration camp. In later years, Pechersky wanted to continue to fight against his National Socialist captors, but the Soviet Union denied him exit permission to testify against any accused war criminals, including the celebrated Eichmann trial. He was also dismissed from his position during the anti-Semitic “Rootless Cosmopolitan” campaign. It is worth keeping the frustrations of his later life in mind when viewers revisit the triumph of the uprising he sparked in Konstantin Khabenskiy’s Sobibor (trailer here), Russia’s official foreign language Oscar submission, which screens as part of Russian Film Week in New York.

As a Russian, Pechersky was considered suspect by the rest of the Jewish prisoners, especially when they learned of the disastrous revolt he led in Minsk. Nevertheless, he had the right combination of military experience and practical know-how to lead the camp’s resistance cell. The group had been working on various escape schemes, but Pechersky insisted on an everybody or nobody approach, based on the reprisals he witnessed in Minsk. Of course, the actually planning and execution was still confined to the core group.

Obviously, Khabensky’s Sobibor depicts the same historical events chronicled in the TV-movie Escape from Sobibor, starring Rutger Hauer and Alan Arkin, which was quire respectable, especially by the standards of its day. Frankly, Khabensky’s film is not as strong in terms of characterization, but it captures the horrors of the camp with far more visceral intensity. Especially disturbing is a night of SS revelry that might be one of the most nightmarishly surreal sequences ever recorded on film over the last several years.

However, the greatest surprise in this Sobibor is Highlander’s Christopher Lambert, who is nearly unrecognizable playing camp commandant Karl Frenzel. If anyone ever writes a book length survey of his career, this film will factor significantly within it. Instead of trying to outdo Ralph Fiennes ragingly demonic performance in Schindler’s List, Lambert takes it the other way. His Frenzel is emotionally detached and socially awkward, even with his own colleagues. There is also an aspect of self-loathing to his persona that manifests itself it truly horrific ways. It shows range we rarely get to see from the generally dependable genre star.

Khabensky himself (primarily known as a thesp in Wanted and the Night Watch franchise) is also witheringly intense as Pechersky. He definitely has the right hardened battle-veteran presence (much like Hauer). The entire ensemble is quite credible, but they most blend in, looking like they belong in the grim environment, whereas Khabensky and Hauer stand out.

It is a shame the film overlooks Pechersky’s difficulties during the Soviet years, but admittedly, Khabensky and the trio of screenwriters chose a logical ending point. In fact, one could argue it is one of the few Holocaust films that has a partially positive ending (but “happy” is still probably too strong a term). Respectfully recommended, Sobibor screens this Friday (12/14) as part of Russian Film Week in New York.

Russian Film Week ‘18: In the Hood

As the home of the USSR’s Pacific Fleet, Vladivostok was off-limits to foreigners during the Cold War. It looks like we weren’t missing much. The post-industrial Vladivostok is positioned as something like the Detroit of Russia in model-turned-thesp Olya Zueva’s feature directorial debut, In the Hood (trailer here), which screens as part of Russian Film Week in New York.

Vladimir (Vova) and Kisa are two knock-around meat-headed thugs, who have done pretty well by doing the dirty work of Shamir, an up-and-coming gangster. Initially, their latest assignment sounds like fun: shadowing Shamir’s hard-partying girlfriend as she hops from night spot to night spot. However, Vova draws a line in the sand when they are told to administer a beating in punishment for her unfaithfulness.

Vova wants to go straight, but the crooked system constantly pushes him back towards the thug life. Isn’t that always the way? Plus, the self-destructive Kisa is always going to be a destabilizing influence. Do you think Vova might agree to do him one last solid?

All the archetypes are here. There are two potential love interests: Sonya, a singer in the choral group led by Vova’s mother, who represents purity, and Lida, the nouveau riche scenester Vova meets during their shadow work, who stands for temptation. Plus, there is Kisa, Vova’s tragically flawed brother-from-another-mother and his own long-suffering mom.

Frankly, it is all a little too familiar, even though the crummy Vladivostok setting adds a new, cinematic wrinkle, with its abandoned Soviet-era industrial projects and the grand architecture of its ultra-modern, people-dwarfing bay bridges. Maybe it is a great place to live and rise a family, but Zueva certainly makes it look chilly and grim.

Maybe we have seen these elements before, but In the Hood feels like it is still rather gutsy depicting crime in the Russian underclass at a time when the state news agencies are trying to convince the citizenry they are living in a golden age. You also have to give Zueva credit for taking on the unsympathetic role of Lida, instead of the virtuous Sonya. (Presumably, Zueva is a draw in her own right, having appearing in the Hollywood movie Salt and a high-profile Russian sports film.)

Ilya Malanin and Danila Kozlovsky (a new addition to History Channel’s Vikings next year) are so convincing as the two strong-arm buddies, we can believe they were plucked straight out of skid row, instead of being cast because they are well known Russian actors. Zueva is also quite intriguing as Lida, but her subplot quickly falls by the wayside (which happens fairly frequently in ITH).

Frankly, In the Hood is not a bad film, but anyone who has seen a few Western urban dramas will always be several steps ahead of it. Mostly recommended for the cast’s Russian fans, In the Hood screens this Thursday (12/13), as part of Russian Film Week in New York.

Russian Film Week ‘18: Anna Karenina. Vronsky’s Story

Few literary characters are as universally despised as Count Vronsky in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Generally, he is pegged somewhere between a cad and a heel. Nevertheless, he deserves the chance to tell his side of the classic story, especially since he has an interested listener in Karen Shakhnazarov’s Anna Karenina. Vronsky’s Story (trailer here), which screens as part of Russian Film Week in New York.

There might be subtle differences in interpretation, but the events that happened in St. Petersburg are still quite faithful to Tolstoy’s novel. The wrap-around segments are based on the fictionalized but still very autobiographical writings of Vikenty Veresaev. Anna Karenina’s son Sergei takes Veresaev’s place as a doctor during the 1904 Russian-Japanese War. Clearly, the fighting in Manchuria has gone poorly for the Czar’s army, when even a staff officer like Col. Vronsky has been wounded. Of course, Vronsky and Karenin know exactly who they are. They also have unresolved feelings for Anna. As he recuperates, Vronsky explains the tragic events, most of which were kept secret from Karenin by his controlling father.

What happened was the story of Anna Karenina, which you really ought to be familiar with. It is rather fascinating how closely Shakhnazarov and co-screenwriter Yuriy Poteenko hew to the original Tolstoy, yet they still manage to recast Vronsky as an unexpectedly sympathetic character. On the other hand, the senior Karenin comes across like a bitter, moralizing misanthrope, while Karenina is portrayed as a problematically unstable and self-centered drama queen.

That is all quite an interesting take on Tolstoy, but the biggest surprise is the success of the Veresaev-inspired scenes in Manchuria, which are quite compelling. Max Matveev necessarily digs deeper as the older, more remorseful Vronsky. He also forges a rather poignant rapport with Sofia Sun’s Chunsheng, a Chinese orphan girl Vronsky takes under his wing.

The feature cut of Vronsky’s Story is culled from Shakhnazarov’s eight-part miniseries, but it really does not feel like it is missing anything. The way it marries together Tolstoy and Veresaev is really very clever, but Tass still manages to overstate matters. It erroneously claims Vronsky’s Story would be nominated for an Academy Award and Shakhnazarov, the Putin supporting director general of Mosfilm has already been nominated for Oscars three times before. The truth is Russia previously submitted three of his films in the foreign language category, but the Academy chose not to nominate them. This time around, Russia declined to submit Vronsky’s Story, in favor of Sobibor. Despite the disinformation disseminated on Shakhnazarov’s behalf, Anna Karenina. Vronsky’s Story is a classy and engaging film, definitely recommended when it screens Sunday (12/9), as part of this year’s Russian Film Week in New York.