Movie reviews

SPUTNIK RUSSIAN FILM FESTIVAL

ТРЯПИЧНЫЙ СОЮЗ (rag union)

Watchable. Looks like it was meant to become "Trainspotting" for teenagers. Four fresh adults, totally immature and gone off the rails wreak havoc in a village. First I felt sorry for Vanya exploited by the thugs, then for the girl treated like an object. I liked one of the guys looking totally hot. Other than that the story is hardly involving. There's some merit to the movie showing social group psychology. But I'm concerned teens may see the hooligans as role models rather.

ОКТЯБРЬ (october: ten days that shook the world)

Watchable. The scarce commentary only informs who or where in a way assuming the viewer is familiar with the history of the October Revolution. But even being as ignorant as I am, you can become mesmerised with the pictures. Whether facial expressions and gestures or large-scale military operations, everything is edited to form a choreography.

ИСПЫТАНИЕ (test)


Recommended. A picture speaks a thousand words hence no word is spoken. A father, a daughter and her 2 suitors in the sunburnt plain of the Semipalatinsk region live a very simple, quiet life till nuclear testing starts. Both lyrical pictures, e.g. washed clothes in the wind - just unbelievable how something so mundane is made into an art form, and the semi-documentary nuclear tests strike with unspoken beauty.

After the movie I went to a Siwa performance: also part of Sputnik and also without words but full of fragrance. A perfect ending to the evening.


VELOCE COME IL VENTO (ITALIAN RACE)

Watchable. High octane fun with a feisty female as the main protagonist. Car racing intertwines with her family issues when she becomes responsible both for her younger brother and the older one who's independent but a drug-addict. All that is shown with truly Italian energy and vigour. Much better on the big screen than on a small one. Picturesque Matera looks lovely in the evening even at a race-speed. With no depth and predictable but dynamic. Funny ending.


3. WARSAW KOREAN FILM FESTIVAL

The two festivals: Russian and Korean ran concurrently this year.

해어화 (LOVE, LIES)

Watchable. A beautiful, if mawkish, story of love on the human level and of foreign rule on the state one. Set in the time of Japanese occupation of Korea, just like "밀정" ("The Age of Shadows") but completely different in the palette and storyline. Vivid colours dominate, brown hues are limited to the dark side of collaboration. The love and revenge plot is the central one. In the second part the historical part comes more to the fore. The moral is that a political situation changes and you have to pay for your misdeeds this way or another. Extremely well acted.