Demobbed (2000)
"DMB" (original title)

The student, Rifle, has managed to seduce his professor's wife, Bomber, an average working guy, has bought a factory and Bullet, the casino lover, is hiding from creditors. They all share a... See full summary »

Director:

Roman Kachanov

Writers:

Ivan Okhlobystin, Roman Kachanov

Stars:

Pyotr Korshunkov, Mikhail Petrovsky, Stanislav Duzhnikov

1 win.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Pyotr Korshunkov	...	Bullet
Mikhail Petrovsky	...	Bayonet
Stanislav Duzhnikov	...	Bomb
Viktor Pavlov	...	Daddy
Aleksandr Belyavskiy	...	Rear Admiral
Juozas Budraitis	...	Aviation General
Sergey Artsibashev	...	Praporshchik Kazakov
Vladimir Shainskiy	...	Veteran General
Ivan Okhlobystin	...	Counterintelligence Agent
Roman Kachanov	...	Liberman
Misak Gevorkyan	...	One of Aliev Brothers
Vladimir Maysuradze	...	One of Aliev Brothers
Mikhail Vladimirov	...	Staff Sergeant Lavrov
Sergey Gabrielyan	...	Private First Class Galagura
Aleksey Salpanov	...	Junior Sergeant Lavrov

Storyline

The student, Rifle, has managed to seduce his professor's wife, Bomber, an average working guy, has bought a factory and Bullet, the casino lover, is hiding from creditors. They all share a common path and conscription. In the army they teach you that everything must be smart and in order - cockades, straps and all, otherwise you're not fit to call yourself a person, you're a maggot. For a real man, there's no better place than the army.

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Plot Keywords:

army | discipline | uniform | russian soldier | acronym in title | 

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Genres:

Comedy

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Details

Country:

Russia

Language:

Russian

Release Date:

31 March 2000 (Russia)

Also Known As:

Demobbed

Company Credits

Production Co:

Kinokompaniya Carmen

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Color:

Color

User Reviews

Lost In Translation

One of the most effective military forces in human history was the Soviet Army 1943-45 . After being instrumental in the defeat of Nazism the Soviets moved hundreds of thousands of troops to its Eastern border with China and wiped out a Japanese force numbering a million men in the space of days . By the 1960s due to a manpower shortage the Soviets started conscripting those with criminal records in to the military . As the years passed standards got lower and Dedovshchina " The rule of the grandfathers " became part of the Soviet military culture . This in practice meant that a newly conscripted in the first 6 month phase of his military service was basically a slave to those who had done their initial six months . After that six months the recruit would still be a slave to those who had done twelve to eighteen months but those newly recruited soldiers conscripted in to the army now became that soldiers slaves

One of my all time favourite documentaries is a Russian one called SOLDAT that goes in to detail about Dedovshchina . It's a gut wrenching , shocking expose of what life was like in the post communist Russian army where this brutal hierarchy has got worse for a new generation of Russian conscript . There's also a very good by Arkady Babchenko called One Soldier's War where he goes in to detail about Dedovsschina and his experiences fighting again the Chechens . Again it's something that makes nice bed time reading but makes you thankful you weren't born a Russian

And it was for the reason of finding out what life must be like in the Russian army that I tracked down Roman Kachanov's film DEMOBBED hoping to find out something about modern day Russian culture . It's something of a bitter disappointment as a trio of young Russians find themselves in a series of episodic escapades most of which involve a character being drunk . There's no plot as such and by the second half of the film I found myself with little interest in what was happening on screen . I don't know if there's a cultural barrier but a series of absurdest blackly comical scenes left me none the wiser about contemporary Russian life in the military