During the Gorbachev years, Platon Makovski and his four buddies are university students who jump on the private capitalism movement. Fast-forward 20 years, Platon finds himself the richest...
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In 16th-century Russia in the grip of chaos, Ivan the Terrible strongly believes he is vested with a holy mission. Believing he can understand and interpret the signs, he sees the Last ... See full summary »
Ivan is old Russia: thick, dour, hard-working, often brutish; he misses Communism. He drives a taxi and one night meets Alexi, a new Russian, a musician, an alcoholic, irresponsible. Alexi ... See full summary »
Director:
Pavel Lungin
Stars:
Pyotr Mamonov,
Pyotr Zaychenko,
Vladimir Kashpur
Somewhere in Northern Russia in a small Russian Orthodox monastery lives an unusual man whose bizarre conduct confuses his fellow monks, while others who visit the island believe that the man has the power to heal, exorcise demons and foretell the future.
Director:
Pavel Lungin
Stars:
Pyotr Mamonov,
Viktor Sukhorukov,
Dmitriy Dyuzhev
Based on A. Galych's play "Matrosskaya Tishina", "Papa" tells a story of a Jewish father who dreamed of seeing his son perform on a stage in front of huge audiences, he dreamed of seeing ... See full summary »
Director:
Vladimir Mashkov
Stars:
Vladimir Mashkov,
Egor Beroev,
Andrei Rozendent
During the bloody war in Chechnya, a British couple and two Russian soldiers are taken hostage by Chechen rebels. Two of the hostages are then released to bring the money for the British woman who is forced to wait for the ransom.
Director:
Aleksey Balabanov
Stars:
Aleksey Chadov,
Ian Kelly,
Ingeborga Dapkunaite
This movie is about the stern gangster customs of one of the Russian provincial cities in the mid-90s . And you could expect either a stupid game of blind man's buffets or a truly bloody showdown with the stacks of "bluffers".
The film, set in the mid 1990s outside of St. Petersburg, tells the story of an ethnic Yakut, Major Skryabin, a shell-shocked veteran of the Afghan-Soviet War, who works as a stoker.
Director:
Aleksey Balabanov
Stars:
Mikhail Skryabin,
Yuriy Matveev,
Aleksandr Mosin
Two Russian soldiers, one battle-seasoned and the other barely into his boots and uniform, are taken prisoner by an anxious Islamic father from a remote village hoping to trade them for his captured son.
During the Gorbachev years, Platon Makovski and his four buddies are university students who jump on the private capitalism movement. Fast-forward 20 years, Platon finds himself the richest man in Russia, having sacrificed his friends to get to the top. But with this cynical rise, comes a brutal fall.Written by
Sujit R. Varma
Oligarkh, is an average movie about a group of friends taking advantage of the opportunities "new Russia" offered after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The movie has certain value in giving a rough sketch of how the vacuum left by the collapsed communist system was filled by various criminal elements. However, it fails to do that comprehensively, possibly because, as it targets the Russian audience, it assumes too much information. The transformation of the 'naive, jolly group of friends" into a vicious, ruthless, hierarchical criminal organization is not well demonstrated, phases of changes in characters' world views and emotions largely left to the imagination of the audience. Since the story is told going back and forth in time, some of the criticism can be overlooked, but one cannot help but notice some plot holes. Moreover, it ends in a quite cheesy way, reminding a cheap Hollywood B-movie, something I do not hope to see in a supposedly-sophisticated Russian movie.
The acting is generally good, but not outstanding. I thought supporting characters were more impressive than the hero, and I especially liked the commissar and his style. Direction is not bad, and actually it made me think that it was directed by a talented, but inexperienced director. It seems Lungin has a longer career than I expected.
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Oligarkh, is an average movie about a group of friends taking advantage of the opportunities "new Russia" offered after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The movie has certain value in giving a rough sketch of how the vacuum left by the collapsed communist system was filled by various criminal elements. However, it fails to do that comprehensively, possibly because, as it targets the Russian audience, it assumes too much information. The transformation of the 'naive, jolly group of friends" into a vicious, ruthless, hierarchical criminal organization is not well demonstrated, phases of changes in characters' world views and emotions largely left to the imagination of the audience. Since the story is told going back and forth in time, some of the criticism can be overlooked, but one cannot help but notice some plot holes. Moreover, it ends in a quite cheesy way, reminding a cheap Hollywood B-movie, something I do not hope to see in a supposedly-sophisticated Russian movie.
The acting is generally good, but not outstanding. I thought supporting characters were more impressive than the hero, and I especially liked the commissar and his style. Direction is not bad, and actually it made me think that it was directed by a talented, but inexperienced director. It seems Lungin has a longer career than I expected.