Khrushchev-era bureaucrats do their worst in Russia's entry into this year's Oscar sweeps: Andrei Konchalovsky’s DEAR COMRADES!

Russian-born writer/director Andrei Konchalovsky (shown below) has had quite a genre-jumping career both in English-language films (Runaway Train, Duet for One, Tango & Cash) and in his own language (including 1979's Siberiade through 2016's Paradise) and now, at age 83 he is offering up his latest, a pitch-black satire/drama of Khrushchev-era Russia entitled DEAR COMRADES! The result is a movie that moves from initially rather funny (albeit in a very dark manner) to ugly and finally unexpectedly moving, given that our main character Lyuda -- an attractive middle-aged mother who is also a Stalin-worshiping apparatchik -- has proven such as irredeemable creep for most of the proceedings.

As portrayed by the excellent actress Julia Vysotskaya (shown below, right, and further below), who is often Konchalovsky's leading lady, Lyuda undergoes one of those "dark nights of the soul" that, in the hands of a lesser actress and filmmaker, might prove anything from merely condescending to outright schlocky. 

Ms Vysotskaya keeps her character so on-track, truthful, angry and increasingly anguished that she carries us along moment to moment without missing a beat, as she's dragged kicking and screaming to confront who she is and what she has done. 

The small-minded hypocrisy embedded in all of the apparatchiks we see in the movie, though first used for humor, satire and dark fun, pretty quickly becomes so nasty and self-serving that only, TrustMovies suspects, the very thick-skinned and nearly unfeeling among us will be able for long to continue viewing Dear Comrades! as black comedy. Or even as satire. It moves well beyond either. 

The plot involves workers at a large factory going on strike and then demonstrating against the state. Which is of course ludicrous, as Russian workers under the Communist regime were always, according to the state, incredibly happy with their place in the overall scheme of things. (Just as the majority of Russian citizens today, as per their glorious current leader, are supremely blessed and content with Russia's brand of Capitalism.) How both the local powers-that-be, as well as the higher-ups in Moscow, handle this protest situation could hardly be worse.

The generation gap is also present and accounted for via Lyuda's daughter, whose disappearance during the protest sparks the remaining action of the film. Under whatever label you want to use -- political, religious, cultural -- how the elite and entitled evade, as they always do, in every country, the rules and restrictions that impede the rest of us, is brought to pulsating life (and death) in Dear Comrades! 

One might accuse the filmmaker of sentimentality due to the ending of his film, which some audiences may interpret as a scene of hope but which just might be the darkest would-be joke in the entire movie. This is 1962, remember, and look what has happened in and to Russia since then. Hope may spring eternal. Unfortunately, so does despair.

Dear Comrade! is Russia's entry into this year's Best International Film "Oscar" race, but what its chances are, given our (one hopes) soon departing President's treasonous, term-long fellatio-flirtation with Vladimir Putin, this may not be the most popular of countries just now. Whatever happens, awards-wise, it's good to see Konchalovsky working so close to his optimal once again.

Distributed via Neon and running 121 minutes, the movie opens for an Oscar consideration week-long virtual run at New York City's Film Forum this Friday, December 25. Catch it now, or maybe later, when it reopens for a normal (what the hell does that mean, these days?) theatrical run.

Blu-ray/DVDebut for Ivan Tverdovskiy's strange/moving/funny Russian hit, ZOOLOGY

Featuring a dynamic, one-of-a-kind performance by an actress new to me -- Natalya Pavlenkova -- and a story that seems almost as fantastic as its story-telling style is documentary-like reality, ZOOLOGY should prove utter catnip for cinema buffs.

As written and directed by Ivan Tverdowskiy, the movie introduces us to a middle-aged woman who will almost immediately charm and delight us before eventually very nearly breaking our hearts.

Zoology works on a number of levels, but primarily, I believe, it's a look at the plight of the "outsider" in relationship to the society in which she lives -- in this case modern-day Russia. So, yes, as usual with Russian filmmakers, we're in the land of corruption, hypocrisy, and small-minded folk who use what power they have in ways that alternate between abuse and cowardice.

Yet here, the filmmaker (shown at right) does not hammer it all home with the force and repetition that we often see coming out of Russia.

Instead, he allows his heroine (Ms Pavlenkova, shown at right, above and below) and hero (Dmitriy Groshev, ar left, above and below) to charm us and each other into a world of their own making that, for a time, takes them out of the despair of daily life.

As usual with a good movie, the less you know about plot going in, the happier you'll be coming out, having experienced the surprises that the filmmaker hopes to bring you along with the fun and challenge of piecing the story together. The tale here has to do with an unusual addition to the usual human anatomy and what this does to and for our heroine, along with how it affects those around her.

One one level this is pure fantasy, yet it works rather deeply on other levels, too: psychological, social, sexual, emotional. And our two lead actors could hardly be better. Ms Pavlenkova is a revelation: sad, needy, charming, sexy, and yet almost always mysterious, while Mr. Groschev proves her match. Younger, yet clearly very attracted to this woman, the character has his own quirks and needs, yet does as much as he can to satisfy our leading lady's.

Along the way we get a good dose of the Russian workplace -- the city zoo (for her), the medical establishment for him -- and the scenes with the animals are as beautifully handled as those in the hospital/doctors' offices are sterile and unwelcoming. Religion, along with a self-help guru (below), get trashed along the way, as well.

In the end, we're left with our heroine, her plight and the direction she chooses to take -- which is, TrustMovies thinks, not at all the necessary or right one. And yet, you'll fully understand why she's choosing this, even if you wish it were otherwise. So much more could have been had by and for our twosome, if only they, particularly she, were able to stretch and embrace it.

But maybe this is also the point: Russia and its population -- along with those of so many other countries -- can not yet accept (nor even want) change or evolution. It's simply too scary, too different, too demanding. And so we do what we think we must. Sad.

From Arrow Films/Arrow Academy and running an exemplary 91 minutes, Zoology hit the street this past November 14 -- for purchase and, I hope, rental, on both Blu-ray and DVD. The Blu-ray also contains a  lovely and informative interview with actor Dmitriy Groschev that's very much worth viewing. The film's distributor in the USA is MVD Entertainment, and you can learn more information here. 

Andrei Konchalovsky's unusual view of the Holocaust, PARADISE, opens in theaters

On this past year's shortlist for Best Foreign Language Film, PARADISE, written and directed by noted Russian filmmaker Andrei Konchalovsky, would have seemed pretty much a sure thing for nomination. Except for one factor. While Holocaust-themed, as well as being one of the better of the many movies to tackle this subject over the past decade, the film has a decidedly religious bent. Not a specific religion, mind you, but a clear belief in the existence of god, nonetheless. This may have been enough to prevent its reaching that final nomination.

As good as it is -- and I do mean very good, in terms of movie-making -- for some people, particularly those who do not possess this religious bent, there will hang over Paradise a sense of fantasy that rather goes against the very idea of the reality of the Holocaust. It also makes the horror of it all -- which Mr. Konchalovsky (shown at left) brings home with remarkable specificity, originality and surprising strength and subtlety -- seem somehow acceptable, since, as a number of religions promise us, there will be that afterlife. Yet scene by scene, the movie is riveting and as it goes along, growing powerful enough -- the more we learn about its three main characters -- to make it finally memorable.

Those characters are a middle aged police officer/family man and Vichy collaborator, played by Philippe Duquesne, above, left; a young, blond, very handsome German nobleman, the near-perfect example of Hitler's "super-race" come to fruition (Christian Clauss, below), who, as an SS officer, is assigned to a concentration camp; and an attractive Russian "Countess-by-marriage" (Yuliya Vysotskaya, shown at center two photos below), whose connections to both men slowly come clear. 

As screenwriter, Konchalovsky alternates often intense and richly-handled narratives scenes with straight-up "interviews" with each of these three main characters. The narratives immediately engage us in their plot-enhancing manner, yet the interviews are equally striking, probing and very intelligently written.

We never see the person who is interviewing our three characters, nor do we hear his questions (we initially assume these interview must be taking place post-war, and we also assume it is a male doing the questioning). But the answers the characters give to the questions show us that each is taking the interview quite seriously, even if some of the answers are self-serving. The answers here are also often probing of the interviewee's inner self/motives.

Paradise is beautifully shot in rich black-and-white (by Aleksandr Simonov) with the aspect ratio an old-fashioned 1.37 : 1, which makes it appears that both the narrative scenes and the interviews (a scene of which is shown above) were shot at the same time in which the film takes place.

The horrors of the Holocaust (above and below) are re-created with surprisingly simplicity and force -- without the need for excessive violence. One scene of a guard simply kicking a prisoner stands-in amazingly well for so much we've already viewed of concentration-camp life, while another scene between our naive German officer and the camp commandant he has come to investigate regales us with horrific information handed out in quiet, staid manner than makes it all the more awful.

As the narrative scenes show our characters slowly unraveling, abetted by the interviews, the ironically titled Paradise builds to an awful and a moving conclusion, with children -- as below, and always the future of society -- figuring in a prominent way.

Overall, TrustMovies found the film a remarkable one and extremely well-done, even if, as a non-believer, he cannot countenance Mr. Konchalovsky's overall viewpoint -- which, it must be said, comes more from a Christian belief-in-an-afterlife standpoint, than from a Jewish one. Yet is the film in any way anti-Semitic? No. In fact, it is yet another fine, if flawed, addition to Holocaust cinema. It never questions the reality or importance of the Holocaust, even as it probes cultures, motives and deeds.

From Film Movement and running a long but never slow 132 minutes, Paradise, after playing various festival venues internationally and here in the U.S., opens theatrically tomorrow, Friday, October 6, in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema; on October 13 at the Cinema Arts Center in Huntington, NY; and on October 20 here in Boca Raton at the Living Room Theaters and in San Francisco at the 4-Star Theater. To view all other playdates for the film, past and present, simply click here and scroll down.

Religion rides again in Kirill Serebrennikov's Russian cautionary tale, THE STUDENT

But this time, praise whoever, it's Russian fundamentalist-style Christianity (rather than the Muslim religion) that's front and center, as a very hot-looking young student makes it clear to his peers, his teachers, the school administration and his mom how the world around them is going to hell in that proverbial handbasket. But if you are expecting something akin to the fine German film The Wave, in which crazy political ideas take the place of religious ones, stop right there.
This is all about one young man's perception of god and what that big guy really wants.

In THE STUDENT, the interesting and provocative new film from Russian screenwriter and director Kirill Serebrennikov, shown at right (which he adapted from the play by Marius von Mayenburg), the young and clearly all-too-impressionable high schooler named Venia (from Veniamin) has somehow got it in his head that the world he lives in is no damned good. From the outset the movie makes clear against what Venia -- played with remarkable reality and charisma by the young, sexy Pyotr Skvortsov (on poster, top. and bellow) -- is railing: the Russia pictured here looks like a teenage Sodom & Gomorrah, with beaucoup nudity, full-frontal male and female, and plenty of sex. Golly, what would Vladimir Putain -- oops, sorry: Putin -- whose picture we note on the wall of the school principal's office, have to say about all this?

The Church is certainly no help here. As Venia notes, the local priest has himself been thoroughly co-opted: His sage advice to Venia's weak-willed mom goes something like, "People who pray live longer. It's been proven!"

Venia's best friend, Grisha the cripple (Aleksandr Gorchilin, above) has the hots for our sloe-eyed, thick-lipped anti-hero, but since, according to Venia, god hates faggots, this relationship is not going to end well.

His peers makes fun of Venia, all except for Lidiya (Alekandra Revenko), who tries to seduce him, while the school principal, a relic of older times, seems almost willing to cave in to the kid's religious nonsense, suggesting, or maybe pleading, to his instructor, "Why can't you teach both theories -- evolution and religion?"

That instructor, very well acted by Viktoriya Isakova (above, right), is your textbook progressive: smart, forward-thinking and caring. But she's no match for a guy with god on his side.

How all this plays out is alternately shocking and ugly, obvious and unexpected. It asks the question, Just what constitutes fertile ground for the seed of religious fanaticism? Its answer is a populace that combines religious faith with fear and stupidity (This sounds something like Trump's America, no?), with the result, as one character in the film reminds us, leading to totalitarianism.

The Student, a hugely entertaining and hot little movie, does not end in any nice, neat, wrapped-and-ready bundle. Which is all the better. It is worth checking out, particularly if you want yet another incisive and scary look at the modern Russian state.

From Under the Milky Way, the movie opens tomorrow, Friday, April 21, in San Francisco at the Four Star Theater, and on April 28 in Chicago at Facets Cinematheque. A nationwide limited release will follow.

Alexander Sokurov's FRANCOFONIA explores culture & history, war & peace, art & museums

Alexander Sokurov surely is a versatile director. In this new century alone (he's been making movies for over 40 years), his work has spanned the groundbreaking "one-take" museum piece, Russian Ark, to the breathtakingly strange and beautiful Father and Son to The Sun (narratively documenting the abdication of the Japanese Emperor at the close of WWII) to the nearly unbearably moving Alexandra to his version of Faust and now, another "museum" movie that harks back to that Ark and yet is definitely its own thing: FRANCOFONIA.

Mr. Sokurov, pictured at left, often writes, as well as directs his films and he has done so here again. While his visual skills are as fine as ever, it's his memorable writing that turns Francofonia into the special thing that it is. He begins with what sound like phone conversations regarding the very film we're about to see, and then we get visuals of writers such as Chekhov and Tolstoi, then Skype-ing with a fellow named Dirk, during which we hear, "It's not human, dragging art across the ocean!" Only slowly does the content of the movie begin to take shape: art and culture, history and museums, war and peace -- and Sokurov's musings on all of these. And when I call them "musings," this is not to say that they aren't pretty delightful, thought-provoking,and oh, so beautifully spoken (if I am not mistaken, Sokurov does his own narration).

As usual with this man's movies, you'd best pay absolute attention to the visuals and the audio or miss something vital, as Sokurov combines archival footage with beautifully recreated film that looks quite "dated" (it even has that "tracking" strip that runs down the left hand side), making his modern stuff seem archival, too. This is quite nifty.

Rather than giving us a tour of the Louvre, as he did with the Hermitage Museum in Russian Ark, instead he zeros in on that period of the famous French museum during which the Nazis took over half of France, Paris and the museum itself. We get history recreated and narrated, with two fine actors portraying the Frenchman and the German who did the most to "save" the museum's artworks.

The ubiquitous Louis-Do de Lencquesaing (above) portrays Jacques Jaujard, the man in charge of the Louvre, while Benjamin Utzerath plays Franz Wolff-Metternich, the German officer charged with overseeing the art treasures the Nazis took ownership of as they conquered and occupied country after country.  The two men's story runs in and out and around Sokurov's musings in a way that brings us back again and again to the subjects at hand.

Also along for the ride (and the humor they bring) are little Napoleon Bonaparte (Vincent Nemeth, below, right) and Marianne, that symbol of French womanhood and liberty Johanna Korthals Altes, below, left). And while the filmmaker gets a lot of mileage out of Nappy, I wish he could have brought a little more thought and wit to his Marianne, who seems to exist mostly to flounce and gambol like one of those recent Terrence Malick heroines. This may have more to do with the usual filmmaker patriarchal entitlement to "stick with the guys" than anything else. But it does seem a missed opportunity.

Otherwise, Francofonia is a non-stop delight, offering up lovely visuals, even as it gives us non-stop ironies about art and culture, war and various kinds of peace/collaboration. The film would make a fine bookend to the popular French TV series, A French Village, about the country's occupation during WWII, At one point the narration mentions that the "same old slow-seller" has once again appeared on the market. "The product may be very expensive or be free. Yet the price of this product is always set by the buyer. What is it? Can you guess? Think it over...."

The movie rests on what Sokurov chooses to tell us, and how and when, and against which visuals he places all this. His choices could hardly be bettered, and his finale is as splendid as the rest of the film, as he gives his two main characters (and us) a look into their very interesting futures. The movie ends with a shot of two empty chairs, and then a blood-red screen which, in time, turns to a more peaceful blue. Quite fitting. And wonderful,

From Music Box Films, in Russian, French and German with English subtitles and running just 87 minutes, Francofonia opens this Friday, April 1, in New York City at Film Forum and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema, and then over the weeks and months to come, elsewhere across the country in some 30 cities. In the Los Angeles area, look for it to open on April 15 at Laemmle's Royal, Playhouse 7 and Town Center 5. Click here and then click on THEATERS (about one-third of the way down the screen) to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and venues. 

Down 'n dirty Russian miserablism in Yury Bykov's ironic tale of corruption, THE FOOL

Is there anyone worth salvaging out of all of modern-day Russia? You may not ask that question literally (you're certainly not as judgmental as I), but the idea is bound to cross your mind as you watch aghast and with increasing intensity as Yury Bykov's movie, THE FOOL (Durak), unfurls. Mother Russia and its venal and corrupt small-town politicians, factotums and civil servants, along with friends and family are all present here, and what a group they make!

Writer/director Bykov (at right), whose third full-length film this is (after Live! and The Major) is quite attuned to the ironies large and small of life under the new Vlad the Impaler. Here, nobody does their job so long as they can pocket a bribe, steal, lie or otherwise circumvent work. Anyone who tells the truth or behaves in a manner we would have long ago called "correct" is simply laughed off the stage, ignored completely, or -- as in the case of our hero and titular "fool," Dima (played by Artyom Bystrov, below) -- treated to an array of belittling that slowly grows to humongous, even life-threatening proportions. No one -- men, women, children, family, friends, co-workers -- can be expected to act like a civilized human being. The Social Contract? Broken, stomped upon and the burned into ashes -- just like the records concerning certain shoddy and illegal transactions that we see the town's council members lighting afire late in this riveting film.

How all this comes to be depends on a screenplay that moves ahead almost like a heist movie, except that what is being stolen, rather than any kind of booty (cash, jewels, stocks and bonds) is life itself, in the form of the occupants of a rotting tenement building (referred to here in the subtitles as a "dormitory") that has suddenly burst an architectural gut (a huge crack goes from ground to near the roof on both sides) rendering the place not just unstable but sure to collapse -- and soon.

Something must be done immediately, so Dima alerts the powers-that-be, all of whom happen to be partying in honor of one of their own at a local restaurant. How the group, which contains just about everyone involved in this sorry situations -- politicians, inspectors, builders, investors -- responds to the problem involves a manner you might call predictable-times-ten. In fact, had Bykov simply goosed things a bit further, he might have come up with a grand farce about greed.

As it is, the filmmaker's skills turn the tale into a kind of suspense thriller in which our hero must battle bad guys (and gals) that include just about everyone else in the movie. Set this nearly anywhere except today's Russia, and we might have a believability problem. Not here. And the way in which Bykov exposes each character's venality and hypocrisy not only provides juicy, ironic fun, but also allows us to see how corruption can so easily spread.

All the roles are played to excellent effect by a cast well chosen for both appearance and skill. Especially good are Nataliya Surkova (above, right), who plays the political Queen Bee, a woman who dearly wants to do the right thing, so long as she comes out OK, and Boris Nevzorov (below, left) as the most complex and closest-to-the-vest of the sinners on view.

Bykov leaves his saddest, most effective ironies for the finish, where family comes to the fore, and then those folk who live in the building that must be evacuated. This is ugly, hateful stuff, and again, were it taking place in a western country, we'd probably call it gross overkill. But Russia? Maybe not. The country's filmmakers know their homeland pretty well, I would guess. (Remember last year's corruption-special and Oscar nominee, Leviathan? That movie wore its symbolism a little heavily, and also lasted twenty minutes longer than this one.) The Fool's moral stance makes Mr. Bykov some kind of hero, I would say. And very probably, as perceived by much of the Russian populace, some kind of fool, as well.

The movie, released theatrically by Olive Films and running exactly two hours (in the screener I viewed), opens this Wednesday, September 16, in New York City at Film Forum., after which it will open in Santa Barbara (one day only!), Miami, Chicago and St. Louis -- with perhaps more bookings to be announced down the road.  To see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters shown, click here.