Assa

One can find many redeeming qualities inside this movie, I am sure. But to me it is a very peculiar film to be enjoyed.

My point is: certain things are destroying this movie. Here I mean unpleasant and filthy atmosphere. It creeps onto you gradually and makes viewing of the whole thing kind of repellent. Yes, it's got nice pieces of music (including the last song performed by a cult Soviet/Russian musician), it's got some inventive touches: weird vocabulary (too detailed though), a strange Bananan's "dream" sequence (too short and cheap); strange theatrical "freak-show" (too depressive and awkward to my taste), juxtaposition of different time periods in the history of our country (too dark and gloomy), and so on. It has wacky characters (schizophrenics, dwarfs, boozers, punks, maniacal killers, and Soviet squares) as well. But if the movie is aesthetically repellent, it gets into a ditch no matter how much potential it has. First time I saw it, it seemed fresh and innovative, but in the course of time it gets … plain (meaning "ugly") and sick, sorry.

By the way, in our country a gramophone record "Assa" was once released that contained all the songs from the movie (as I remember, "VVS, Voienno-Vozdushniye Sily" was our favourite at school).

Can give it 4 out of 10 only (the points are mostly for its freaking pieces of music compositions - alas, this movie is an example of "frustrated gifts", like "A Clockwork Orange"). Thank you for attention.