anelmamet Review of Brat 2

Brat 2 (2000)

How was the myth of 90s shown in the movie Brother-2

[10/10 · 12 February 2019]

The film Brother-2 was released in 2000 and its director is Alexei Balabanov. This film is a sequel to the movie Brother, but the story in the second film gets some interesting development. The movie Brother brought Balabanov a huge success, great income and many film critics enjoyed assessing it. However, the Brother-2 strengthened people's love for Danila Bagrov, which is very important for the movie's rating. The main hero Danila Bagrov is played by Sergey Bodrov and Viktor Sukhorukov played Danila's older brother Viktor Bagrov. Alexei Balabanov's works are very different: he filmed not only thrillers but also comedy and melodrama movies. People say that Balabanov had a good sense of 90s but his movies were overwhelmed with violence and gloom. Maybe this special sense of the era of 90s made Balabanov focus on filming thrillers, while films with optimistic scripts were rare in his repertoire. When analyzing Brother-2 it is necessary to keep in mind Balabanov's specialization and his experience in filming thrillers, as it makes his works credible from the perspective of accuracy of details. The movie Brother-2 is about a good man with strong principles - Danila Bagrov, whose morality is about helping good and powerless people, and discipline bad and mean ones. He goes to America with his brother to seek and punish a businessman, who took the money of his close friend's brother. Although Danila does not speak English and had no one to help him in America, he does a great job communicating with different American people: a truck driver Ben, television presenter Lisa, gangsters, businessmen, etc. We see that Danila's brother betrays him, as he does not really help Danila in finding the businessman, but has fun and enjoys his time in America. In the end, Danila completes his mission and goes back to Russia, while his brother is caught by US police officers. What comes to the technical side, I would say that the movie was filmed very professionally. There is a good choice of actors' clothing, props, music and even the smallest details are depicted accurately. For example, the way how Danila makes a gun from improvised means is so realistic because all the necessary details were considered. As this is a thriller, guns and bombs are important for making this atmosphere of dangerousness and viewers can surely say that these props were very realistic. Even though the movie had the smallest budget, the picture and sound quality are quite high. The viewer can notice that main character Danila's outfit does not change that much but it does not make a bad impression of the movie organization. On contrary, this fact shows that viewer should value Danila's personal traits, rather than his outfit. This movie accurately depicts the myth of 90s and viewers can see many different ideas that are appropriate for the myth about 90s. The first thing, which comes into people's mind when they hear about the 90s are the powerful people, who are able to commit crimes and stay innocent. This case is shown in businessman Belkin's actions, when his employee killed Danila's friend and Belkin tried to hide this fact in order to stay safe. In 1990s, people believed that powerful people had a lot of money and strong bodyguards that could help them hide all their bad actions and this was shown in the movie. We can see this when Belkin sends his bodyguards to find Danila and his partners, so that they would not harm Belkin or his partner from America. In addition, there is a myth that in 1990s there was a huge gap between poor and rich people, and it felt like there is no social class in-between these two layers. Rich people benefited from having many good acquaintances (svyazi), like Belkin and his American partner, as it helped them develop their business and get more money. While poor people were poor and could not really help themselves. People living in 1990s believed in this myth and Balabanov depicted it in the relations between different heroes: Belkin and Danila, Kostya's brother Mitya and Mennis. Also, there were many minor things that are connected to the myth of the 90s: leather jackets, which almost every bandit was wearing; making illegal documents, as Danila and his brother had; free access to weapons, as Danila and his friends did, etc. These were appropriate for the myth of 90s and Balabanov used them to show in his movie the situation in Russia in 1990s. Moreover, there is an important question this movie can answer - the question of the Russian idea. I might suppose that this idea was important for people in 1990s, as it was discussed in Pelevin's Generation P book too. The viewer of this movie might think that the difference between Danila and his brother Viktor is not that important, but I believe that this is exactly what shows the Russian idea. The thing is about Danila being honest, kind and he does not break his principles, while his brother Viktor may lie, act in his own interest and betray his sibling for the sake of his own safety and benefit. Therefore, I would say that in this movie, Viktor is the character, which shows the Russian idea of 90s: seeking to have more money, wants to live in the west and loves good luxury life. However, Danila is a character who is completely opposite of Viktor. Danila believes that money is not that important in our life and the truth is what really matters. Although Danila is more humane than other people, and could be called the hero of the new time, some people call him an anti-hero. This may happen because of Danila's willingness to help other, which makes him very different from common Russian man of those times. Such difference of Danila from other Russian men can be evidence from the actions and motive of those men: Russian men were mostly bandits, who were acting for the sake of their own benefit, while Danila did not need anything particular, except from helping his close friends and even not close ones too, just because they are his compatriots. To sum up, I would recommend everyone to watch this film, at least to be familiar with this special post-Soviet era in Russia. This time period is like a separate history, which should be interesting for each of us.